Author: Jonathan Dodson

Theology, in a global perspective

Posted on December 2, 2007

Tim Tennent’s second major book, Theology in the Context of World Christianity explores Systematic Theology from a Global perspective. Tennent takes an interdisciplinary approach, relying on biblical exegesis and contextual theologies to present the various doctrines that comprise systematic theology in a global perspective. Here are the table of contents:

1. The Emergence of a Global Theological Discourse

2. Theology: Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?

3. Bibliology: Hindu Sacred Texts in Pre-Christian Past

4. Anthropology: Human Identity in Shame-Based Cultures of the Far East

5. Christology: Christ as Healer and Ancestor in Africa

6. Soteriology: Is “Salvation by Grace through Faith” Unique to Christianity?

7. Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Latin American Pentecostalism

8. Ecclesiology: Followers of Jesus in Islamic Mosques

9. Eschatology: Jonathan Edwards and the Chinese Back to Jerusalem Movement

10. The Emerging Contours of Global Theology

Converts or Proselytes? The Nature of True Conversion

Posted on December 2, 2007

We hard-pressed to find a better missiologist in our day than Andrew Walls. Though Walls has not written prolifically, he makes up for it in the profoundity of his work. He has written two landmark books that explore the relationship between history, missions, and theology: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in Transmission of Faith and The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History along with a number of articles.

Former missionary to Sierra Leone and Nigeria, Walls later served as director of the Centre for the study of Christianity in the Non-Western world, at the University of Edinburgh. In an article appearing in IBMR 2004, Walls explores the difference between proselytes and converts in the Early Church.

Judas a Demon?

Posted on December 1, 2007

April Deconick ,professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, has an excellent piece on Judas in the NY Times Op-Ed column today called “Gospel Truth.” In it she offers more accurate translations of the so-called Gospel of Judas, exposing poor and slanted scholarship of the National Geographic project, which was the first to release a documentary and book on the subject.

She writes: “While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.” Adducing her evidence she correctly comments:

the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”

She also notes various other omissions and errors in the work of NG. Whoever wrote the gospel of Judas, it is clearly gnostic in slant. As Deconick points out, Judas sacrificed Jesus not to God, but to the demons. As chief of demons, he is depicted as a counter Christ, mocking the sacrifice of Jesus in his offering, as a parody of the central event of Christianity.

Christian Theology as Cultural Engagment

Posted on November 30, 2007

Reflecting on the emergence of Christian theology in the Early Church and its interaction with the Mediterranean world of ideas, Andrew Walls writes:

Not only were new social situations constantly arising; an intellectual environment that combined the influences of Greek philosophy, Roman law, Eastern mysticism and spirituality, and astral science [sound familiar?] was giving rise to questions that no believers had found it necessary to ask before. That intellectual environment was the highway to a great outworking of creative theological activity, but it must have often seemed to old-style Jewish believers to be dangerous a, unchartered territory. Had the Jesus community retained the proselyte model, Christians would almost inevitably have been taken out of the intellectual mainstream and shut up to their own sacred books.

All too often Christians do their theology on islands, intellectually marooned from the rest of society and culture. Many academics build ivory towers on these islands, distancing themselves from the world beyond the waters even further. Meanwhile, the common Christians uncritically participate in the marketplace of the city–culturally, fiscally, philosophically—becoming indistinguishable from the rest of society.

The model of the early Christians calls the academic out of his tower and into the boat, to traverse the waters to the city, where theology can live. These early disciples of Jesus also call common Christians out of syncretistic, thoughtless participation in Babylon to fruitfully engage their intellectual environment, producing new cultural forms and combating old ones, renewing the city spiritually and socially with a living faith and active theology.