A Theological Understanding Of Power For Poverty Alleviation In The Philippines

This book calls attention to the sense of powerlessness of everyday people in the Philippines, and to the missional agency of US-based Filipino Protestants. Through a variety of sociological-theological-missiological perspectives, this book guides you to a journey of discovering what kind of power is in play, how the fallen powers can be named and made visible, and then ultimately the ways through which power should be restored. In this process, the voices, perceptions, stories, and insights of US-based Filipino Protestants are referred to. Filipino American Protestants are no longer “forgotten Asians” in the US. Instead, they actively perceive, negotiate, and exercise power in everyday life, and strive to wield their missional agency in response to God’s calling for the transformation of their homeland Philippines, which has been seldom investigated in the academia of Diaspora Missiology and Intercultural Studies.

This qualitative study explores intercultural social dynamics among international Christian workers who are part of multicultural teams engaged in Christian ministries in a North African country. It seeks to understand these workers' lived realities at intersections of multiple cultural flows. Ethnographic methods were used to collect and analyze data, and forty-nine international Christian workers were interviewed. The findings of this study indicate that intercultural Christian workers go through complex intercultural social processes interwoven in the fabric of their everyday life. These processes are mediated by their social experiences in the local North African context and their multicultural teams, resulting in significant changes in their personal dispositions and social behaviors. Based on these findings, a working concept of diasporic habitus is developed, and the practice of double discourses of culture is further examined. This research suggests that some existing missiological concepts need to be revisited and recommends further interdisciplinary conversations involving cultural anthropology and sub-fields in psychology about the changes that happen to people in intercultural missions. It also calls for a reflexive approach to missiological research that incorporates awareness of one's situatedness and the lasting impact of historical entanglements on contemporary intercultural relations.

How can the church go beyond mere social services to having an incarnational, evangelistic impact on unreached, urban immigrants? This work explores how MoveIn, a global prayer movement of regular lay Christians, has become a model for how the church can authentically and radically share the gospel with unreached neighbors.

The evangelical Mongolian church has experienced significant growth since the country opened to the world in 1990. Despite the growth and emergence of the evangelical church in Mongolia, relatively little has been written on the church from the perspective of the leaders themselves. This ethnographic study seeks to express the experience of male, evangelical, Mongolian church leaders in their own words. The book focuses specifically on the leaders' experiences of conversion, discipleship, navigation of Mongolian culture and traditions, and theological education. Readers will hear from evangelical church leaders why they became Christians and what their experience with discipleship was like for them. The issue of contextualization for evangelical Christians is also a central focus. In particular, the translation of the term for God in Mongolian and the perspective of the church leaders are explored. This book will be of interest to those exploring Christianity in Asia and post-socialist contexts as well as seeking to better understand contemporary Mongolian culture.

Are you concerned about the problem of poverty in the world? Do you want to do something about it? This book is for you!

This book calls attention to the sense of powerlessness of everyday people in the Philippines, and to the missional agency of US-based Filipino Protestants. Through a variety of sociological-theological-missiological perspectives, this book guides you to a journey of discovering what kind of power is in play, how the fallen powers can be named and made visible, and then ultimately the ways through which power should be restored. In this process, the voices, perceptions, stories, and insights of US-based Filipino Protestants are referred to. Filipino American Protestants are no longer "forgotten Asians" in the US. Instead, they actively perceive, negotiate, and exercise power in everyday life, and strive to wield their missional agency in response to God's calling for the transformation of their homeland Philippines, which has been seldom investigated in the academia of Diaspora Missiology and Intercultural Studies.

Who are the poor? Why are they poor? What can - and should - be done about it? These practical questions demand action and they challenge our sense of how the world is and how it should be. This text takes up the challenge. Against much current orthodoxy, it asserts that theology and development are vitally connected: political and religious values together forge the world-views on which policies are based. Reflecting on the Christian tradition, the authors set out four broad models of how the world works and describe the social and development policies to which these lead.

While a number of secular philosophers have written on global poverty, theologians have either steered clear entirely or simply mimicked the political analysis currently on offer. Christian authors have argued either for a free market solution to global poverty or for a radical reform of global capitalism as the best approach, but the theological underpinnings of such conclusions are noticeable by their absence. Justin Thacker offers a new way forward. He suggests deeply theological answers to questions around the effect of capitalism on global poverty and whether aid is really a sustainable long term solution for the world’s poor. This book will challenge theologians, church leaders and congregations to consider much more seriously the huge implications of faith and theology on our attitude to those who live in extreme poverty.