Decolonizing Mission: Why We Need to Talk about Mission Without Empires

In this blogpost, Harvey Kwiyani ponders how we can (and must) de-couple spreading the good news from imperial, colonial legacies.

I have a book coming out in a few weeks, entitled Decolonizing Mission. In it, I discuss why I believe Christian mission ought to be disentangled from the legacies and logic of imperialism that have been central to the expansion of Christianity since the 1400s. While that may make historical sense, especially to those who have been on the receiving side of imperial violence, the deeper reason why I write on this theme is theological. I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ fundamentally subverts the very idea of empire. The good news is not imperial. It does not conquer. The mission of Jesus liberates. It does not colonize.

This conviction is rooted first in the Scriptures, especially in the ministry of Jesus as revealed in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus begins his public ministry with a bold proclamation in Luke 4:18–19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

This manifesto is not merely a spiritual vision. It is a direct challenge to the economic, political, and religious structures of its day - structures built on inequality, control, and domination. In first-century Judea, under the rule of the Roman Empire, Jesus’ announcement of good news to the poor was radical. It was dangerous. It was, in effect, a theological deconstruction of Rome’s imperial domination of his people and an invitation for people to embrace the spiritual kingdom of God with its implications on human life in the world. The ministry described in Luke 4 is deliberately anti-imperial in character. It invokes the Jubilee vision of Leviticus 25, a year of restoration in which land is returned, debts forgiven, and captives set free. This vision strikes at the core of imperial systems built on inequality, exploitation, and accumulation. By proclaiming 'the year of the Lord’s favour', Jesus is not spiritualizing poverty or captivity; he is announcing God’s intervention in history to inaugurate a new social order -one that disrupts systems of oppression and embodies the justice, mercy and freedom of God’s kingdom. This is why those who heard him in the synagogue were enraged. When Jesus made it clear that God’s liberating grace extended beyond Israel, even to Gentiles like the widow in Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:25–27), his listeners responded with violence. His message challenged their sense of religious and national entitlement. Their reaction reminds us that the gospel, when rightly understood, is deeply unsettling to the powerful. It always has been.

In the context of first-century Palestine, the social and political implications of Jesus’ messianic mission involved a non-violent subversion of Rome’s imperial logic through acts of healing, inclusion, prophetic critique, and the proclamation of God’s kingdom, which directly challenged the systems of power, privilege and oppression.

My conviction is also rooted in history. Throughout much of Christian history, mission has often been aligned with the very powers Jesus opposed. From Constantine’s embrace of Christianity in the fourth century to the colonial ventures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mission became entangled with empire. Instead of announcing freedom, it sometimes delivered subjugation. Instead of being good news to the poor, it became a mechanism for cultural erasure, economic exploitation, and political domination. Yet it is important to acknowledge that some missionaries resisted this entanglement. Figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas in the sixteenth century, and later mission societies and individuals, for example, Joseph Booth, challenged imperial abuses, advocated for indigenous dignity and sought to distinguish gospel proclamation from colonial interests.

Even so, the broader legacy of mission’s complicity with empire cannot be ignored and must be honestly confronted. We can no longer ignore this history. It demands honest reckoning, deep lament, and a courageous commitment to transcend it. This is why I write about mission without empires. Because Jesus never preached an imperial gospel. He announced a kingdom 'not of this world' (John 18:36). A kingdom where greatness is defined by servanthood (Luke 22:25–27), where enemies are loved (Luke 6:27), and where the poor inherit the kingdom (Luke 6:20). The Jesus of Luke’s Gospel - indeed, the Jesus of the whole New Testament - represents a sharp theological contrast to the imperial imagination.

Toward a Post-Imperial Mission

Through historical vignettes drawn from pivotal moments in Christian mission history, I demonstrate in Decolonizing Mission that the spread of the gospel has never required the conquest or domination of peoples. Jesus himself inaugurated this movement by commissioning the conquered and colonized—his fellow Galileans among them—to make disciples of all nations. From its very inception, this mission has depended not on military might or cultural supremacy, but on love and compassion, on embracing weakness and vulnerability, and above all, on the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

I envision a mission without empires—a global witness led by millions of Christ's followers from formerly colonised lands, proclaiming the good news in the same spirit as those first disciples. This is my deepest hope: that the whole church of God might carry the whole gospel of God to the whole world of God. Mission without empires means taking Luke 4 with radical seriousness. It means standing unwaveringly with the poor, the captives, blind people and the oppressed. It means challenging systems of injustice and resisting every temptation to baptize privilege. Most fundamentally, it means embodying the kingdom of God through ways that are non-coercive, non-imperial and radically rooted in divine love.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a tool for building or expanding empires- it is a prophetic summons to dismantle them. It proclaims that the love of God liberates, heals, and decolonizes. To be faithful to God’s call in the world today, mission itself must be decolonized. If this longing resonates with you, I invite you to read Decolonizing Mission and join me in reclaiming a gospel that is truly good news, not only for the soul, but for the world.

Harvey C. Kwiyani is the Director of the Centre for Global Witness and Human Migration (aka The ACTS 11 Project) at Church Mission Society, where he also leads postgraduate studies in African Christianity. His previous books include Multicultural Kingdom. 

He is the author of Decolonizing Mission, out this month, which is available to order here, with 20% off all orders before the end of August.