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1. Geography and Demographics Laos—in full, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic—is a landlocked nation in Southeast Asia dominated ¶ by jungles, with high mountains along its eastern border. Its longest borders are with Viet Nam to the east and Thailand to the west, with shorter borders also with China (north), Cambodia (south), and Myanmar (west). Ethnically, the largest groups in 2001 were the Lao Loum (or Valley Lao, 68 percent), Lao Theung (Hill Lao, 22 percent), and Lao Soung (Mountain Lao, which includes Hm…

1. General Situation The Union of Myanmar (known up till 1989 as Burma) is an Asian country between South and Southeast Asia on the Bay of Bengal. Britain subdued the country between 1824 and 1885 through three Anglo-Burmese wars (Colonialism). British rule was followed by Japanese control during World War II, and then independence in 1948. Free elections took place in 1960, and then not again until 1990, when the main opposition party won decisively. As of 2001, however, the ruling military junta has refused to hand over power. A key opposition lead…

1. International Background In 1960 the United Nations initiated a decade-long program of development, which, by means of a strategy of economic aid and with the help of such special agencies as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), was designed to abolish poverty. Disenchantment, however, soon set in. In 1969 the Pearson Report described the alarming results of the “trickle-down” process and showed the need for a second decade of development. Economic growth and wealth would …

1. General Cambodia, formerly known as the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, is located in Southeast Asia, on the Indochina Peninsula. Some 85 percent of its population are Theravada Buddhists. Ethnically, approximately 85 percent of the people are Khmer, 6–10 percent are Vietnamese, 3 percent Chinese, 2 percent Cham, plus much smaller percentages of several other groups. 2. Missionary History 2.1. The Roman Catholic mission was initiated from Malacca in 1555 by the Dominicans Gaspar da Cruz (d. 1570) and Sylvester Azevedo (d. 1576). Only in the 17th century, however, were m…

[English Version] Rural Mission, aus der Rural Agricultural Mission hervorgegangen, kam 1968 auf die Tagesordnung der ökumenischen Bewegung. Auf der vierten Vollversammlung des ÖRK in Uppsala wurde beschlossen, die Mitgliedskirchen in den sich rasant wandelnden ländlich geprägten Gesellschaften durch Kooperationsstrukturen und Bildungsprogramme zu unterstützen. »Rural« wurde verstanden nicht nur als ländlich, sondern auch als Peripherie, die von den städtischen Zentren polit. Machtausübung ausgesc…

[German Version] Rural Mission was an outgrowth of the Rural Agricultural Mission; it was on the agenda of the ecumenical movement in 1968, when the fourth assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Uppsala voted to support its member churches in rapidly changing rural societies through cooperative structures and educational programs. Rural was understood not just in an agrarian sense but also as marginalized, excluded from the urban centers of political power (Consultation of the Urban Industrial Mission Advisory Group of the WCC in Kyoto, 1970). In the years that followed, urb…

[German Version] (Aug 9, 1788, Malden, MA – Apr 12, 1850, at sea, Bay of Bengal) was an American missionary who, after his studies in Massachusetts and England, came to Serampore, Calcutta, in 1812 as the pastor of the Congregational Church (Congregational Christian Churches). Influenced by W. Carey he became a Baptist and went to Rangoon, Burma, for the American Baptist Missions Society (ABMS) in 1813. This date marks the official start to contemporary Christian mission in Buddhist Burma (Myanmar…

[German Version] I. General – II. Church I. General Development aid is known as such since c. 1960, the beginning of the so-called First Development Decade. After their independence, the former colonies received development aid, especially from former colonial powers (Colonialism/Neocolonialism). In the process, the self-interests of the donor countries became evident. Usually, …

[German Version] (Mar 10, 1915, Lintorf – Mar 26, 1999, Heidelberg), an internationally renowned missiologist, who gained his habilitation in 1950 in church history, a theologian with the Deutscher Evangelischer Missionsrat (DEMR) from 1948 to 1952, and assistant professor of church history and missions at Hamburg, was influenced by W. Freytag. From 1952 to 1957, he taught church history and the history of religions in Tranquebar and Madras, southern India. From 1957 to 1983, Gensichen was profess…

[German Version] The population of Cambodia is 12 million, with a growth rate of 2.5%. Theravada Buddhists (Hĩnayãna) comprise 90% of the population, Muslims2%, Christians 1.5%, adherents of Chinese popular religion and tribal religions 1.5% each, Caodaiists (Caodaism) and Bahā'i 1% each. Of the population, 90% are Khmer, 5% Vietnamese, 1% Chinese, and 2.5% Malay. Catholic missionary work began in 1555 with the arrival of the Dominicans Gaspar da Cruz (died 1570) and Sylvester Azevedo (died 1576) from Malacca (Melaka). Around 1770 P. Levasseu…

[German Version] I. Sociology, Social Ethics Irving Louis Horowitz attributes the origin of the term “Third World” to D.W. Frantz Fanon, who introduced it into the international debate in 1960 with his book Les damnés de la terre, after the concept had already been known in the French-speaking world ( tiers monde) – as a “third way” of non-alignment between Washington and Moscow (Worsley), later as a “third way between capitalism and socialism.” The attempt at non-alignment manifested itself at the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian states in 1955…

[German Version] A Southeast Asian state situated between Vietnam, China, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia, Laos has a population of approx. 5 million (growth rate: 2.6%), of which 58% are Hīnayāna Buddhists of the Theravāda school, 34% adherents of tribal religions (mostly among the mountain tribes), 2% Christians, and 1% Muslims; Confucianism and Taoism are also represented. The population is made up of a total of 70 ethnic groups and tribes; 55% of the inhabitants are Lao Loum (“Lowland Lao”), 27%…

[German Version] (autochthonous religions, India). Bangladesh covers an area of 143,998 km2 and has a population of 141 million, of which 98% are Bengali. Thus, Bangladesh is an ethnically, culturally, and religiously homogeneous country. 87% are Muslims (mostly Sunni); 12% Hindus; 0.6% Buddhists; 0.3% Christians, primarily members of lower Hindu casts and castless gro…

[German Version] The urban-industrial mission program arose in industrial cities and conurbations after World War II, initially in Europe and North America. It built on the work of the Protestant labor movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, involving itself in the tensions of the industrial world and the workplace in order to support dependent industrial workers in their fight for human dignity and a voice in management. The “view from below” opened a perspective that had previously been closed …

1. Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Problems 1.1. Term, Criteria, Groups 1.1.1. The African Caribbean (Martinique) doctor and freedom fighter Frantz Fanon (1961) is thought to have been the author of the term “Third World.” He based it on the Third Estate (i.e., the commoners) in the French Revolution and denoted by it the colonized and underdeveloped countries. I. L. Horowitz (1966) and then D. Nohlen and F. Nuscheler (1982) studied the significance of the term both practically and in terms of th…

[English Version] I. Praktisch-theologisch S. sind eine spezifisch prot. Form der Institutionalisierung diakonischen, sozialen, seelsorgerischen und missionarischen Handelns im meist großstädtischen Kontext. Ihre Gründung ist ein eur. Phänomen und eng mit den sozialen Folgen der Industrialisierung verbunden. Ihre Anfänge liegen in der »city-mission« in England und in der Erweckungsbewegung. Charakteristisch ist die Vielfalt ihrer Ausprägungen, je nach Herausforderungen, Gründerpersönlichkeiten, Trä…

[German Version] I. General – II. History of Christianity I. General With approximately 680,000 km2 of area Burma covers the most extensive territory of the South-East Asian mainland. Between the mountain ranges in the north and the south run the most important rivers of the country, most importantly the Irawadi (Ayeyarwadi) as the country's lifeline. In 1998 the population numbered …

[English Version] I. Historisch 1.  Zum Begriff Der Begriff Verein (V.) als Bez. für den formalen Zusammenschluß von Personen und Körperschaften hat sich seit dem 19.Jh. v.a. aufgrund der Verwendung im rechtlichen Bereich durchgesetzt. Daneben wurden und werden V. auch als Assoziation, Gesellschaft, Vereinigung, Sozietät, Korporation, Genossenschaft, Bund, Verband, Gruppe, Initiative, Bewegung u.a.m. bez. Der neuzeitliche V. wird als freiwilliger Zusammenschluß urspr. getrennter Kräfte zur Verwirklichung eines gemeinsamen Zwecks definiert. Durch d…

[German Version] I. History 1. Terminology. The use of the term “association” to denote the formal union of persons and bodies has been common since the 19th century, especially through its application in the legal area. Associations were and are also called societies, unions, corporations, cooperatives, federations, groups, initiatives, movements etc. Modern unions are defined as the voluntary union of originally separate forces to achieve a common aim. By their structural features of free choice and a common aim, they are essentially different…

[German Version] I. History of the Discipline – II. Methodology – III. Missiology and Other Disciplines – IV. Missiological Hermeneutics – V. Topics of Missiology – VI. Research and Study I. History of the Discipline From the outset, Christians have reflected on the practical and theological questions posed by the Christian mission, as illustrated, for example, by the Pauline Epistles, the book of Acts, and, c. 600, the well-known missionary instructions of Gregory the Great. At certain critical times in the history of Chri…