Reshaping of Mission in Latin America


Book Description

This work describes the re-shaping of mission in Latin America in recent years. It covers a broad spectrum of Christian movements that coexist in the area. The book includes themes related to theology of mission, ecclesiology, history, social action and leadership. It is designed to serve as a guide to understand different Christian trends in contemporary Latin America. Most contributors belong to the young generation of Christian leaders emerging in different locations of the region--from the Central America, the Caribbean, and South and North America. They are sensitive to the differences that are part of denominational identity. This work is unique and calls for a meaningful and mature dialogue among Christians in the continent. Latin America is still a continent of hope where Christianity continues to grow in the midst of poverty, social and political struggles. Christian workers are seeking for unity and mutual understanding. Promising young leaders are emerging and bringing innovation, vision and dynamism to the Latin American church in every country. ""If missiological writing from and about Latin America in the English language has been lagging behind, this volume heralds the revitalization within this arena and area. Alvarez has mobilized a younger generation of bilingual missiologists who have lived or worked across the Americas to provide an update and perspective on Latin American mission that anticipates developments in the next generation even while looking ahead into the middle of the twenty-first-century global context. May this tribe increase!"" --Amos Yong, Professor of Theology & Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA ""This volume is completely unique! I am impressed by the level of maturity shown by the writers. Most of them are part of the new generation of scholars that is reshaping mission theology in Latin America. Their papers are open to dialogue and mutual understanding. Alvarez has gathered excellent documents from writers of the North, Central, South America, Brazil and the Caribbean. This effort is remarkable!"" --Dario Lopez, Professor of Mission Theology, Seminario Biblico Gamaliel and Administrative Bishop of the Church of God in Peru ""This book produces just what it promises. It is a compendium of scholarship and practical wisdom for endeavoring mission in Latin America in the twenty-first century. This fresh resource for scholars, people, and preachers alike will influence the scope and direction of mission in Latin America in the future. Read, reflect, enjoy, but most of all, take seriously its claims and propositions."" --Johnathan E. Alvarado, Senior Pastor, Grace Church International, President and Professor of Theology, The Greater Atlanta Theological Seminary, Atlanta, GA Miguel Alvarez (PhD, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies) is a missionary from Honduras and serves as Director of Hispanic Ministries for the Church of God in the State of Virginia. He is Associate Representative of Superbook at the Christian Broadcasting Network and Adjunct Professor of Theology and Mission at Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. Alvarez is former President of the Asian Seminary of Christian Ministries in Manila, Philippines and former Administrative Bishop of Church of God in the Northeast Hispanic Region of the United States.




Reshaping Protestantism in a Global Context


Book Description

The regional contributions from Africa and Asia show how the old European made denominational differences fade in the light of African Instituted Churches or Pentecostalism. Reshaping Protestantism is not a backward oriented project of reconstructing the original but makes use of the inner protestant pluralism to cope with globalization and changing religious landscapes. Who reads through the different articles can only come to the conclusion: Yes, there is a contribution to be expected from mainline Protestantism in all its variety.




GlobalChurch


Book Description

The missional church conversation has focused almost exclusively on Western thought at the expense of hearing the voices of the global church. In this important book, Graham Hill explores the missional themes and ideas of 103 indigenous and majority world Christians. The future of the global church—including the churches of the West—exists in these global exchanges.




Whole-Life Mission for the Whole Church


Book Description

The sacred-secular divide permeates our churches, our seminaries, and our lives. By perpetuating the false belief that there are some areas of life that are not important to God, some callings that are second-class, and some spheres of society that are not worth engaging, the sacred-secular divide diminishes our understanding of God, discipleship, missiology, and the gospel itself. Seeking to liberate the global church from the power of this dichotomy, Whole-Life Mission for the Whole Church provides theological educators with the tools they need to combat the sacred-secular divide in the very realm where it is so often generated: the classroom. Filled with contributions from practitioners around the world, this book contains a wealth of insight into both the nature of the problem and the possibilities for its solution. The approaches suggested here are biblically rooted, contextually appropriate, and experientially tested, offering an excellent resource for educators desiring to transform their institutional cultures, curriculums, and classrooms into environments that envision, empower, and liberate the whole church for its role in the mission of God.




The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies represents more than a century of scholarship related to the theology, history, and methodology of the propagation of Christian faith and the engagement of Christians with cultures, religions, and societies worldwide. It contains more than 40 articles by experts from different disciplinary and ecclesial perspectives, who are from all continents. It not only offers a broad overview of key approaches and issues in mission studies but it also highlights current trends and suggests future developments. The Handbook builds on renewed interest in mission studies this century generated by recent key statements on mission from ecumenical, evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox sources, and by a spate of academic works on the topic. Western church leaders now apply insights from foreign missions (such as, inculturation, liberation, interfaith work, and power encounter) to today's multicultural societies. Meanwhile, there are new initiatives in mission from the Majority World, where most Christians live, so that sending is not only 'from the west to the rest' but 'from everywhere to everywhere'. Therefore, this volume aims to reflect the voices of the receivers of mission as well as its protagonists and to raise awareness of new movements. In a time of growing recognition of 'religions' more generally, this work examines and theorizes the missional dimensions of the world's largest religion: its agendas, growth, outreach, role in public life, effect on cultures, relevance for development, and its approaches to other communities.




Streams of Latin American Protestant Theology


Book Description

Although church historians often call the 19th century the Great Century of Protestant mission, for Latin America it was the 20th century that was the great century of Protestant growth and expansion. The 20th century witnessed vast societal changes and the realization of systemic poverty and injustice as well as the exponential growth, pentecostalization, and diversification of Latin American Protestantism. Latin American Protestant Theology emerged during this century of change. This text provides an introduction to Latin American Protestant Theology by engaging its dominant theological streams (Liberal, Evangelical, and Pentecostal) and how they understand themselves through the lens of mission. The text offers both a critique of the Christendom cartography that is dominant in Latin American Protestant Theology as well as suggestions for how to move towards a transformative theology of mission. The primary intention of this text is to offer an informed outline and analysis of the theological landscape of Latin American Protestantism. The secondary intention of this book is to note the contributions as well as deficiencies of the streams of LAPT in the hope to signal a possible path towards the development of an integral, transformative, contextual, and decolonial theological voice.




The Truth About Grace


Book Description

HAS THE GRACE MESSAGE BECOME LAWLESS? MANY MINISTRIES TODAY SAY GRACE IS FREEDOM FROM THE “THOU SHALT NOTS” OF THE BIBLE. SOME SAY WE LIVE UNDER GRACE, NOT UNDER THE LAW. BUT IS THIS WHAT GOD’S GRACE ACTUALLY MEANS?




The Church in Colonial Latin America


Book Description

The Church in Colonial Latin America is a collection of essays that include classic articles and pieces based on more modern research. Containing essays that explore the Catholic Church's active social and political influence, this volume provides the background necessary for students to grasp the importance of the Catholic Church in Latin America. This text also presents a comprehensive, analytic, and descriptive history of the Church and its development during the colonial period. From the evangelization of the New World by Spanish missionaries to the active influence of the Catholic Church on Latin American culture, this book offers a complete picture of the Church in colonial Latin America. The Church in Colonial Latin America is ideal for courses in the colonial period in Latin American history, as well as courses in religion, church history, and missionary history.




Shaping Truth, Reshaping Justice


Book Description

Shaping Truth, Reshaping Justice explores the realities of the Nigerian truth commission, the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission. In doing so, the book examines the events of the Nigerian truth telling forum, comparing some of its aspects to the South African and Latin American counterparts from which it derived a number of its elements. Using the most public of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria's history as a case study, Shaping Truth, Reshaping Justice scrutinizes the ways in which the HRVIC interacted with the Nigerian socio-political melee and the way in which the pertinent ethnic groups presented a narrative of their 'enduring conflict.' Nwogu argues that this interaction does not indicate the participation of ethnicity in politics; rather, it is the politicization of ethnicity by elite members of these ethnic groups who utilize the official and moral forum that truth commissions provide to revitalize ethnic identities for the purpose of elite political aspirations. Ethno-political groups appropriated the commission as a formal space for the (mis)remembering of histories and the re-arrangement of politicized memory so as to mobilize constituencies, claim and reclaim political territories and gain access to social and economic resources at the national level. The government undermined its own ability to deliver the spectrum of justice that was particularly available through the HRVIC. This severely limits the potential for reconciliation. Looking at the HRVIC from this point of view shows the truth commission, designed to symbolize discontinuity, in reality reflects continuity with the past.




Plazas and Barrios


Book Description

In recent years the travel industry has promoted trips to cultural landscapes that contain great historical and symbolic landmarks, and Latin American towns and cities are anything but isolated from this trend. Many historic city centers in Latin America have been preserved intact from the colonial era and today may serve institutional, commercial, or residential needs. Now economic forces from outside the region have created a demand for the preservation of historically "authentic" districts. This book explores how heritage tourism and globalization are reshaping the Latin American centro histórico, analyzing the transformation of the urban core from town plaza to historic center in nine cities: Bogotá, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Cartagena, Colombia; Cuenca, Ecuador; Havana, Cuba; Montevideo, Uruguay; Puebla, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Trinidad, Cuba. It tells how these pressures, combined with the advantage of a downtown location, have raised the potential of redeveloping these inner city areas but have also created the dilemma of how to restore and conserve them while responding to new economic imperatives. In an eclectic and interdisciplinary study, Joseph Scarpaci documents changes in far-flung corners of the Latin American metropolis using a broad palette of tools: urban morphology profiles, an original land-use survey of 30,000 doorways in nine historic districts, numerous photographs, and a review of the political, economic, and globalizing forces at work in historic districts. He examines urban change as reflected in architectural styles, neighborhood growth and decline, real estate markets, and local politics in order to show the long reach of globalization and modernity. Plazas and Barrios spans all of Spanish-speaking America to address the socio-political dimensions of urban change. It offers a means for understanding the tensions between the modern and traditional aspects of the built environment in each city and provides a key resource for geographers, urban planners, architectural historians, and all concerned with the implications of the emerging global economy.