Book Review: A Mind for Missions by Paul Borthwick
This paper reviews Paul Borthwick's A Mind for Missions: Ten Ways to Build Your Worldview (Navpress, 1996), examining his ten-step framework for expanding the Christian worldview beyond local charity to a global mission perspective. The review explores Borthwick's central concept of "compassion fatigue" — the paralysis many American Christians experience when confronted with an overwhelming array of global needs — and traces his argument that authentic Christian faith requires an internationally minded charitable spirit. The reviewer engages critically with Borthwick's thesis and assesses its relevance to both individual spiritual development and broader cultural tendencies toward self-absorption.
- Overview of Borthwick's Approach: Introduction to Borthwick's ten-step framework and themes
- The Problem of Compassion Fatigue: Competing global needs overwhelm Christian charitable instincts
- The Pull Toward Local Charity: Local focus risks devolving into insularity and self-absorption
- Borthwick's Solution: Expanding the Worldview: Begin at home but stretch vision to international sphere
- Christianity as an International Faith: Central thesis: Christianity demands a global charitable mission
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What makes this paper effective
- The review opens with a wry, engaging observation about the ten-step structure, immediately establishing the reviewer's voice while grounding the reader in the book's format and purpose.
- The "starving child advertisement" scenario is used skillfully as a concrete, relatable illustration of Borthwick's abstract concept of compassion fatigue, making the argument accessible and vivid.
- The review maintains a consistent evaluative tone throughout, neither uncritically praising nor dismissing the book, and acknowledges the author's prescience regarding world events beyond the book's 1996 publication date.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This review demonstrates effective synthesis of a source text's central argument with critical commentary. Rather than summarizing chapter by chapter, the reviewer distills the book's thesis — Christianity as an internationally minded faith requiring more than local charity — and evaluates it through a coherent analytical lens, connecting Borthwick's ideas to broader cultural trends such as the American self-help movement.
Structure breakdown
The paper moves from an introductory characterization of the book's format and author, through a detailed illustration of the compassion fatigue problem, to an examination of how local charity can devolve into insularity, and finally to Borthwick's proposed solution and overarching thesis. Each paragraph builds logically on the last, culminating in a clear restatement of the book's central claim.
Overview of Borthwick's Approach
Most books attempting to help readers elevate their consciousness or improve the way they relate to loved ones involve twelve steps. Paul Borthwick is unusually concise — he provides only ten. But Borthwick is not simply brief; he is also Christian, charitable, and insightful in his worldview. He tackles an impressive array of problems, addressing not only the struggles of the individual Christian psyche but also those of an entire American culture suffering from what he calls compassion fatigue. In a society beset by so many disparate needs, what can a Christian do to address such an overwhelming array of problems? Where should one's energies be directed?
The Problem of Compassion Fatigue
The central problem Borthwick defines might be illustrated by the familiar "starving child" charity advertisement on television. A viewer sees an image of a hungry child starving in Africa and resolves to contribute to that child's education or to help end the famine in that region. Just as the viewer is ready to call in a credit card donation, another advertisement flashes across the screen — this time soliciting contributions to help hungry people in Latin America. Then, before one can blink, yet another advertisement appears, this one for impoverished children living in the viewer's own city.
The broadcast returns to the news, and the viewer is left wondering: what of the conflict-ridden Middle East, filled with anger toward the West over an unresolved mission to negotiate peace in that war-torn region? Although his book was published in 1996, Borthwick is particularly prescient in his analysis of this part of the world. The result of such an assault of images leaves the viewer asking: where, exactly, are the loyalty, energy, and funds of a Christian owed?
What should one do, balancing personal safety against the demands of compassion placed upon the hearts and lives of all Christians — followers of Christ, who urged his disciples to cast away worldly possessions and follow him? Alas, the solution many Christians resort to, when confronted with such overwhelming demands, is not to take up the cross but to shrug their shoulders in anger and grief, and at best to focus on the charitable requirements closest to home. They turn their attention to the local bake sale for the parish rather than the absence of clean water in a distant African village.
Works Cited
Borthwick, Paul. A Mind for Missions: Ten Ways to Build Your Worldview. Navpress, 1996.
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