Overview

What constitutes the unity of the church over time and across cultures? Can our account of the church's apostolic faith embrace the cultural diversity of world Christianity? The ecumenical movement that began in the twentieth century posed the problem of the church's apostolicity in profound new ways. In the attempt to find unity in the midst of the Protestant-Catholic schism, participants in this movement defined the church as a distinct culture—complete with its own structures, rituals, architecture and music. Apostolicity became a matter of cultivating the church's own (Western) culture. At the same time it became disconnected from mission, and more importantly, from the diverse reality of world Christianity. In this pioneering study, John Flett assesses the state of the conversation about the apostolic nature of the church. He contends that the pursuit of ecumenical unity has come at the expense of dealing responsibly with crosscultural difference. By looking out to the church beyond the West and back to the New Testament, Flett presents a bold account of an apostolicity that embraces plurality. 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.

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9780830850952

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The nature of apostolicity has been a vexing question in ecumenical discourse with significant consequences for our understanding of the church and its unity. In this volume John Flett challenges many of the common assumptions of this conversation in order to construct a more fully Christological notion of apostolicity that resists colonizing conceptions of mission and embraces the diversity and plurality of Christian witness in the world without sacrificing the unity of the church. This is a significant contribution to ecumenical and missiological literature that is sure to provoke much conversation. --John R. Franke, theologian in residence, Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis

Author Information

John G. Flett (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) lectures in intercultural theology and mission studies at Pilgrim Theological College, part of the University of Divinity in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Witness of God: The Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth and the Nature of Christian Community and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

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