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Book Review: Understanding World Christianity , edited by Charles E. Farhadian

Book Review: Understanding World Christianity , edited by Charles E. Farhadian (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) xi + 280 pp. ISBN 978-1-4051-8248-5 (pbk). £19.99. It is arguably the case that the major ecumenical challenge of the early twenty-first century is not so much the stubbornly persistent divisions between traditional denominations (important though they are), but the growing diversity of Christian communities across the globe, what the foreword to this volume calls ‘the new ecumene’. As the current tensions within the Anglican Communion illustrate, local culture – be it in New York or Kampala – has a powerful role in moulding the shape of the Church. We find ourselves asking, do the many variations on the Christian theme form, as it were, so many dialects of a common language, or have they diverged into several separate languages, unable to communicate with each other? This book does not help us answer that question directly. It has more of a social than a theological agenda and aims to provide an introduction to the bewildering variety of world Christianities and the dizzying speed with which they develop. It seeks, according to its editor’s introduction, to supersede the nineteenth-century paradigm of a Christianity centred on the West. It also tries to move beyond the more recent http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecclesiology Brill

Book Review: Understanding World Christianity , edited by Charles E. Farhadian

Ecclesiology , Volume 10 (2): 273 – May 5, 2014

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Book Reviews
ISSN
1744-1366
eISSN
1745-5316
DOI
10.1163/17455316-01002013
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) xi + 280 pp. ISBN 978-1-4051-8248-5 (pbk). £19.99. It is arguably the case that the major ecumenical challenge of the early twenty-first century is not so much the stubbornly persistent divisions between traditional denominations (important though they are), but the growing diversity of Christian communities across the globe, what the foreword to this volume calls ‘the new ecumene’. As the current tensions within the Anglican Communion illustrate, local culture – be it in New York or Kampala – has a powerful role in moulding the shape of the Church. We find ourselves asking, do the many variations on the Christian theme form, as it were, so many dialects of a common language, or have they diverged into several separate languages, unable to communicate with each other? This book does not help us answer that question directly. It has more of a social than a theological agenda and aims to provide an introduction to the bewildering variety of world Christianities and the dizzying speed with which they develop. It seeks, according to its editor’s introduction, to supersede the nineteenth-century paradigm of a Christianity centred on the West. It also tries to move beyond the more recent

Journal

EcclesiologyBrill

Published: May 5, 2014

There are no references for this article.