Christianity And Culture Collision

Drawn from the Conference on World Christianity, this provocatively titled book, invoking images of “culture collision,” “particularity,” and the “global South”, prompts for profoundly new understandings of apparently polar themes: inculturation, universality, and world Christianity. Since the emergence of world Christianity is not an epiphenomenon, but central to the question of how the gospel is good news for today’s world, readers concerned about the theological issues related to the possibilities for a genuinely new evangelization will find this volume. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of African ecclesiastical history, world Christianity, and inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue. Cyril Orji is Associate Professor of theology at the University of Dayton, Ohio, USA. He specializes in systematic and fundamental theology with particular emphasis on the theology and philosophy of Bernard Lonergan, whom he brings into conversation with the works of the American pragmatist and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce. Dr Orji also collaborates in inter-religious dialogue and the intersection of religion and culture – inculturation, post-colonial critical theory, and Black and African theologies – and engages in communal practices of communicative theology in the development of local/contextual theologies. He has published numerous articles in various peer-reviewed journals, and is the author of A Semiotic Approach to the Theology of Inculturation (2015), An Introduction to Religious and Theological Studies (2015), The Catholic University and the Search for Truth (2013), and Ethnic and Religious Conflicts in Africa: An Analysis of Bias and Conversion Based on the Work of Bernard Lonergan (2008).

A mighty clash of convictions resounds around the world and will continue to reverberate during the coming decades. Men are deciding a most difficult question: Is there One Way or are there many ways? Hosts line up on one side and on the other. Cannons are wheeled into position and salvos fired. Lectures are delivered, courses are taught, and books are written on each side. If there are many ways to God, the Christian has no position in any culture, even his own. If there is only one way then the Christian needs to assert his truth as clearly and honestly as possible. This book deals with the deeper questions of culture. Beyond dress, housing, and language rests the issue of moral and ethical right and wrong. If you have ever pondered the impact of a Christian commitment on this level of living you have approached the culture clash. McGavran challenges those who deny this impact and compromise their decisions with a choice that accommodates secularism, relativism or pluralism. He presents a stimulating and persuasive case for the authority of the gospel within any culture. - Back cover.

Countless cultural conversations are happening all around you. Are you aware of them? More importantly, are you actively engaged and contributing to them? Now, more than ever, Christians need to listen to these conversations and let their voices be heard.Whenwe do, a collision between Christ and culture is inevitable. The only question is...are you ready for the collision?

Serves as an introduction to the Gospel and Culture movement and gives an on-ramp to a wider debate, which surely is the future of Christianity in the West.

Unlike the global North, “the ferment of Christianity” in the global South, among the majority of world people, has been astronomical. Despite the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity to the global South, intra-ecclesial tensions globally remain those of the relationship of culture to religion. The questions posed revolve around to what extent Western Christianity should be adapted to local cultures. Should we talk of Christianity in non-Western contexts or of majority world Christianity? Is it appropriate to describe the shift as the emergence of global Christianity or world Christianity? Should Christianity in the global South mimic Christianity in the global North, or can it be different in the light of the diversity of these cultures? Can Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and North Americans – the entire global community – speak of God in the same way? This book is devoted to examining varieties of the intercultural process in world Christianity. It understands culture broadly as a common meaning upon which communities’ social order is organized. Culture in this sense is the whole life of people. It is the integrator of the filial bond holding people together and the various institutional structures – economic, technological, political and legal – that guarantee peace and survival in societies, states, and nations, both locally and internationally. As this book shows, the centrality of culture for world Christianity equally showcases the important position the scale of values occupies in world Christianity.

Called to live in the world, but not to be of it, Christians must maintain a balancing act that becomes more precarious the further our culture departs from its Judeo-Christian roots. How should members of the church interact with such a culture, especially as deeply enmeshed as most of us have become? In this award-winning book -- now in paperback and with a new preface -- D. A. Carson applies his masterful touch to that problem. After exploring the classic typology of H. Richard Niebuhr with its five Christ-culture options, Carson offers an even more comprehensive paradigm for informing the Christian worldview. More than just theoretical, Christ and Culture Revisited is a practical guide for helping Christians untangle current messy debates about living in the world.

This book studies the writings of the seventeenth century Chinese Christian apologist, Xu Guangqi, comparing them with those of early Latin Christian apologists in Europe to explore problems within the historical inculturation of Christianity in China.

Eleven eminent scholars examine how Christian commitment illuminates the issues of relativism, feminism, cultural diversity, and postmodernism that occupe center stage in higher education today.