Globalizing theology

All over the world

GLOBALIZING THEOLOGY
Belief and practice in an era of World Christianity
Edited by Craig Ott & Harold A. Netland
Apollos. 382 pages £17.99
ISBN 978-1-84474-173-1

This book deals with an important subject. It began as the papers given at a conference in 2004 at Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Illinois, in honour of Paul G. Hiebert, the renowned American missiologist.

The book is divided into three unequal parts: World Christianity and Theological Reflection; Methodological Issues in Globalizing Theology; and Implications of Globalizing Theology. The first section sets out the need for theology which reflects the growth of the world church and the need for each culture to articulate biblical truths in relevant forms. However, although there is a chapter on Anthropological Reflections on Contextualizing Theology, there is no thorough theological analysis of the whole project. This would have been a better book if there had been interaction with some Dutch theological missiologists like J.H. Bavinck.

The second section begins with the longest chapter in the book, contributed by Kevin Vanhoozer, who advances his idea of how to handle Scripture in a cross-cultural situation which he terms ‘theodramatic’. With terms like this and ‘diasporadic systematic’, it is clear that this is a challenging chapter in terms of vocabulary alone. It is in this section of the book that there is a fascinating case study of comparative Christologies dealing with the Ethiopians’ struggle with expressing Chalcedonian concepts within the constraints of the Amharic language. This concrete example is much more exciting to engage with than the theorising that characterises much of the book.

The third section looks at issues that emerge from developing theologies in different contexts relating to economics, nationalism, resurgence of other religions, missionary activity and theological education. There are some stimulating topics for discussion in this book, but it is a group of primarily American ex-missionaries talking about how the world church might engage theologically with their own cultural setting rather than current evangelical practitioners explaining what they are actually doing. We still wait for that book.

Ray Porter,
Director of World Mission Studies, Oak Hill Theological College, and a member of the leadership team at St. Mary’s, Eaton Socon