In a seminal essay written twenty-five years ago, the roman catholic theologian Karl Rahner elaborated a fundamental reinterpretation of the missionary movement in light of Vatican II and the changes taking place in world Christianity. The relationship of the church to the world outside Europe and north America in his view, was originally that of an export firm which exported a European religion as a commodity it did not want to change, and sent it all over the world with a civilization it considered superior.