Download or read book Mother Tongue Theologies written by Darren J. N. Middleton and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing that one-third of the world's Christians practice their faith outside Europe and North America, the fourteen essays in Mother Tongue Theologies explore how international fiction depicts Christianity's dramatic movement South and East of Jerusalem as well as North and West. Structured by geographical region, this collection captures the many ways in which people around the globe receive Christianity. It also celebrates postcolonial literature's diversity. And it highlights non-Western authors' biblical literacy, addressing how and why locally rooted Christians invoke Scripture in their pursuit of personal as well as social transformation. Featured authors include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constantine Cavafy, Scott Cairns, Chinua Achebe, Madam Afua Kuma, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Reid, Ernesto Cardenal, Helena Parente Cunha, Arundhati Roy, Mary Martha Sherwood, Marguerite Butler, R. M. Ballantyne, Rudyard Kipling, Nora Okja Keller, Amy Tan, Albert Wendt, and Louise Erdrich. Individual essayists rightly come to different conclusions about Christianity's global character. Some connect missionary work with colonialism as well as cultural imperialism, for example, and yet others accentuate how indigenous cultures amalgamate with Christianity's foreignness to produce mesmerizing, multiple identities. Differences notwithstanding, Mother Tongue Theologies delves into the moral and spiritual issues that arise out of the cut and thrust of native responses to Western Christian presence and pressure. Ultimately, this anthology suggests the reward of listening for and to such responses, particularly in literary art, will be a wider and deeper discernment of the merits and demerits of post-Western Christianity, especially for Christians living in the so-called post-Christian West. List of Contributors: Isabel Asensio-Sierra Di Gan Blackburn Mini Chandran Evgenia V. Cherkasova John Estes Jack A. Hill J. A. Jackson Ellin Sterne Jimmerson Ymitri Mathison Catherine Winn Merritt Darren J. N. Middleton Mozella G. Mitchell Sinead Moynihan J. Stephen Pearson Eric J. Sterling
Download or read book Recovering Paul s Mother Tounge written by Susan G. Eastman and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul's letter to the Galatians begins with a proclamation of deliverance from the present evil age and comes to a climax with the ringing cry "new creation " The letter moves from the Galatian believers' new identity in Christ to the implications of that identity for their life together. Susan Eastman here argues that Galatians 4:12 5:1 plays a key role in this movement: it displays the power of God's act in Christ, apart from the law, not only to generate the Galatians' new life in Christ but also to perfect it. Paul communicates to his converts the motivation and power necessary to move them from their ambivalence about his gospel to a faith that "stands fast" in its allegiance to Christ alone. Eastman argues that the medium and the message are inseparable. Paul's discourse or "mother tongue" -- packed with maternal images, vulnerable yet authoritative, and marked by personal suffering -- demonstrates the content of the good news.
Download or read book Mother Tongues and Nations written by Thomas Paul Bonfiglio and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-06-29 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph examines the ideological legacy of the the apparently innocent kinship metaphors of “mother tongue” and “native speaker” by historicizing their linguistic development. It shows how the early nation states constructed the ideology of ethnolinguistic nationalism, a composite of national language, identity, geography, and race. This ideology invented myths of congenital communities that configured the national language in a symbiotic matrix between body and physical environment and as the ethnic and corporeal ownership of national identity and local organic nature. These ethno-nationalist gestures informed the philology of the early modern era and generated arboreal and genealogical models of language, culminating most divisively in the race conscious discourse of the Indo-European hypothesis of the 19th century. The philosophical theories of organicism also contributed to these ideologies. The fundamentally nationalist conflation of race and language was and is the catalyst for subsequent permutations of ethnolinguistic discrimination, which continue today. Scholarship should scrutinize the tendency to overextend biological metaphors in the study of language, as these can encourage, however surreptitiously, genetic and racial impressions of language.
Download or read book Exploring Ordinary Theology written by Leslie J. Francis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ordinary theology' characterizes the reflective God-talk of the great majority of churchgoers, and others who remain largely untouched by the assumptions, concepts and arguments that academic theology takes for granted. Jeff Astley coined the phrase in his innovative study, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology, arguing that 'speaking statistically ordinary theology is the theology of God's Church'. A number of scholars have responded to this and related conceptualizations, exploring their theological implications. Other researchers have adopted the perspective in examining a range of Church practices and contexts of Christian discipleship, using the tools of empirical study. Ordinary theology research has proved to be key in uncovering people's everyday lay theology or ordinary dogmatics. Exploring Ordinary Theology presents fresh contributions from a wide range of authors, who address the theological, empirical and practical dimensions of this central feature of ordinary Christian existence and the life of the Church.
Download or read book A Rwandan Bishop s Confession written by Joel Kubwimana and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, I analyze why Bishop Aloys Bigirumwami prioritizes the use of the native language and the value of primal religions in spreading the gospel. According to Bigirumwami, the gospel should be taught in the native language, because it is the people's heart language. On the other hand, when the message is spoken in non-native languages, the gospel may spread but it does not reach the hearts of the people. As for the primal religions (tradition religions), for Bigirumwami they are part of what Jesus came to fulfill rather than abolish. In Rwanda, Western missionaries neglected the Rwandan primal religions by demonizing them, and the result was that the gospel was not planted in the good soil; the reason why the genocide against the Tutsi was executed in 1994 in a country where 91 percent of its population were Christians. A part of exploring the Christian mission history in Rwanda, this book points out the need to continue where Bigirumwami and others of his time left off in their effort of inculturation of the Christian faith in Rwanda and Africa in general.
Download or read book Mother Tongue written by Leonard Sweet and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one shapes our heritage or affects our legacy like our mother. Most people know Leonard Sweet, one of the world’s most influential evangelicals, as a sharp cultural critic who helps us see how to get in front of the future rather than be bowled over by it. One of his greatest influences was his mother, a groundbreaking (and sometimes controversial) minister who defied convention while honoring tradition. In this exceptionally personal work, Len Sweet opens his mother’s memory box, and in the process he helps us all embrace the future with confidence while tethering us to a faith that transcends time. Through Len’s experience, we all will better understand and process how our own heritage affects our legacy. An ideal resource for mothers, adult children, and families seeking resources to set up their kids to flourish.
Download or read book Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China written by Thomas Jansen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China, co-edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer, investigates the transformation of China’s religious landscape under the impact of global influences since 1800. The interdisciplinary case studies analyze the ways in which processes of globalization are interlinked with localizing tendencies, thereby forging transnational relationships between individuals, the state and religious as well as non-religious groups at the same time that the global concept ‘religion’ embeds itself in the emerging Chinese ‘religious field’ and within the new academic disciplines of Religious Studies and Theology. The contributions unravel the intellectual, social, political and economic forces that shaped and were themselves shaped by the emergence of what has remained a highly contested category. The contributors are: Hildegard Diemberger, Vincent Goossaert, Esther-Maria Guggenmos, Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, Dirk Kuhlmann, LAI Pan-chiu, Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Christian Meyer, Lauren Pfister, Chloë Starr, Xiaobing Wang-Riese, and Robert P. Weller.
Download or read book Ordinary Theology written by Jeff Astley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ordinary theology' is Jeff Astley's phrase for the theology and theologising of Christians who have received little or no theological education of a scholarly, academic or systematic kind. Astley argues that an in-depth study of ordinary theology, which should involve both empirical research and theological reflection, can help recover theology as a fundamental dimension of every Christian's vocation. Ordinary Theology analyses the problems and possibilities of research and reflection in this area. This book explores the philosophical, theological and educational dimensions of the concept of ordinary theology, its significance for the work of the theologian as well as for those engaged in the ministry of the church, and the criticisms that it faces. 'Ordinary theology' Astley writes, 'is the church's front line. Statistically speaking, it is the theology of God's church.'
Download or read book African theology in the 21st century the contribution of the pioneers 2 written by Bénézet Bujo and published by Paulines Publications Africa. This book was released on 2005 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Modern Chinese Theologies written by Chloë Starr and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third volume in the series Modern Chinese Theologies expands the scope of "China" and Chinese theology. It addresses two distinct groups: scholarship by mainland Chinese academics, and the writings of Chinese-speaking theologians beyond China, including the diasporic Sinophone worlds of East and Southeast Asia.
Download or read book Majority World Theology written by Gene L. Green and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 733 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More Christians live in the Majority World than in Europe and North America. Yet most theological literature does not reflect the rising tide of Christian reflection coming from these regions. Bringing together theological resources from past and present, East and West, this work engages conversations with leading global scholars on theology, faith, and mission for the enrichment of the entire church.
Download or read book Chinese Public Theology written by Alexander Chow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been widely recognized that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in one of the last communist-run countries of the world: the People's Republic of China. Yet it would be a mistake to describe Chinese Christianity as merely a clandestine faith or, as hoped by the Communist Party of China, a privatized religion. Alexander Chow argues that Christians in mainland China have been constructing a more intentional public theology to engage the Chinese state and society, since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Chinese Public Theology recalls the events which have led to this transformation and examines the developments of Christianity across three generations of Chinese intellectuals from the state-sanctioned Protestant church, the secular academy, and the growing urban renaissance in Calvinism. Moreover, Chow shows how each of these generations have provided different theological responses to the same sociopolitical moments of the last three decades. This study illustrates how a growing understanding of Chinese public theology has been developed through a subconscious intermingling of Christian and Confucian understandings of public intellectualism. These factors result in a contextually-unique understanding of public theology, but also one which is faced by contextual limitations as well. With this in mind, Chow draws from the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Chinese traditional teaching of the unity of Heaven and humanity (Tian ren heyi) to offer a way forward in the construction of a Chinese public theology.
Download or read book Sino Christian Theology written by Pan-Chiu Lai and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: «Sino-Christian theology» usually refers to an intellectual movement emerged in Mainland China since the late 1980s. The present volume aims to provide a self-explaining sketch of the historical development of this theological as well as cultural movement. In addition to the analyses on the theoretical issues involved and the articulations of the prospect, concrete examples are also offered to illustrate the characteristics of the movement.
Download or read book African Christian Theologies and the Impact of the Reformation written by Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2017 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the strongest heritages of the Reformation for Christianity was to return to the central role given to the Bible, translated in local dialects. Christianity expanded thanks to the translation of the Bible in vernacular languages worldwide. Most importantly, the people who had been victims of prejudices of race supremacy could now have access to God in their own language, culture, and idioms without intermediaries. It is largely thanks to Bible translations that the majority of those churches in Africa, born of European mission activities, continued to develop positively after the end of the colonial age, and that independent African churches emerged. (Series: Theology in the Public Square / Theologie in der Ã?Â?ffentlichkeit, Vol. 10) [Subject: African Studies, Christian Studies]
Download or read book Kwame Bediako written by Tim Hartman and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako presses all Christians to question their own theological commitments. He does so by rethinking Christian identity in light of cultural identity and the shortcomings of colonialism. Bediako's quest to be both African and Christian informs what it means to be Christian in a secularized Europe and North America. Far more than just chronological and biographical, Tim Hartman's analysis of the arc of Bediako's theology demonstrates that Bediako's vision of Christianity as a non-Western religion allows it to serve as a resource for World Christianity amid the exponential growth of Christianity in the Global South. Hartman points to how Bediako sidesteps the influence of Western thought by rooting African Christianity in a twin heritage of pre-Christendom patristic theology and precolonial traditional religious practices of Africa. Bediako expands the canon of theological resources available for Christians by eliminating the distinction between gospel and culture. Since there is no such thing as a pure theology for Bediako, culture itself becomes a source of divine revelation through the incarnation. Hartman's study of Bediako helpfully corrects inaccurate portrayals of African Christianity. The growth of African Christianity should not be feared, nor mischaracterized as narrow-minded or too conservative. Bediako asserts a polycentric understanding of the Christian faith based in grassroots theologies and the beliefs of actual Christians. While Bediako agrees that Christianity in Africa (and the Global South) is the future of the Christian faith, he rejects assumptions that the Christian faith needs to be yoked to political power. Instead, Bediako offers an alternative understanding of politics based on democracy and nondominating power. Both Bediako and the book offer a way forward in thinking about questions of religious pluralism. African Christianity has never known cultural hegemony as African Christians have always lived with Islam and African traditional religions. Bediako offers a theology of "Jesus is Lord" while appreciating the integrity of Islam and traditional African religions. In the end, the book presents an African Christian theologian who values--and does not simply reject--African traditional religions. Bediako believed that traditional African religions, far from being demonic, served as evangelical preparation for the Christian faith and as the substructure of African Christianity, and that African religious imagination was the foundation for the Christian faith worldwide. As Hartman shows, the more distinctively African Bediako's Christianity became, the more suited that theology became for the world.
Download or read book What Does Theology Do Actually written by Phillip A. Jr. Davis and published by Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. This book was released on 2023-05-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exegesis has long been characterized by a broad disciplinary diversity, but also ambiguity – combining biblical studies, exegesis, early Jewish studies, early Christian studies, Ancient Near Eastern studies, Greco-Roman, and classical studies in various ways. This is to say nothing of the more recent development of contextual and engaged exegesis as reflected in feminist, liberation, postcolonial and queer Biblical exegesis. Furthermore, how and why scholars study the Bible varies, not only across confessional or cultural contexts, but across institutional-academic contexts. The book engages these complex methodological questions about the interrelations of context, institutions, and knowledge production in relation to such issues as religious belonging, ethnicity, political identity, and postcolonial pasts, among other issues of contemporary importance. [Was treibt Theologie eigentlich?] Exegetische Forschung zeichnet sich seit langem durch eine große disziplinäre Vielfalt, aber auch Mehrdeutigkeit aus. Sie verbindet auf unterschiedliche Weise Bibelwissenschaft, Exegese, frühjüdische Studien, frühchristliche Studien, altorientalische Studien, griechisch-römische und klassische Studien. Ganz zu schweigen von der neueren Entwicklung einer kontextbezogenen und engagierten Exegese, wie sie in der feministischen, befreiungstheologischen, postkolonialen und queeren Bibelexegese zum Ausdruck kommt. Darüber hinaus variiert die Art und Weise, wie und warum Forschende die Bibel untersuchen, nicht nur zwischen konfessionellen oder kulturellen Kontexten, sondern auch zwischen institutionellen und akademischen Kontexten. Der Band befasst sich mit diesen komplexen methodischen Fragen über die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Kontext, Institutionen und Wissensproduktion in Bezug auf Themen wie religiöse Zugehörigkeit, Ethnizität, politische Identität, postkoloniale Vergangenheiten und andere Themen.
Download or read book Salvation and Modernity written by Fredrik Fällman and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2008-09-17 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Salvation and Modernity presents an interpretation of the phenomenon of intellectual Christians in contemporary Chinese society, with special focus paid to Liu Xiaofeng, by exploring the main issues of faith, salvation, and the quest for a modern China. Author Fredrik FSllman investigates similar developments in earlier centuries by linking past and present forms of cultural Christian phenomenon, and the beliefs and ideas of Liu Xiaofeng and other scholars. Their focus on Christianity implies a criticism of traditional Chinese value systems, in particular Confucianism and Daoism. The introduction of Christian theology and values into Chinese academia is a way of creating greater understanding for Western culture. Many cultural Christians argue that this advanced understanding is a prerequisite for establishing a modern China. Issues of personal faith and identity are also central in respect to modernity as well as to individual and national salvation.
