Acceptable Guests: A Plea for an Empathetic Missiology

Abstract

In this paper, which is to a great deal inspired by the scholarship of Anthony J. Gittins and Peter C. Phan, I propose that the attitude of missionaries toward the host populations needs to be empathetic. Willing to rehabilitate the very word “empathy” in missiological vocabulary, my contribution aims to promote a generally empathetic culture by sophisticating the philosophical framework suggested by Schleiermacher, Buber, and Gadamer and by outlining some basic components of a new and gradually rising missionary spirituality which is more convenient to our globalizing world.