Samuel Yonas Deressa – författare

A Church for the World: The Church’s Role in Fostering Democracy and Sustainable Development challenges theologians and lay readers alike to think about the role of the church vis-à-vis its responsibility to the world. How may the church contribute to democracy and foster sustainable development? Contributors from mostly non-Western theological communities offer historical, developmental, ecclesiastical, and theological perspectives on the church-world relationship, challenging misconceptions and practices that prevent the church from living up to its transformational vocation as salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-16). The driving force behind the questions and perspectives discussed here is Gustavo Gutierrez’s axiom in A Theology of Liberation: A theology which fails to address the most urgent needs of ordinary people is not worthy of the word “theology.” Proceeding from this insight, this book creates awareness about the relationship between religion, democracy, and development, and aims to strengthen the self-understanding of the church with regard to its responsibilities in the world.

A Church for the World: The Church’s Role in Fostering Democracy and Sustainable Development challenges theologians and lay readers alike to think about the role of the church vis-à-vis its responsibility to the world. How may the church contribute to democracy and foster sustainable development? Contributors from mostly non-Western theological communities offer historical, developmental, ecclesiastical, and theological perspectives on the church-world relationship, challenging misconceptions and practices that prevent the church from living up to its transformational vocation as salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-16). The driving force behind the questions and perspectives discussed here is Gustavo Gutierrez’s axiom in A Theology of Liberation: A theology which fails to address the most urgent needs of ordinary people is not worthy of the word “theology.” Proceeding from this insight, this book creates awareness about the relationship between religion, democracy, and development, and aims to strengthen the self-understanding of the church with regard to its responsibilities in the world.

A collection of essays voicing “nontraditional” perspectives in Lutheran theology emerging from and for the Global South on a variety of studies and topics.Traditionally, the Lutheran family of churches has been associated historically and geographically with German and Scandinavian peoples and cultures. Yet the largest Lutheran university operates in Brazil and the largest Lutheran churches are now in Ethiopia and Tanzania. A sector of Lutheranism has now become a microcosm of the momentous gravitational shift of Christianity to the Global South, sharing and appropriating in unique ways many of its features, tensions, and negotiations. However, students, teachers, and religious leaders in the West or the Global North are seldom familiar with the voices of seasoned and emerging Lutheran scholars doing theology from and for churches and communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and among the children of the Global South in North America. This lack of familiarity with southern cast Lutheranism leads to little or no integration of its insights and proposals into curriculum and scholarship at universities, seminaries, and other centers of higher learning and continuing education.The essays in this collection seek to fill a gap in studies on the intersection of Global South Christianity and Lutheran ecclesial traditions. Divided into four major areas of research, the chapters introduce western readers to significant contributions of Global South authors writing on Lutheran identity, theological themes, worship and the arts, and missions and society. Using frameworks from fields of study ranging from systematic theology to musicology and from patristics to theologies of migration, authors deal with issues such as confessional commitment, justification and cultural hybridity, religious nationalism, catholicity and migration, public theology amid persecution, devotional modes of theological discourse, the intersection of ritual and justice, the interplay of tradition and innovation in worship, the postcolonial retrieval of African dance in worship, religious pluralism, urban missiology, and human trafficking.

How might the Christian church effectively engage today's politically charged, profit-motivated world while remaining faithful to its biblical and theological roots? The contributors in this book argue that public theology provides a promising pathway forward. The public theology emerging from these pages has been influenced by the theological interests and commitments of Gary M. Simpson, Lutheran pastor and systematic theologian. His approach to public theology is intersectional and global; he artfully weaves together Lutheran theology and the civil society arena of Critical Social Theory. These essays provide three angles of vision on faith active in twenty-first century public contexts: contextual, ethical, and theological. While not mutually exclusive, these distinct strands of thought engage and challenge the church to substantial reflection on the challenging and often bewildering circumstances of the twenty-first century social world. Some reflect on God's activity within particular global contexts, others offer new perspectives on Lutheran confessional traditions, still others step boldly into innovative theological assertions. As the Christian church is ever forming and reforming, this book urges it to grapple with the "publicness" of its timely and timeless mission.