Picking this volume up from the pile of books I have brought away for the summer, a family member asks me: ‘Is there anything left to be said on the history of Christian missions?’ Not having an easy answer available, I get away with a cautious: ‘Let me read the book first, and I will tell you.’

Robert Gallagher and Edward Smither edit the proceedings of a conference that brought together scholars not only from the US, but also from Australia, Brazil and Britain. Its aim is to discuss the theology and practice of mission in the thinking of most sixteenth-century Christian denominations, from Catholics to Anabaptists. The geographical span is, in principle, vast, from China to South America, albeit much of the attention is given to the ‘Indies over here’, and to what the authors call the ‘re-Christianisation’ of post-Reformation Europe. Despite the book's broad ambition, constant attention is given to the consideration of ‘home mission’ by sixteenth-century mainstream Reformers: an indication, in some respect, of the clear missional agenda of the contributors, most of whom teach and research in Evangelical theological colleges.

Whilst the title of the book refers both to the theology and the practice of mission, many of the chapters deal with the written works of the major protagonists of the sixteenth-century religious struggles, from Calvin (who is rehabilitated as a ‘missional thinker’ by Ray Van Neste) to Bartolomé de las Casas, whose advocacy for indigenous people is surprisingly presented as an historiographical novelty by Allen Yeh. It is unclear whether deliberate or inadvertent, but the book tends to become quite introductory, especially in its Catholic section – almost to fulfil the need to explain to a potential Protestant audience what the Spiritual exercises were, to give but one example. This is an historical theology book for the believer, who might look to the sixteenth century for insights into today's Christianity. This is contemporary missiology that reads as history, not the other way around – it is enough to look at the unusual interpretation of Calvin given by Karin Spiecker Stetina, employing as a running commentary none other than John Stott (p. 117). In some respects, the interesting point of the book it is what lies behind it: a desire among current US Evangelicalism to broaden its denominational boundaries. The aim is to convert, and the ability to incorporate a most variegated gallery of saints, from St Ignatius to Thomas Müntzer, indicates that there is a space for potentially everyone. Indeed, John Wesley himself had been fascinated by the Jesuit missionary enterprise: we could almost trace a continuity from Wesley to this book, and its need to learn what successful missionaries did, regardless of whether they were Moravians or sponsored by Propaganda Fide. Alas, there is little ‘practice’ in this book, with only very moderate attention to what happened on the ground, very little care for the contradictions, conflicts and transformations that missions brought to the world, and from the world back to the Western Church. There is too little history, too little politics, too little life here – and I say this whilst believing that understanding what the Reformers actually said still does matter. But there is a loud ‘all aboard’ underpinning this volume, with the purpose almost to hire as many hands as possible in the missionary boat. In this respect, the book traces a continuity between late medieval piety and Reformation thought. One is left wondering what the differences were among all these protagonists, which were the historical turning points, which were the reasons for their clashing. And here lie the two biggest shortfalls of the volume: firstly, forgetting that much of early modern mission was intra-Christian, Catholic versus Protestant, and even Protestant versus other Protestant. Without looking at the breaking up of Christendom in the sixteenth century as a laboratory of polemic and religious conflict, we struggle to see what kind of Christianity those reformers tried to export abroad. Secondly, the book treats Catholics and Protestants in separate silos, as individual medallions concerning missionary thinkers and contexts: there is little comparative endeavour, little contrasting among such variety of characters.

So, how to respond to my mother's curious question? Is there much new to say about early modern missions? I am quite sure there is. I am also sure of the fact that the main achievement of this book is to tell us of how Evangelical postdenominationalism, in its missionary effort, has now enrolled the totality of the Christian past.