English Teaching As Christian Mission: An Applied Theology

Rating:
Summary: Worth Buying, Reading and Keeping
Review: As a bivocational missionary/English teacher in Brazil, I was anxious to read this book after first hearing about it. The area of Christian English teaching is in serious need of good theory and writing, and this book is an excellent first step in the right direction.

Mr. Snow writes for a broad audience, seeking to identify with liberals, moderates and evangelicals within the pale of Christendom. On this score he does a magnificent job of presenting encouragement and useful ideas to drive along Christian mission within the context of English teaching.

One area in which I would have to disagree would be his insistence that teaching English to the poor in a given nation should not include any type of encouragement to move overseas in pursuit of a better life. He argues that this defeats the purpose of teaching English to help improve a developing nation (though later he admits that this may not always be the case). This may well be true in many nations. However, in Brazil I have found that most Brazilians living overseas send money back to their families. They help build businesses and put fellow family members through school. Often, these Brazilians living overseas return to Brazil with savings to invest in opening their own businesses. Their English skills are also frequently so polished after time in North America or Great Britain that doors are opened for them to become English teachers as well. All this contributes to the development of a nation.

The final chapter of the book deals with building bridges with national churches. Certainly, this chapter is more interesting to liberals and moderates than to evangelicals. Though I considered it an interesting read, I have serious difficulty accepting that all that is called "Christianity" is authentic.

All in all, this is a great book, well worth the price and one that hopefully will be followed by others by different authors in this exciting field of missions.

Rating:
Summary: Recent decades have seen...
Review: Recent decades have seen an ever-increasing number of Western Christians going abroad as English teachers. Many of these teachers are going to countries that are not very receptive to other forms of Westermn Christian mission. Some Western Christians view English teaching primarily as a means to gain access to "closed" countries for the purpose of evangelistic outreach. Others see it mainly as a form of social service. Donald B. Snow's well-thought out details of how to bear witness, engage in ministry, serve the poor, contribute to peace, and build bridges of understanding between churches clearly show the special role in Christian mission that Christian English teachers can have.