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Romero-Medina, Book Review  105 

Book Review 

 

Eight Million Exiles: Missional Action Research and the 

Crisis of Forced Migration 
 

By Christopher M. Hays 
 

Reviewed by Amanda Romero-Medina 

 
 

  
 

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2024. $24.99. 

 

Christopher Hays’ Eight Million Exiles is a book 

about the construction of a new missional methodology 

called missional action research (MAR), undertaken 

under the auspices of the Biblical Seminary of 

Colombia (FUSBC) and its “Faith and Displacement” 

project that ran from 2014-2022.  This project, and the 

MAR methodology that underpinned it, was geared to 

equip and encourage local Protestant churches to 

respond to the needs of the more than eight million 

internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia in 

overcoming poverty, discrimination, deep trauma, and 

lack of assistance caused by the longstanding armed 

conflicts in that country. These IDPs were people from 

rural-urban communities with different ecclesial 

affiliations, geographies, and ethnicities (Indigenous 

peoples, Afro-Colombian and Mestizo persons).  

Deeply rooted in the combination of the tenets of 

participatory action research (PAR) and integral 

mission/missiology (IM), elaborated by Colombian 

sociologist Fals Borda and Ecuadorian theologian René 

Padilla respectively, this MAR approach was the 

product of an interdisciplinary effort between 

theologians and social scientists.  Six interdisciplinary 

research teams focused on topics of economics, 

sociology, psychology, pedagogy, public sector 

interaction, and missiology “in order to give attention to 

the multidimensional nature of internally displaced 

person (IDP) suffering” (46).  They promptly 

embarked on planning for the six phases of the MAR 

“cycle:” initial research, construction of an ecclesial-

based intervention, execution of the intervention, 

impact analysis, revision of the diagnosis or 

intervention, and re-implementation.   

The initial research phase of the project was 

launched in 2016 in six “pilot” IDP communities that 

were diverse in terms of geography (urban, semi-urban, 

and rural), ethnicity (Mestizo, Afro-Colombian, and 

Indigenous), and presence of ministries from different 

denominations.  True to the tenets of participatory 

action research, two “co-researchers” from each of the 

communities were brought on board (both of whom 

ended up being crucial to the success of the project as a 

whole), and representatives of the six teams carried out 

their research in the IDP communities through 

interviews, focus groups, and Bible studies, making sure 

that a psychologist was always present in order to 

provide emotional care if trauma should manifest itself, 

whether among the IDPs or the researchers themselves.  

Interviews and surveys were also conducted with 

leaders of congregations ministering to IDPs, 

professional persons within those congregations, 

experienced teachers of IDPs, leaders of adult 

discipleship programs in the local churches, and 

Christian businesspeople and entrepreneurs.  

Based on the results of this research, the Faith and 

Displacement project decided to “create an educational 
intervention to mobilize the human capital of local 
churches, along with that of the IDPs themselves, for 
the purpose of fostering holistic IDP flourishing within 

the scope of the integral mission of the church” (121, 

italics in the original).   This three-step “intervention” 

consisted of convincing local pastors of the call to work 

with IDPs using the skills of the professionals in their 

congregations, mobilizing those Christian professionals, 

and using them to build the capacities of IDPs through 

curricula they would facilitate.  Each team designed its 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  
 

Romero-Medina, Book Review  106 

own curricula based on their topic, guided by six 

principles geared towards ensuring that the curricula 

were contextualized to the situation of the IDPs 

themselves and that there was full integration of social 

sciences and theology into each of them.  A total of 19 

curricula were created, all of which are available in 

Spanish at https://www.feydesplazamiento.org/.  

Finally, an impact evaluation was carried out after the 

implementation of the intervention, yielding feedback 

and insights that were incorporated into a significant 

revision of the curricula and the scaling up of the project 

to nine geographic hubs based on a more formalized 

“diplomado” course. 

This book provides an honest assessment of the 

successes and weaknesses of the project.  A key aspect 

of the success was the wise steps and impact evaluation 

designed in the project, starting with an initial 

assessment to identify the main problems and factors 

involved in the IDP situation that included field work 

and extensive bibliographical research.  A second 

crucial feature was that the project invited theologians, 

like the author, and other researchers from regions 

outside of Latin America to join those who were local.  

These allowed the project to succeed in putting together 

dialogues between IDPs, social scientists, and 

theologians from a variety of perspectives in such a way 

that not only was their combined input transformative, 

but they themselves learned from IDP testimonies, 

including new understanding and insights into the 

Scriptures as detailed in the book.  At the same time, 

there were challenges that had to be overcome. One 

such challenge occurred when the creative didactic 

materials and instructions to use them ran into 

difficulties, because the authors had not considered that 

the participants in the project were not used to reading 

and following instructions.   

Nevertheless, the Faith and Displacement project 

exceeded expectations, enabling local churches to 

become involved in outreach to IDPs and helping the 

latter in a number of ways, including starting new 

microbusinesses and receiving psychosocial support, 

such as counselling for victims of sexual abuse and 

disenfranchisement.  These successes were enhanced 

in the scaling up of the project and the revision of the 

educational materials based on the impact evaluation 

that highlighted the “cyclical” interactions happening in 

the uncertain nature of social life and the alternatives 

the project enabled.  This reminds us that every 

assessment requires contextual analysis of contingent 

facts, especially in a conflictive country like Colombia, 

where new expressions of armed actors pose serious 

risks to important sectors of the population living in 

poverty both in cities and in rural areas. 

In addition to the methodological insights and 

examples this book provides, it also addresses a 

number of other issues relevant to evangelical relief, 

development, and advocacy in general and Latin 

America in particular.   The first has to do with how to 

integrate social-science-led research into a seminary 

context that was focused on the training of pastors and 

was cautious not to stray from that mission. The book 

details the struggles as the project sought to give 

attention to a humanitarian crisis affecting IDPs based 

on the integration of academic research and a faith-

based approach.  The second issue involves how 

Colombian Protestants rely primarily on the Bible for 

their theological integration, whereas Catholics include 

insights from church doctrine that is more systematic in 

its analytical approach.  The Protestant approach, 

rooted in the integral missiology of the Latin American 

Theological Fraternity (FTL), helped build common 

ground based on the local theologians’ experience and 

methodology that emphasized “The role of the Bible in 

doing theology; the social realities in Latin American 

contexts, and lay participation in the work of the 

church” (42, italics in the original).  Project materials 

were thus connected “always to Scriptural texts” (43) 

rather than to systematic theological categories. 

Third, the book acknowledges the key role played 

as an interlocutor to integral missiology by Latin 

America’s Liberation Theology movement, which 

reconciles spiritual and material needs.  As explained, 

Protestant Latin American theologian René Padilla 

developed his understanding of integral mission (or 

missiology) parallel to the Catholic Ecclesial-based 

Communities in this region. His affirmation that 

“[a]ttention to justice and development needed to be 

central components of Christian mission” (41) is the 

idea that inspires the text by giving moving examples of 

the commitment of pastors, social scientists, and co-

researchers who were members of Colombian 

Evangelical congregations. The book thus underlines 

how “humble service and solidarity with the poor” (43) 

are key values of integral missiology as its guiding 

theological framework. 

There are two main critiques I make of the book.  

First, one weakness of the MAR approach has to do 

with its use of the term “intervention” for one of its 

phases. Although Hays criticizes “extractive” research, 

the label "intervention” has been questioned in Latin 

America for its meaning of someone going to a 

community and imposing certain views. The “politically 

correct” term adopted in this region to describe 

engagement has been “interaction,” because it reflects 

the horizontal, democratic, and respectful exchange 

between the people in local communities and the 

researchers. 

Second, the book misses important references to 

the history of massive slaughter and forced 

dispossession of lands that increased the number of 

people living in the countryside and founding slums in 

Colombian cities, both of which spawned liberal and 

https://www.feydesplazamiento.org/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 6(2), Winter 2025  
 

Romero-Medina, Book Review  107 

communist guerrillas in the middle of the 20th century.  

By not including a description of the root causes of this 

conflict, the book presents the guerrillas as the single, 

original cause of internal displacement, while official 

data indicate that right-wing paramilitaries 

(“autodefensas”) were, at that time, the main authors of 

this human rights tragedy, in collusion with the official 

armed forces, as in the case of Tierralta.  This first wave 

of displacement between 1982 and 1993 that saw forty 

massacres affecting 267 victims, has been well 

documented (Pabón Soto 2021).  Saying the opposite is 

true only for certain conservative sectors of the country 

that believe, as the book echoes, that “[a]t one point in 

Colombian history, it was possible to view the 

autodefensas as part of a solution to the guerrilla 

problem” (5). It is worth mentioning, in this context, 

that in towns on the Caribbean coast, like in Sucre, 

paramilitary groups wiped out Catholic Ecclesial-based 

communities, accusing them of being “communist” but 

allowed some Evangelical churches whose pastors were 

politically sympathetic with conservative governments, 

to operate (Lozano Garzón 2009).
1

 

In sum, this book is a must-read for anyone 

interested in integrating faith and participatory 

approaches to relief, development, and advocacy, and 

who are particularly interested in engaging local 

churches in that task.  It provides an outstanding case 

study for how to do so, replete with a detailed 

discussion of practical, theoretical, and theological 

challenges. Moreover, it intersperses moving and often 

difficult-to-read vignettes of individual stories of 

displacement (many of them of the co-researchers for 

the project) to keep the focus where it should be, which 

is on the internally displaced persons themselves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       
1

 It is not exact to say, as this book does, that the Liberation Theology’s thesis was “that the poor would be saved 

through communism” (41).  As the noted Brazilian Catholic bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said, “When I give food to 

the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” This “why” turned him 

overnight from a “saint” to a “communist” (see Dimitriadis 2019, 431). 

References 
 

Dimitriadis, Vasilios. 2019. “Gustavo Gutiérrez: 

Liberation Theology for a World of Social Justice 

and Just Peace.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 4 

(3), 431–441. 

https://doi.org/10.1353/ecu.2019.0033 
Lozano Garzón, Liz Carolina. 2009. “Spiritual 

Evangelical War or Indigenous Witchcraft? 

Magic-religious Practices of Former Combatant 

Paramilitary Members in War Contexts in 

Córdoba (Colombia).” Universitas Humanistica 

68 (July/December). 

http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_artt

ext&pid=S0120-48072009000200006  

Pabón Soto, Gabriela. 2021. “¿Para qué Nos Quitan 

la Tierra? El Ciclo de una Ruina Eterna. Estudio 

de Caso: Análisis del Desplazamiento Forzado y 

Despojo de Tierras en Tierralta (1997-2003).” 

Grade Thesis. Universidad Javeriana. 

 
 

Amanda Romero-Medina is an independent human 

rights researcher, lecturer, and activist. She holds a 

PhD in Education from the Pedagogical University of 

Colombia (UPN) and a master’s degree in Social and 

Educational Development from CINDE-UPN. Her 

main areas of study include ethnicity, peacebuilding, 

environment, gender and business, and human rights. 

Author email: Amanda.Romero@esap.edu.co 
 

https://doi.org/10.1353/ecu.2019.0033
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0120-48072009000200006
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0120-48072009000200006
mailto:Amanda.Romero@esap.edu.co

