More Snow, More Globalizing Theology

First posting of 2007.  School was called off today due to our third blizzard in 3 weeks.  So far, this is the most snow we've had here in Denver for as long as I can remember. . . especially so early in the season.  After two major storms, our back streets are already encrusted with mounds of ice making it feel like we are 4-wheeling over a mountain pass in order to get out to main streets.  Fortunately our garbage was picked up this morning as the present storm is getting going but our recyclables haven't been picked up for a month.  Even so, we don't want to "land fill" what can be recycled so we are hanging onto our glass, cardboard, paper, plastic, etc--what amounts to 2/3 of our garbage--essentially waiting out these storms till it can all be picked up.  We're glad that the U.S. is finally following other countries (including New Zealand) in a major commitment to reuse things and reduce the strain on our environment.

Snowed in as we are, I'm eager for the opportunity to plow deeper into Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity.  I'm about 4 chapters in and I'm already incredibly impressed with where these diverse authors are going in terms of challenging the Western dominance of theology in light of the fact that the majority of Christ-Followers are now decidedly non-Western .  For those of you interested, I'm going to sidebar this book under my recommended reading list.  The first chapter authored by African theologian Tite Tienou is worth the entire cost of the book alone.  Entitled "Christian Theology in a Era of World Christianity", Tienou takes us Westerners to task for our refusal to acknowledge faith in a global context effectively marginalizing voices from Africa, Asia, South America, etc.  Here is just one enticing section from page 45:

"It is clear that Christan scholarship and theology are not yet endeavors in which scholars and theologians from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands participate fully.  The theological scholarship from these new centers of Christianity still needs to make its mark in a substantial way.  As Frans Wijsen writes 'Often European theologians eagerly take up contextual theologies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, but they do not change their Western outlook and view of theology.  They treat third world theologies as if they are exotic fruit to supplement their traditional European dishes.'  As long as this situation remains, there will not be full participation by the producers of these 'exotic' theological creations."

"The full participation of theologians and scholars from the new centers of the Christian faith presents a number of challenges (which Tienou later unpacks).  It may be useful, therefore, to review some of these challenges by asking the question, Why, to use (Andrew) Walls words, is 'the rule of the palefaces untroubled' in Christian theology and scholarship?  In my mind, 'the rule of the palefaces' continues because of the paradox observed by Kenyan theologian John Mbiti: 'The Church has become kerygmatically universal, but is still theologically provincial'.  Perhaps this paradox helps explain why relatively few people realize that the change in Christianity's center of gravity (global North to global South) 'has not only statistical but theological implications as well (Frostin)'.  One may indeed acknowledge that the theological implications of this reality should lead to the development of Christian theologies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  Nevertheless, the theologies of the Western 'province' of the church continue their dominance, even if today 'Western theological leadership of a predominantly non-western church is an incongruity' (Walls).

Awesome stuff.  I'm eatin it up even as I struggle to know how to walk this talk.