On missional leadership: A critical engagement with Nelus Niemandt

Abstract

In my engagement with Nelus Niemandt, I will primarily focus on his most recent and major book Missional Leadership in which he seeks to develop an appropriate leadership model for missional churches. The core of his academically influential viewpoint on missiological leadership within the South African context will be briefly shared at first, followed by a discussion of only one specific aspect of his model for missiological leadership, namely the contours of the anthropological model that he works with or implicitly presumes with regard to theological reflection. Given the insights from contemporary philosophy of science and theology-science discourses, I will focus on and highlight the unavoidable danger of the total isolation of his theological reflection on missional leadership. Furthermore, it makes critical and meaningful dialogue with non-theological sciences impossible through the immunisation of theological reflection. And with regard to anthropology, one specific anthropological evolutionary implication (affectivity) will be presented lastly in a brief discussion of embodied personhood, coupled with the most important features that are already enriching and broadening in Nelus’ viewpoint on missiological leadership.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article represents a critical engagement with the proposed model for missional leadership in the field of missiology from contemporary discourses on evolutionary epistemology (philosophy of science), science-theology on human distinctiveness and embodied personhood as well as from systematic theology.