Digital Logos Edition
Christian theologians and students are aware that evangelicals in the Majority World now outnumber those in North America and Europe, and many want to know more about emerging voices in the global church. At the same time, these voices are largely absent from Western evangelical theology.
Stephen Pardue seeks to bridge this divide by arguing, biblically and theologically, that it is imperative for Western evangelical theology to engage with the global church, and he provides examples of how this can be done. Case studies throughout the book illustrate opportunities for fruitful engagement with non-Western theology in various areas of Christian doctrine.
Readers will be given an introduction to the riches available within the worldwide body of Christ and learn how to engage productively with the global church.
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At the very moment when evangelical theologians are struggling with cultural issues on the Western home front, Stephen Pardue calls them to look east and south, to learn from the global church how to engage one's local context while maintaining biblical authority and respecting the Christian tradition. This is a signal contribution to evangelical theology from one who identifies with and understands both it and the global church. Pardue here integrates canon, culture, and catholicity in five theses that have the potential to revitalize evangelical theology in the West and worldwide.
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church is at once a theology of culture, a theology of plurality, and even a theology of ethnicity and the nations (the Greek ethnos, in the New Testament, is often translated 'nations'), although it is not a theology of nationalism (in the West or anywhere!). Pardue writes out of a hermeneutic of charity that welcomes the many voices from the global church to engage with the biblical and historic theological traditions, and hence invites us all to consider our own posture toward others that we may before have held at arm's length.
—Amos Yong, Fuller Theological Seminary
Pardue challenges us with the truth that theology is not neutral. By considering the authority of Scripture and taking contextual realities seriously, he challenges our assumptions about and broadens our understanding of Scripture, its interpretation, and its application. This book is an encouragement to readers to embrace the concept of unity in diversity that is vividly illustrated in Revelation 7. Pardue has succeeded in inviting Majority World evangelical voices into the theological conversation that has, for too long, been dominated by the West.
—Elizabeth Mburu, associate professor of New Testament and Greek, Africa International University