“The theologies from Europe and North America are dominant today in our churches and represent one form of cultural domination. They must be understood to have arisen out of situations related to those countries, and therefore must not be uncritically adopted without our raising the question of their relevance in the context of our countries. Indeed, we must, in order to be faithful to the gospel and to our peoples, reflect on the realities of our won situations and interpret the word of God in relation to these realities. We reject as irrelevant an academic type of theology that is divorced from action. We are prepared for a radical break in epistemology which makes commitment the first act of theology and engages critical reflection on praxis of the reality of the Third World.”
The Academy of the poor – Gerald West citing 1976 “Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians”
3 responses so far ↓
1 why it is important to have a distinctly biblical theology « Willy Robertson // Jun 4, 2008 at 4:59 pm
[...] In the meantime, I read this quote by John Wesley earlier today and decided I would share it in light of Liam’s post “why it is important to have a distinctly African Theology”. [...]
2 Rebecca // Jun 4, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Every ounce of my being totally agrees. I realize, however, that my Biblical knowledge is limited. My theological knowledge, for that matter, is also limited. However, the fact that we, Western English speakers, know of God, can read the Bible in our vernacular, and worship and understand God through the lens of our worldview (and aren’t Jewish) means that Jesus, God, and the Scriptures have been contextualized for our culture. I believe we can’t ignore that. Our culture is lightyears away from the one Christ was incarnate in, and yet, in the act of incarnation into one culture, Christ became incarnate into culture itself. That is the beauty of Christ, of the Cross, is that it culturally contextualized in the fact that Christ was a real man, from a particular culture in a certain part of the world at a specific time in history, and yet, the actions of the Cross exist outside of culture, time, and space. Hallelujah!
All that to say, theology, as seeking greater understanding of God by study, has to occur in every worldview and in every culture, because understanding always comes to the believer through the lens their culture, not separate from it.
3 Liam // Jun 5, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Thanks Rebecca, Great reflections. I think something the mission minded church (to use somewhat of a undefined vague term) needs to be constantly aware of how our readings and outworkings of the Gospel have not occured in a vaccum, that thinking is a mis-representationof the reality we are which is a by-product of the enlightenment rationalist mindset western culture has inherited. Along similar lines I read an interesting post on how jewish block logic can increase our perception of scripture from a guy called Rich Nathan here: http://www.kingdomrain.net/content/view/268/33/