Theology without Borders

An Introduction to Global Conversations

William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2015 by William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dyrness, William A.

Theology without borders : an introduction to global conversations / William A. Dyrness and Oscar García-Johnson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8010-4932-3 (pbk.)

1. Theology. 2. Christianity and culture. 3. Globalization—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

BR118.D98 2015

230—dc23

2015023237

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Contents

Preface

1. Transoccidentalism and the Making of Global Theology by Oscar García-Johnson

2. Doing Theology Out of a Western Heritage: Gains and Losses by William A. Dyrness

3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions in Christian Theology

4. God, Creation, and the Human Community

5. Jesus Christ and the Good News for the World

6. The Church in Global Context

7. The Christian Hope: Eschatology in Global Perspective

Appendix: The Historical Traditions of the Church

Bibliography

Index

Preface

Not long ago Oscar was invited to speak at a conference on evangelism in the city of Suzuka, Japan. The host church in Suzuka consisted of Sansei and Nisei families whose primary languages were Spanish and Portuguese.1 The founding couple of this church, Peruvians by birth, migrated with their parents to Japan as adolescents and met while attending a Brazilian Pentecostal church in Suzuka. Over the course of time, they married and were called into ministry. In order to serve both the immigrant populations and their Japanese neighbors, they decided to plant a multilingual/multicultural church where services (and, where necessary, translation) would be in Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese. To their surprise, young Japanese eager to make their way in a globalizing world were drawn to the church in increasing numbers.

Clearly such boundary-crossing hybrids and other forms of cultural mixing and matching are becoming increasingly common. While mainline and traditional denominational churches are declining in North America (and have almost disappeared in Europe), immigrant ...