The title of this book is ‘Bishop on Horseback’ Towards a Missional Episcopacy, written by The Rt. Rev. Dr. Deji Okegbile, a prolific religious writer, missiologist, and evangelist of a higher standard. The genre of this book is partly religious, renewal, revival, and historical.  The book under review was printed in Great Britain and published by Sadlprint, London, in the year 2024.  The book has 19 chapters and 129 pages.

This book, ‘Bishop on Horseback’ Towards a Missional Episcopacy, explores how the nature of Christian leadership, most notably the episcopacy, shapes the mission and gospel of salvation.  The book looks at the mission as the most essential duty of episcopacy and the church’s heritage, beginning with the early fathers.  This fascinating book discusses the roles of bishops, locally and internationally, beyond defending the Christian faith and enforcing the laws, practices, and traditions of the church.

As a Methodist, the book’s writer, The Rt Rev Dr Deji Okegbile, subtly stresses the bishop’s role towards missional episcopacy in fulfilling the Great Commission.  The book dealt with some issues that affect episcopacy and presented ideas on how to overcome some challenges, such as distortions, dysfunctions, tensions, effects of colonization, and the divisions in episcopal work and practices. This book presented Jesus as the first leader who formed and lead the early Christian leadership.  Jesus’ leadership authority, missiology, and methodology are presented in this book as not being limited but expressed in its mission and definition of authority in the way He commissioned some of His disciples to go on a mission.  Today, this type of commissioning has been affected by political intrigues, greed, corruption, and godfatherism.

The author of this book, based on historical fact, explained that the development of episcopacy and mission all along the route of development of Christianity has not been what Jesus Christ wanted but had been corrupted with abuses, elitisms, greed, control, authoritarian and hierarchical approaches with theological differences and dogmatic approaches.

As expressed in this book by the author, the church episcopacy is historical, missional and apostolical, meant to advance Christian witness, missional and ecumenical unity.  I agree with the author that episcopacy is beyond ‘ecclesiastical cosmetics,’ but that every episcopate, taking the example from John Wesley, must be practically, on horseback moving from one place to the other, proclaiming the gospel of Christ in season and out of season; therefore, there must be paradigm shift nowadays between the old episcopacy and the modern episcopacy and this must involve re-shaping the entire episcopacy, spiritually, missionally, administratively, and liturgically.

The early church fathers in this book were described as administrators and liturgical ministers who were ordained, absorbed and controlled finances, and served as judges.  This kind of episcopal leadership manifested through apostolic succession.  One of their challenges was the promotion of Christendom and self-interest within the Roman Empire, which led to violence and a recurring challenge to episcopal leadership today.  It is important to note that Dr Deji preserved historical facts about the Age of Enlightenment and its influence on Christian theology and episcopacy.  However, it liberated the church from illusion and hierarchical bottlenecks. This period has promoted democratic styles in the episcopacy, though not without some dangerous developmental experiences.  The church needed the Renaissance, the renewal of Christendom from the Reformation split as it chattered the episcopal structure of the Middle Ages.

Dr Deji traced the beginning of the Anglican episcopacy and its development process in this book.  However, as a Methodist, he used chapters 13, 14, and 15 parts of 16, 17 and 18 to project John Wesley’s scriptural episcopacy, which recognise the scripture as the supreme authority on which Methodism and its itinerary structure was based.  However, it described the episcopacy in American Methodism vis a vis the succession and division in the early part of the Methodist church in America.  This part of the chapter mentioned earlier is meant to be read and enjoyed by every Methodist and Christian in Nigeria.  He was also able to historically trace the history of episcopacy in Nigeria in other sister churches such as Catholic, Pentecostal, and Anglican, to mention just a few.  Dr Deji provided an outstanding historical background to the episcopacy in Nigeria.  In this part of the book, he re-assessed the contributions of Rev. Prof. Bolaji Idowu, the first Patriarch of Nigeria’s Methodist episcopacy historically.  He iterated the contribution and works of this professor throughout the developmental period of Methodist episcopacy and challenges.  He concluded this book with John Wesley’s style of Pentecostalism, which formed the basis for most of the evangelical churches in the world.

Dr Deji points other episcopacies to proper missional fresh expressions to overcome the present corrupted Christendom and recognises Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church whom we should allow reforming the endangered Christianity available to us now with distorted doctrinal standards. The book calls on partakers of God’s grace to be united for missional episcopacy, which will be instrumental in the contextual gift of serving the body of Christ.

The author, however, repeated one idea on page 19 to fortify the presentation of a historical fact on ‘Bishop on Horseback.’ However, this work will need a second edition that continues from where this one stops. What I like about this book is the author’s ability to do thorough research on each chapter to bring about meaningful presentations, ideas, and historical facts.

I recommend this book for all libraries in our universities, both religious and secular. It is also recommended for all students of Theology and the hierarchy of clergy. All Christians must read it to enrich their leadership, knowledge of episcopacy, its formation, and its mission in relation to the Great Commission. I congratulate the author, Rt. Rev. Dr. Deji Okegbile, on this beautiful work.

I thank you for your attention.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Oladapo O.  Babalola

Bishop, Trinity Church Council, Methodist Church Nigeria.