by: Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer

• Format

  E-Book

  ISBN

  9781441206961

  Pub. Date

  May 1998

  SRP

  $30.00

  Buy

About

"An eye-opening book. Its essays on American Christianity in global perspective will challenge, irritate, provoke, or encourage you."--Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame

In The Global God: Multicultural Evangelical Views of God, editors William and Aida Besancon Spencer challenge readers to develop a fuller understanding of the Triune God of the Bible by listening to the theological narratives of other cultures.

The Global God brings together the keen theological insights of leading evangelical scholars, both men and women, from various cultural backgrounds, including North American, Hispanic, Caribbean, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Chinese, and Korean.

The first chapter articulates the attributes of God found in the Scriptures. In each of the essays that follow, Christians from around the world evaluate the state of theology in their culture, first explaining which attribute of God is best understood in their society and then considering the attribute their culture most often neglects.

The goal of this book, the editors write, [is] to capture different perspectives . . . of the individual God. Through these subtleties of perception, a united image of the paradoxical attributes of God operant in various cultures that comprise today's world emerges: loving power, righteous love, holy strangeness, transcendent immanence, unique creating, traditional uniqueness, merciful holiness, transcendent presence, purposeful holiness, and kingdom-making healing.

The result is a global Christian manifesto giving voice to a number of diverse theologies and allowing readers an opportunity to reevaluate their own understanding of God.

Endorsements

"The Spencers have produced an eye-opening book. Its essays on American Christianity in global perspective will challenge, irritate, provoke, or encourage you, but they will not put you to sleep. Even more will be gained, however, from the chapters that treat the Caribbean, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, China, and Korea. Each of them is a forceful statement concerning the truly universal scope of the Christian message; each is a warm testimony to the truth becoming ever-more apparent, which is that Jesus is at home nowhere in this world, yet everywhere."--Mark A. Noll, Wheaton College

"An impressive array of witnesses showing how a variety of cultural perspectives enriches theology--and, by implication, how the lack of such variety impoverishes it! A must for any who would explore the meaning of faith in God in today's increasingly global community!"--Justo L. Gonzalez, Emory University

"This text offers the reader a rich tapestry of theological vision, some suggestive, others ground breaking. One would need look far and wide to find a text like it among evangelical writing."--Willie James Jennings, Duke Divinity School

"The Global God offers lively and enriching portraits of views of God from around the world, as well as from our own rich, multicultural setting in North America. I was moved by reading these essays and recommend them heartily to pastors and lay leaders as they seek to prepare themselves for the new missionary situation that faces us all at the end of this century."--William Dyrness, Fuller Theological Seminary

"This important book begins the global dialogue among evangelicals that is essential for us to communicate the biblical understanding of God in the particularities of local cultures without losing the uniqueness of its divine revelation."--Paul Hiebert, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School