I arrived late at our 'lunchtime theology' yesterday and had to eat my baked potato right under the nose of our speaker. Good job I know him well and he's such a decent bloke! Stephen Bevans, Catholic missiologist from the US with a great approach to thinking theologically about mission, was introducing his latest book An Introduction to Theology in Global Perspective. Get yourself a copy!
The thought which hooked me in his presentation and our discussion afterwards was about contextualised theology. We all agree that theology (at least Christian theology) has to be contextualised to make any sense. But then comes the problem. If my theology is so contextualised (expressed in my mother tongue, using my own cultural idioms, resonating with the life of my community, expressing my own inner deeply personal experience of divinity and life) then how on earth can anyone else be expected to make any sense of it! Now I undserstand why I struggle with Friedrich Schleiermacher - he was German! But more seriously this does open up a very interesting discussion about the inter-cultural dialogue of inculturated theologies.
On Pg. 187 Bevans writes, "To do theology from a global perspective, ironically, is to look to the local. ... We need ... the blossoming of theologies in every part of the world, in every historical situation , among every social group." The real challenge is then the "cross-pollination" of these theologies - in such a way as retains the integrety of each?
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Yes, good question, and one that is very puzzling too. Talk about Catholic theology, just last night I was reading an article in Time magazine about the conflict in the Catholic church re: Barack Obama's invitation to and honor given him by a catholic university. The Catholic church is also in conflict re: Ted Kennedy and the funeral he was accorded. Both Obama and Kennedy are pro-choice, and several in the Catholic church feel they should not be embraced by an catholic institution, let alone be given honorary doctorates and catholic funeral rites.
ReplyDeleteAll this is happening here in the U.S, but I would be interested to hear an articulation of theology on this issue from across the atlantic.
Interesting too that it comes at a time when in England the Catholic church is sending priests who want to get married to the Anglican church,
or is it the other way round--Anglicans opening doors to pro-marriage catholic priests?
I'd like to read some informed theological arguments on this.
Thanks for the blog
Harriet Masembe