In search of holistic Christian witness, missionaries have increasingly sought to take into account all the dimensions of people's cultural and religious lives—including their songs, dances, dramatic performances, storytelling, and visual arts. Missiologists, educators, and practitioners are cultivating new approaches for integrating the arts into mission praxis and celebrating creativity within local communities. And in an increasingly globalized and divided world, peacemaking must incorporate the use of artistic expressions to create understanding among peoples of diverse faiths. As Christians in all nations encounter members of other religions, how do they witness among these neighbors while respecting their distinct traditions?
Building on sessions at the 2018 Missiology Lectures at Fuller Seminary, this book explores the crucial role of the arts in helping people from different cultures and faiths get caught up in the gospel story. Scholars and practitioners from throughout the world present historical and contemporary case studies and analyses. Their subjects include the use of Christian songs during the Liberian civil war and Ebola crisis, social critiques in contemporary Chinese art, interreligious dialogue through choir music in Germany, aesthetic practices of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, and how hip-hop music empowers urban young people in globalizing Mozambique.
These essays foster a conversation about the work that missiologists, art critics, ethnodoxologists, and theologians can do together to help guide church leaders in promoting interfaith and intercultural relationships. While honestly identifying weaknesses in the church's practice, the contributors call all Christians to understand the power of art for expressing cultural and religious identity, opening spaces for transformative encounters, bridging divides, and resisting injustice.
Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.
Table des matières
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction (Roberta R. King and William Dyrness)
Part I: Setting the Stage
1. Arts and Mission: A Complex Story of Cultural Encounter (James R. Krabill)
2. Performing Witness: Loving Our Religious Neighbors Through Musicking (Roberta R. King)
Part II: Christians Reaching Out to Their Neighbors
3. God Moves in a Mysterious Way: Christian Church Music in Multifaith Liberia, West Africa, in the Face of Crisis and Challenge (Ruth M. Stone)
4. Sounds, Languages, and Rhythms: Hybridized Popular Music and Christian-National Identity Formation in Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia (Sooi Ling Tan)
5. Art as Dialogue: Exploring Sonically Aware Spaces for Interreligious Encounters (Ruth Illman)
6. ‘Simba Nguruma’: The Labor of Christian Song in Polycultural, Multifaith Kenya (Jean Ngoya Kidula)
Part III: Christians Creating New Interfaith Expressions
7. Crate-Digging Through Culture: Hip-Hop and Mission in Pluralistic Southern Africa (Megan Meyers)
8. ‘Let the Sacred Be Redefined by the People’: An Aesthetics of Challenge Across Religious Lines (Michelle Voss Roberts and Demi Day Mc Coy)
9. ‘Wild, Wild China’: Contemporary Art and Neocolonialism (Joyce Yu-Jean Lee)
10. The Poetic Formation of Interfaith Identities: The Zapatista Case (William Dyrness)
List of Contributors
Image Credits
Name and Subject Index
Scripture Index
A propos de l’auteur
William A. Dyrness is professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of many books, including Modern Art and the Life of a Culture (with Jonathan Anderson), Senses of the Soul: Art and the Visual in Christian Worship, Reformed Theology and Visual Culture, Changing the Mind of Missions (with James Engel), Theology Without Borders (with Oscar García-Johnson), and was a general editor of the Global Dictionary of Theology.