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"For Thais, face is a fact," writes Flanders. However, "whether in theology, evangelism, or issues involving sin, salvation, or atonement, Thai Christians and missionaries alike seem either uninterested in or possibly incapable of addressing issues related to face. This glaring incongruity between the value of face for Thais and the lack of intentional engagement within the Thai Christian community is deeply troubling."Surely, such a lack of careful attention to face is a dangerous posture. Uncritical views of face, furtively attaching to the theology of the Thai church, are potentially detrimental for its life and mission. Such seems to be an unavoidable situation without proper attention t...
Few missiologists have impacted mission theory and practice among Churches of Christ as significantly as has Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen, yet his global missiological influence has extended far beyond the boundaries of his denominational heritage. This Festschrift, in honor of Gailyn Van Rheenen, contains original missiological contributions from colleagues and former students. Most chapters were presentations at the inaugural Gailyn Van Rheenen Sessions in Mission and World Christianity at the 2021 Christian Scholars’ Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. The volume is organized to parallel the phases of Van Rheenen’s career—Africa, academic missiology, and Mission Alive, a North American church-planting organization. His legacy is one that wonderfully embodies critical theory and robust practice.
This festschrift contains original missiological contributions from colleagues and former doctoral students of Dr. Sherwood Lingenfelter. It highlights his twin research interests of anthropology and leadership and points to the profound influence of Sherwood Lingenfelter upon the contemporary missiological landscape. These chapters signal the continuation of his legacy, a flourishing of creative, anthropologically driven mission and leadership studies. Contributors to this work include a marvelous diversity of authors, women and men, voices from North and South, East and West, representing well Dr. Lingefelter's significant global impact.
Theologies of Power and Crisis provides a case study for Eric Wolf's research directive to better comprehend the interplay of cultural (webs of meaning) and material (webs of power) forms of social life. More specifically, the book demonstrates how theological discourse and practice engage with historical and material relations of power. It has been normative to speak of power in terms of political and economic processes and theology in terms of interpretive and symbolic experiences. This work breaks new ground by linking theological ideas with political-economic processes in terms of the structural relations of power. Ethnographically, this research investigates the theological processes of...
You can be a missionary by crossing an ocean or by crossing the street. Filled with compelling stories, practical resources and relational tools, this guide from veteran crosscultural minister Katie Rawson shows how we can witness the way Jesus did, entering into people's worlds and drawing them into God-centered community.
This fascinating study explores how face functions as social capital for leaders in Thai society. It examines the anatomy of Thai face, ways to gain and lose face, patron-client dynamics, and the sources and paradigms of power. Ethnographic research gives voice to Thai leaders as they describe face behaviors and the flow of power in their society. The author compellingly reveals an indigenous but little-used pathway to virtuous leadership that empowers both leaders and followers, to the benefit of all. Written with academic rigor in a popular style, this book presents insights that are crucial to understanding and building strategic relationships in Thai society. Highlights • An insider’s account of Thai leadership based on sound ethnographic research • Examines the significance of face in Thai society • Reveals the pathways to power in the Thai context • Explores the relationship of Thai leaders and their followers • Identifies the qualities of virtuous leadership
Is the Abrahamic blessing of Genesis 12:1-3 still active in the world today? Does God still extend his blessing to the nations through his people? The author found the answer to these questions in one of the most isolated regions of the world, Papua New Guinea. In this book Sarita D. Gallagher compares the missional nature of the Abrahamic blessing motif in Scripture to a national revival that took place in Papua New Guinea. By identifying the shared missional patterns, she illustrates the continued fulfillment of the Abrahamic blessing through the Old and New Testaments and the contemporary Papua New Guinean Church. The significance of this research is multifaceted: the text contributes new insights to the global Church's understanding of the missio Dei, records an unexplored chapter of Melanesian indigenous mission history, and impacts the foundational motivations and methodology of contemporary mission praxis.
Character Theology provides a natural, universal way for the world to engage God through his chosen cast of characters. As the media eras continue to change (oral to print to digital-virtual), too many Bible scholars, and consequently pastors and Bible teachers in the West and beyond, lack capability to effectively communicate Scripture to Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. These generations find little if any relevance in the Christianity promoted by those stuck in modernity’s sticky abstract systematic theology. Character Theology relates, sticks, and transforms these generations. Why? Because people grasp and engage God most naturally and precisely through his interaction with biblical characters and their interaction with each other! Characters communicate the Creator’s characteristics. The roadmap to the recovery and expansion of Christianity in the twenty-first century will be through Bible characters.
While the concept of partnership between churches in the Global North and South has been an ecumenical goal for well over eight decades, realizing relationships of mutuality, solidarity, and koinonia has been, to say the least, problematic. Seeking to understand the dynamics of power and control in these relationships, this work traces the history of how partnership has been lived out, both as a concept and in practice. It is argued that many of the issues that are problematic for partnerships today can find their antecedents during colonial times at the very beginnings of the modern missionary movement. For those interested in pursuing cross-cultural partnerships today, understanding this history and recognizing the use, as well as the misuse, of power is crucial as we seek genuine relationships of care and friendship in our fractured and divided world.
This is a book about Christianity in one particular region in Kenya. It walks into churches, listens to sermons, dances to music, and interviews the people sitting in the pews, all with the aim of understanding how spiritual power enables these churches to function as agents within their contemporary society. Ecclesiastical communities in Africa draw upon divine power in order to engage in modernity-related topics. Humans are not unresponsive to global flows of meaning; they are integrative agents who fashion their world by living in it. The kind of modernity arising from these churches does not blindly follow Western forms, but flows from its own internal logic in which spiritual power occupies central hermeneutical function. Theological resources contribute to the formation of sociological expressions. Divine power pertains directly to human constructs, which then allows the churches to actively "image" God for the development of unique forms of modernity arising on the continent.