Scherer, James A. (b. 1926) – Lutheran Missionary, Missiologist, and Ecumenist
James A. Scherer grew up in Fort Wayne, IN, among confessional Missouri Synod Lutherans and attended parochial school. He studied history and language at Yale University,
where he was also involved in the Student Christian Movement and the Student Volunteer Movement. Upon graduation, Scherer was invited by Kenneth Scott Latourette to serve as a Yale English teacher at the Yali Middle School in Chianga, Shunanan, China (1946-1949). While he was there, he married Frances E. (Schlosser) Scherer in 1948. Frances was the daughter of George D. and Mary O. Schlosser, Free Methodist missionaries in China. Frances was a missionary in her own right who served as a nurse, teacher, and author. They had two children, James D. and Susan.
The couple returned to the United States after the Chinese Communist victory in 1949. James studied theology at Union Theological Seminary and the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. While in New York, Scherer completed his fieldwork at the Interracial Fellowship of Greater New York, a ministry of the Harlem Church of the Master. He then accepted a call from the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church to serve as an ordained evangelistic missionary in Japan from 1952 to 1956.
The Scherers returned to the United States in 1957 for James to lead the Lutheran School of Missions (Maywood, IL), a training institute for long-term missionary appointees. While leading the school, he completed a ThD at Union Theological Seminary under R. Pierce Beaver and J.C. Hoekendijk. His dissertation focused on the history of Lutheran missions, Lutheran distinctives in mission, and theological and historical impediments that made Lutherans relative latecomers to Modern missions. His findings were published in Mission and Unity in Lutheranism (1968).
It was also during this time that Scherer published his most well-known work, Missionary Go Home! (1964). Though provocatively titled, this book did not call for an end to the sending of Western missionaries. Rather, it sought to reimagine the role of the missionary in contexts where Christianity was already established. Scherer called for missions to be de-institutionalized and for clericalism to be reined in. He proposed that professional missionaries outside of their home countries serve at the pleasure and direction of local church bodies. He also suggested that Christians working in secular roles abroad could be also trained as missionaries.
In 1968, the Lutheran School of Missions closed, and Scherer was appointed Professor of World Christianity at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, IL where he taught until his retirement in 1992. In addition to his academic commitments to contextualization, ecumenism, and combating imperialism in missions, Scherer advocated for missions to have a more prominent place in the curricula of mainline seminaries. His scholarly work contributed significantly to the development of missiology as an academic discipline.
Scherer’s academic service reflected these commitments. Scherer was an active member of the Association of Professors of Mission and the International Association of Mission Studies. He became a charter member of the American Society of Missiology (ASM) when it was formed in 1972. The society was established at a time when missions were in crisis as both church and society questioned the legitimacy of the endeavor in the face of collapsing Western colonial rule. The ASM sought to address the crisis by bringing together voices from ecumenical (mainline) Protestant, evangelical, and Roman Catholic contexts to forge perspectives on mission praxis that were responsive to post-colonial critiques. The society also worked to advance the scholarly legitimacy of missiology by way of journal and book publications and an annual conference. Scherer’s role in these efforts was significant; he served on the editorial team for the society’s journal Missiology: An International Review for six years and as chief editor of the society’s publication series with Orbis Books for twelve years.
While serving in these substantial roles, Scherer continued to advance his scholarship in mission theory and practice. One of his more unique contributions was the 1974 publication, Global Living Here and Now. Picking up on some of the themes he introduced in Missionary Go Home!, Scherer proposed perspectives and practices by which Christians could contribute to the spread of the gospel worldwide without leaving home. Everything from international church partnerships to individual consumer choices were presented as opportunities to embody a global Christian orientation. The publisher, Friendship Press, provided a companion study-action manual for the book in to aid congregations wishing to deepen their practices as global Christians.
Scherer was a leading figure in developing Lutheran missiology in the second half of the Twentieth Century. In addition to Mission and Unity in Lutheranism (discussed above), Scherer translated and edited a series of essays by the Seventeenth Century German Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz in 1969. While making large portions of Welz’s essays available in English for the first time, Scherer also advocated, in the introduction to the volume, for more recognition of Welz’s contributions to Lutheran mission thinking and, more broadly, to pietism and protestant mission theory. Scherer argued that, although his insistence that the church be a missionary one was rejected by the Lutheran orthodoxy of his lifetime, Welz’s writings presented important links between Lutheran theology and Seventeenth Century Roman Catholic missionary zeal, as well as the mystical spiritualism that was influential at that time. In Scherer’s estimation, Welz’s work would gain momentum alongside the writings of Jacob Spener to influence the rise of German Lutheran pietism in the decades that followed.
Scherer also treated Lutheran mission contributions in 1982 with a substantial volume commissioned by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) that provided a detailed description of Lutheran mission history, theory, and practice along with recommendations for new directions in global mission for the LWF and its member churches. Some of his findings from this study were included in his noteworthy work, Gospel, Church, and Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mission Theology (1987). This book brought Scherer’s own Lutheran theological tradition into dialogue with other mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Roman Catholic perspectives on mission. The work provided a concise snapshot of mission thinking in the United States of the mid-1980s. In the publication, Scherer clearly articulated a theme that is consistent throughout his writing: that, while Christian missions must be in dialogue with the world and with other Christians, the role of the missionary is always about obedience to the will of God and witnessing to Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Gospel, Church, and Kingdom, which was written for mission theorists, practitioners, and administrators, represented a pivotal moment in the history of mission theory that brought together evangelical urgency with timely calls to social responsibility and liberation.
Dr. Scherer remained active in research into his retirement, writing articles and participating in conferences. With Stephen B. Bevans he co-edited New Directions in Mission and Evangelization (1992-1999), an important three volume series that captured then-contemporary perspectives on missiology from both ecclesial and academic settings. This substantial undertaking gathered leading voices from around the world and across ecclesial traditions, reiterating James Scherer’s decades-long commitment to ecumenical dialogue as a means of discerning Christian unity in the work of mission.
By Britta Meiers Carlson
Selected Bibliography of Books by James Scherer
Scherer, James A. Theology and Missionary Obedience. Maywood, Illinois: Lutheran School of Theology, 1963.
_____________. Missionary Go Home! A Reappraisal of the Christian World Mission. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964.
_____________. Mission and Unity in Lutheranism: A Study in Confession and Ecumenicity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.
_____________. trans. and ed. Justinian Weltz: Essays by an Early Prophet of Mission. By Justinian Welz. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969.
_____________. Global Living Here and Now. New York: Friendship Press, 1974.
_____________. Pluralism and Universalism as a Resource and/or Problem for Contemporary Lutheran Theology. New York: Division of Theological Studies, Lutheran Council in the USA, 1975.
_____________. Western Christianity and the People’s Republic of China: Exploring New Possibilities: Chicago, Illinois, May 4-5, 1979. Chicago, IL: Chicago Cluster of Theological Schools and other sponsoring bodies, 1979.
_____________. Gospel, Church, and Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mission Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1987.
_____________. That the Gospel May Be Sincerely Preached Throughout the World: A Lutheran Perspective on Mission and Evangelism in the 20th Century. LWF Report 11/12. Stuttgart: Published on behalf of the Lutheran World Federation by Kreuz Verlag Erich Breitsohl GmbH and Co., 1982.
Scherer, James A. and Stephen B. Bevans, eds. New Directions in Mission and Evangelization 1: Basic Statements 1974-1991. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992.
_____________________________________. New Directions in Mission and Evangelization 2: Theological Foundations. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
_____________________________________. New Directions in Mission and Evangelization 3: Faith and Culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.
Sources on James Scherer’s Life and Context
Jensen, Trevor. “Frances E. Scherer: 1912-2008.” Chicago Tribune, December 4, 2008. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-12-04-0812030642-story.html
Nemer, Larry. “A Tribute to Dr. James A. Scherer on the Occasion of Receiving the American Society of Missiology’s Lifetime Achievement Award, June 16, 2012,” Missiology: An International Review 40, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 110-112.
Robert, Dana. “Forty Years of the American Society of Missiology: Retrospect and Prospect.”
Missiology: An International Review 42, no. 1 (2013): 6-25.
Scherer, James A. “My Pilgrimage in Mission.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 20, no. 2 (April 1, 1996): 71-76.
Turnage, Mac N. and Anne Shaw Turnage. Study-Action Manual on Global Consciousness. New York: Friendship Press, 1974.