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Why should the church be concerned about cultures? Louis J. Luzbetak began to answer this question twenty-five years ago with the publication of The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the Religious Worker. Reprinted six times and translated into five languages, it became an undisputed classic in the field. Now, by popular demand, Luzbetak has thoroughly rewritten his work, completely updating it in light of contemporary anthropological and missiological thought and in face of current world conditions. Serving as a handbook for a culturally sensitive ministry and witness, The Church and Cultures introduces the non-anthropologist to a wealth of scientific knowledge directly relevant to pastoral work, religious education social action and liturgy - in fact, to all forms of missionary activity in the church. It focuses on a burning theological issue: that of contextualization, the process by which a local church integrates its understanding of the Gospel (text) with the local culture (context).
Authors include missiologists José M. de Mesa, Darrell L. Whiteman, Aylward Shorter, Jon P. Kirby, and Angelyn Dries, anthropologists Linda E. Thomas, Anthony J. Gittins, and Philip Gibbs, and theologians Gemma T. Cruz and Robert J. Schreiter. Book jacket.
""The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the Religious Worker"" by Louis J. Luzbetak is a comprehensive guide for religious workers who want to understand and engage with different cultures. The book provides a detailed overview of the field of anthropology and its relevance to the work of the church. It explores the ways in which culture shapes religious practices and beliefs, and how religious workers can adapt their approach to better serve diverse communities.The book is divided into four parts, each focusing on a different aspect of the relationship between the church and culture. Part one provides an introduction to anthropology and its relevance to religious work. Part t...
The new and different frontiers and factors discussed in missiology are reshaping the meaning of mission. Christian mission today is searching for new directions to approach the postmodern, postcolonial, and ecumenical paradigms. This book argues that mission is the process of embodying the content and praxis of the gospel, not the transmission of knowledge that keeps an established structure and culture alive (often justified by a specific ecclesiological model). Thus, mission initiates a transformative process of faith, which leads to personal and social transformation. This work brings into dialogue Stephen Bevans's notion of mission as prophetic dialogue and Paulo Freire's concept of con...
This book is a study of the process of conversion among the Germanic peoples from the third to eleventh centuries. The intention is twofold: firstly, to examine previous scholarship on conversion and to develop a model of conversion appropriate to the Germanic peoples; and secondly, to produce a comparative study of six Germanic conversions. Chapter 1 reviews the existing models of conversion developed by scholars in a number of fields, principally psychology, anthropology and religious studies, and develops an alternative model. Chapters 2-7 are case studies which apply this model to the conversions of the Goths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, continental Saxons, Scandinavians and Icelanders. The final chapter presents in summary form the insights from the case studies.
Essays in Contextual Theology is a collection of essays that reflect on the doing of contextual theology from several perspectives. After a general introductory essay, subsequent essays reflect on topics such as contextual theology and prophetic dialogue, criteria for orthodoxy, the nature of tradition, the role of culture, the dynamics of conversion, and the way theology is being done in World Christianity. The collection closes with an autobiographical essay tracing the author’s journey to becoming a “global theologian.”
ÒConceived and developed by two of Europe's most eminent missiologists, in the country where the scientific and sustained study of mission first took shape, [the 'Dictionary of Mission'] represents the finest of the chorus of voices that comprise contemporary missiology . . . The choice of topics and the authors to address them reflects what Christian mission has become: a genuinely worldwide and ecumenical phenomenon. That there would be entries on regional theological developments is indicative of how the world church is developing. A host of other topics here explored show too how the landscape of mission is changing. Taken as a whole, then, the 'Dictionary of Mission' is a road map through this exciting and challenging terrain. --from the Foreword