Monday, November 16, 2020

UM & Global Collection: Culture, Context, and the Global Church

Three previous UM & Global collections have looked at issues of global ecclesiology: one on the UMC as a global church, one on church autonomy and the Commission on the Structure of Methodism Overseas (COSMOS), and one on ecumenical perspectives on the global UMC.

The latest collection continues that theme by looking at culture, context, and the global church. These pieces examine the impact of culture on what it means to be a global United Methodist church, the challenges of communicating and doing theology across cultural differences, the definition of contextualization, issues of contextualization in Europe and the United States, and ministry practices for multicultural congregations.

The collection includes twenty-four essays, many of them by Robert A. Hunt. Additional essays are by David W. Scott, William Payne, Darrell Whiteman, Barry Bryant, Michael Nausner, David Field, Hendrik R. Pieterse, Heinrich Bolleter, and David Markay. As always, discussion questions help connect these writings to pressing contemporary questions for United Methodist leaders, General Conference delegates, and students.

2 comments:

  1. I appreciate the collections that UM & Global is putting together. However, in this instance particularly I notice a glaring lack of women authors. Are there no women writing in this field on this topic?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cynthia, I noticed that too as I was putting together the collection. As you know, UM & Global frequently features women authors, and women authors have written about the related topics of global ecclesiology and church autonomy, along with a variety of other topics. But given the highly episodic nature in which the blog treats most topics, it wasn't until I was putting together this collection that I noticed that the conversation around context and culture has occurred among male authors. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but it's something I'll consider in content development going forward.

      Delete