Ten Theology Books to Watch For – October 2023

The Missionary Movement from the West: A Biography from Birth to Old Age 

Andrew Walls

( Eerdmans )

A long-awaited culmination of scholarship by a pioneer of missiology and global Christianity

The history of the missions is complex and fraught. Though modern missions began with European colonialism, the outcome was a largely non-Western global Christianity. Highly esteemed scholar Andrew Walls explores every facet of the movement, including its history, theory, and future.

Walls locates the birth of the Protestant missionary movement in the West with the Puritans and Pietists and their efforts to convert the Native Americans they displaced. Tracing the movement into the twentieth century, Walls shows how colonialism and missionary work turned out to be essentially incompatible. Missionaries must live on another culture’s terms, and their goal—the establishment of churches of every nation—depends on accepting new, indigenous Christians as equals. Now that Christianity has become primarily an African, Latin American, and Asian religion rather than a European one, the dynamics of the church’s mission have transformed. Sensitive to this shift, Walls indicates new areas of listening to and learning from this new center of Christianity and speculates on the theological contributions from a truly global church.

Throughout his long and fruitful career, Walls told the story of missions as a dedicated Christian scholar, teacher, and mentor. Prior to his passing in 2021, he entrusted the editing of his lectures to his friends and students. The result of this labor of love, The Missionary Movement from the West is a must-read for scholars of missiology, world Christianity, and church history.

 
ADVERTISEMENT:

 

The Anglican Tradition from a Postcolonial Perspective

Kwok Pui-lan

( Seabury Books )

From a major scholar, a postcolonial perspective on key current and historical issues in Anglicanism, foregrounding the voices of theologians and church leaders from the Global South.

In recent years, the Anglican Communion has been consumed by debates about gender, sexuality, authority, and biblical interpretation, which have frequently divided along North/South lines. Much of these controversies stem from the colonial history of Anglicanism.

Written by a pioneer in postcolonial theology, this groundbreaking volume challenges Eurocentrism and racism in the Anglican Communion by highlighting the voices of theologians and church leaders from the Global South. The Anglican Tradition from a Postcolonial Perspective scrutinizes Anglican theology and history to advocate for the decolonization of the Church. It examines controversies on Christianity and the social order, economic justice, worship, gender and sexuality, women’s leadership, and the Church’s mission in a religiously pluralistic world.

<<<<< PREV. PAGE |
NEXT PAGE >>>>>
PAGE 2 of 5