In this curated reflection, Urban Missiology features the work of Harvey Kwiyani, founder of Global Witness 101. His insights challenge the Church to confront its colonial past and reimagine mission as liberation rather than domination.

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By Harvey Kwiyani | October 23, 2025

Invitation to London Book Launch: 14 November 2025
We are finally having a book launch for Decolonising Mission in London. The event will be held at St Nicholas Church, Federal Rd, Perivale, Greenford, UB6 7AP starting at 6:30pm.

This gathering will bring together leaders from churches, mission agencies, and academic institutions to reflect on what decolonising mission means in their contexts. Together, we will explore how the gospel can be shared in Spirit-led, mutually enriching, and globally interconnected ways.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-decolonising-mission-tickets-1710364770069

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A Thought I Can’t Shake Off

We are coming to the end of Black History Month here in the UK. I have done a lot of thinking this month because, of course, I am hearing back from many people about Decolonising Mission. Listening around the UK mission world, I found little awareness of race or Black history — mission too often still happens in a “colour-blind” world, though it shouldn’t.

Many of us use these four weeks to remember stories often silenced: the endangered histories of Black people around the world — Africans in the motherland and millions in the Diaspora. But remembrance alone is not enough. This month must also be a time of truth-telling, reflection, and action.

Part of that truth is acknowledging how racism and Christian mission became intertwined through history. From the 15th century onward, as European empires expanded across Africa, the Americas, and Asia, they needed moral and theological justification for conquest. Papal decrees such as Dum Diversas (1452) and Inter Caetera (1493) gave rulers license to subjugate “heathen” peoples. The Christian faith was presented as civilising — but bound up with empire and racial hierarchy.

Racism was not an accident of history. It was baptised into Christian imagination. Theologies, liturgies, and mission practices forged in empire still shape the Church’s witness today. Western Christianity remains the unspoken standard, marginalising voices from the Global South.

Yet, history also tells of resistance. From African Independent Churches to Black Methodist movements, believers reclaimed the gospel as liberation. They showed that the Spirit speaks in African idioms and that the gospel belongs equally to all peoples. Mission became a tool of freedom rather than domination.

To be faithful today, the Church must confront this history honestly. That means listening to those once marginalised, recognising their contributions, and reimagining mission as solidarity, justice, and reconciliation. It means dismantling systems of exclusion, sharing leadership, and embodying a polycentric witness rooted in the gospel — not empire.

True discipleship requires more than critique; it calls for radical decolonisation. Our mission practices, language, and structures must reflect humility and equity. The Church cannot speak reconciliation without living it. To proclaim Christ faithfully is to build communities of mutuality and repentance — to become the reconciliation we preach.

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Read the original post on Global Witness 101.