One almost universal feature of the world scene…seems unlikely to change in the near future. It is what has been described as the revolution of rising expectations. People in every part of the world are agreed in making demands upon society which in former ages were made only by a small segment in each nation…. Everywhere people demand and governments promise “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and everywhere people grow impatient and rebellious when the promise is not fulfilled; if there is one generalization about the human situation today that is almost universally valid, it is surely this. The inner relationship between this expectation of a new world and the Christian gospel of the reign of God is one of the issues that must be discussed in any contemporary theology of mission.
That last line is tantalizing. I eagerly await what Newbigin has to say about it (assuming that he finds his way back to it later in the book).