Christian Identity In Cross Cultural Perspective

Preliminary Material /Martien E. Brinkman and Dirk van Keulen --Introduction /Martien Brinkman and Dirk van Keulen --Pela as Inclusive Socio-Cosmic System in the Central Moluccas /Simon Ririhena --Pela as Inclusive Socio-Cosmic System in the Central Moluccas Comments on Simon Ririhena's Paper /Dirk Smit --African Theology as a Challenge for Western Theology /Kwame Bediako --African Theology as a Challenge for Western Theology /Mechteld Jansen --Liminality and Worship in the Korean American Context /Sang Hyun Lee --Liminality and Worship in the Korean American Context /Verry Patty --Christians in the Clash of Civilizations /Abraham van de Beek --Christians in the Clash of Civilizations Comments on Abraham van de Beek's Paper /James Kombo --Contextual Theology, Tradition and Heresy --'No other motives would give us the right' /Dirk Smit --'No other motives would give us the right' /Sjaak van't Kruis --Christian Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective /Theo Witvliet --Christian Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective Comments on Theo Witvliet's Paper /Christiaan Mostert --The Catholicity of the Church and the Universality of Theology /Christiaan Mostert --The Catholicity of the Church and the Universality of Theology Comments on Christiaan Mostert's Paper /Kwame Bediako --Contextualization as Inculturation: The Experience of the African Theological Situation /James Kombo --Contextualization as Inculturation Comments on James Kombo's Paper /Bert de Leede --List of Contributors /Martien E. Brinkman and Dirk van Keulen --Index of Names /Martien E. Brinkman and Dirk van Keulen.

The Bible is not a Western book, and the world of the New Testament is not our world. The New Testament world was preindustrial, Mediterranean, and populated mostly by nonliterate peasants who depended on hearing these writings read aloud. Only a few of the literate elite were part of the Jesus movement, and they knew nothing of either modernity or the Western culture we inhabit today. This means that for all North Americans, reading the New Testament is always an exercise in cross-cultural communication. Travelers, diplomats, and exchange students take great pains to bridge the cultural gaps that cloud mutual understanding. But North American readers habitually suspend cross-cultural awareness when encountering the Bible. The result is that we unwittingly project our own cultural understandings onto the pages of the New Testament. Rohrbaugh argues that to whatever degree we can bridge cultural gaps between ourselves and New Testament writers, we learn to value their intentions rather than the meanings we create from their words. Rohrbaugh's insightful interpretations of Gospel passages go a long way toward helping to span distances between the New Testament world and the present.

The volume offers contributions reflecting the understanding of Christian identity in the midst of changing cultural, socio-economic, political and religious context in a a globalized world.

Issues of sexuality and gender are hotly contested in both religious communities and national cultures around the world. In the social sciences, religious traditions are often depicted as inherently conservative or even reactionary in their commitments to powerful patriarchal and pronatalist sexual norms and gender categories. In illuminating the practices of religious traditions in various cultures, these essays expose the diversity of religious rituals and mythologies pertaining to sexuality. In the process the contributors challenge conventional notions of what is normative in our sexual lives.

Given increasing global migration and the importance of positive cross-cultural relations across national borders, this book offers an interdisciplinary and intercultural exploration of identity formation. It uniquely draws from theology, psychology, and sociology--engaging narrative and identity theories, migration and identity studies, and the theologies of identity and migration--and builds on them in an unprecedented study of international migrants to construct an initial theology of Christian identity in migration. New sociological research describes the social construction of religious, ethnic, and national identities among non-North American evangelical graduates who entered the United States to pursue advanced academic studies from 1983 to 2013. It provides an intercultural account of Christian identity formation in the context of migration, transnationalism, and globalization. It ultimately argues that an integral component of Christian identity-making involves the concept of migration, of movement, toward a transformation.

The centre of gravity of contemporary Christianity has shifted to the southern hemisphere where, with the exception of Latin America, almost all Christians are minorities in their home countries. Christians in Asia live amongst Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shamanist or Taoist majorities and this context shapes the local Christian theology. The same is true in Africa where traditional religions and beliefs influence African Christians. Central to this change in both Africa and Asia is the creation of a new Jesus, one who accretes local beliefs and concerns and who, in that process, is transformed. 'The Non-Western Jesus' reveals how a new theology - with its own images and concepts - is coming into being. A wide range of embodiments of Jesus is examined: Jesus as 'Avatara' and 'Guru' in the Indian context; as 'Bodhisattva' in the Buddhist context; and Jesus within Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, African and Indonesian religious contexts.

How do indigenous matters inform, irritate and advance postcolonial theologies and postcolonial biblical criticisms? What options emerge from confronting readings of religious, customary, scriptural, political and cultural texts, traditions, leanings, bodies and anxieties? These two questions epitomize the concerns that the contributors address in this collection. The postcolonial voices that come together between the covers of this book show that indigenous subjects and heritages do matter in the theological and hermeneutical business, for we all have something to learn from First Peoples, and that theologians and biblical critics have much to gain from (and offer to) confronting and troubling traditional views and fears. Together in this book, the postcolonial voices from Downunder (geographically: Oceania, Pasifika; ideologically: marginalized, minoritized) confront political and religious bodies, including Christian churches, on account of their participation in and justification of the occupation and poaching of native lands, wisdom, wealth, and titles. This book is for First Peoples and Second Peoples, whether they are down under or up yonder, who are curious about possible advents of postcolonial theologies and postcolonial biblical criticisms in the future.

The multi-cultural society is under enormous pressure. Paradoxically, the globalization plans of modernity have resulted in a more fragmented world and ensuing violence. Instead of becoming uniform, individual character and differences have become more strongly emphasized. How can people live together and at the same time preserve their differences? How can variety be valued in a theological manner? These questions form the theme of this collection that consists of three sections. The South African reflections (Simon, Louw and Koopman) that consider living in the variety of a rainbow nation are followed by European experiences of Moluccan Christians in the Netherlands (Pattikayhatu), Western Muslims (van Bommel) and the Belgian modus vivendi (Van der Borght). The collection is completed by the theological reflections about the concept communio sanctorum (Le Bruyns), the Enlightenment's ideal of equality (van de Beek) and the unity of the church (Theron).