Can Western Christians Legitimately Correct other People's Theologies?
I was asked this question by Mark Penner: (Topic diversion alert: Jim, I want to address this elsewhere, but am not sure how. If you know how to start something new, feel free to transfer the discussion elsewhere. But I'm curious enough to learn from you that I don't want to lose the opportunity due to mechanics.)I saw this post of yours in the same weekly summary as the thread in which you posted about Nathan Esala's book (Biblical Translation as Invasion in Postcolonial Northern Ghana), and that juxtaposition triggered a question: Given your familiarity with his work, I'm curious to know how you would relate "orthodoxy" and "unorthodoxy" and the "heartlands of Christianity" to his work with CBS and local re-translation, which as I understand it includes theological reflection. I get what you're saying about prosperity gospel, but are we as outsiders really the best ones to provide the "correctives?"Beyond the prosperity gospel, I wonder, for all our assumptions, is the US even part of the "heartlands?" Certainly not from the Eastern Orthodox perspective. (Are we not perhaps in need of their "correctives?") We are certainly upstarts and late-comers, and though we can claim connection historically to some of the "heartlands" via our Greco-Roman connections, it's also possible that we ourselves have twisted Christianity (in some cases beyond recognition) due to our own hidden assumptions. This is at least true on a popular level, and I would argue that it is also true to a degree of my evangelical bible school / seminary experience. And we tend to be (of course) quite oblivious to what we have done. So do we have the wherewithal to serve as a corrective in other contexts? I don't think it's a given. We who have studied can perhaps give orthodox answers to the questions asked by Greco-Roman influenced minds , but maybe not to the questions being asked elsewhere in the world generated by other assumptions.
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Hi Mark, Thanks for this question, that I have framed as per (see title to the post). My response:To not provide 'correctives' seems to be the most humble approach. This seems to be in vogue today. In our discourse, we (Westerners) make it clear that we do not want to be influential, and that we want to and must learn from others. Yet, and here's the issue ... at the same time, we (Westerners) are incredibly powerful. Our seminaries (thinking of the USA) are highly favoured. Our professors wax lyrical. Outside of the West, other people's seminaries are imitations of ours. Decisions made by our executives travel widely. The dollar sets and implements agendas all over the world. (BT is a case in point.)This means that saying we want to learn from others and are not wanting to be influential, can be a little deceptive or hypocritical. Then, ironically, we get the authority, without the responsibility. Do we actually 'learn from others'? Yes, of course, to some extent. But, not at all to the extent that others are trying to 'learn from us', I suggest. This is surely related to orthodoxy, with a small o: our orthodoxy is bounded by the
The question strikes me as vague. Are you talking about enforcing conformity to American evangelicalism per se (our worship forms, our preoccupation with end times scenarios, etc)?
Or are you talking about correcting theologies that diverge from the normative statements of orthodoxy agreed on in the East and the West, Catholic and Protestant, for well over a thousand years?
A concrete example: Charles Kraft at Fuller suggested that a genuine convert in, say, a Muslim context, needn't and perhaps can't believe in the death of Jesus. Yet the literal, physical death of Jesus is a non-negotiable: it occupies an outsized portion of all four Gospels, it's part of Paul's summary of the Gospel, it's mentioned or assumed in every sermon in Acts, and it's part of the Ecumenical creeds. It would be
To say that the western Christian has no right to speak to the theology of a non-western Christian is to deny the reality of our union in Christ, where there is no east or west, Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.... I am speaking of those who are in Christ, not of denominations or traditions or institutions or members of a particular sect.