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186 pages

English

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A global Christian manifesto in which contributors examine attributes of God--the ones that are most understood in today's culture and the ones that need to be more fully apprehended.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 mai 1998
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441206961
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0864€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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BridgePoint, an imprint of Baker Books, is your connection for the best in serious reading that integrates the passion of the heart with the scholarship of the mind.

© 1998 by Aída Besançon Spencer and William David Spencer
Published 1998 by BridgePoint Books an imprint of Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
eISBN 978-1-4412-0696-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction

1. The God of the Bible Aída Besançon Spencer
2. God of Power versus God of Love: The United States of America William David Spencer
3. The Complementarity of God’s Love and God’s Righteousness: The United States of America Gretchen Gaebelein Hull
4. God the Stranger: An Intercultural Hispanic American Perspective Aída Besançon Spencer
5. Transcendent but Not Remote: The Caribbean Dieumème Noëlliste
6. Unapproachable God: The High God of African Traditional Religion Tokunboh Adeyemo
7. The God above Tradition Who Speaks to All Traditions: An African (Ghanaian) Perspective Edward John Osei-Bonsu
8. Viewing God through the Twin Lenses of Holiness and Mercy: A Chinese American Perspective Grace Y. May
9. Shang-di: God from the Chinese Perspective Tsu-Kung Chuang
10. Communicating the Biblical Concept of God to Koreans Bong Rin Ro
11. The Korean American Dream and the Blessings of Hananim (God) Tae-Ju Moon

Conclusion
Notes
Subject Index
Scripture Index
Other Books by the Authors
Litaneia to the Great God
Giving gifts in unexpected places, sharing rain from cornucopic clouds, beckoning from unfamiliar faces, making family members out of crowds,
sentinel against the day of sickness, wearing mercy like an humble gown, worthy from the wounds of hate’s resistance, breaking seals that bring the judgment down,
stretching hands that open an escape route, potently that hold all foes at bay, comforting the lonely and the destitute, lifter of the fallen on the way,
neverending source of information, unfathomed profundity of thought, opening to honest inclination, working meaning in all wisdom taught,
striding in high holiness transcendent, stumbling in the abject in the street, immanent to all of life’s abundance, sealing walls where love and chaos meet,
God, who is the font of all creation, source of beauty and all that is true, work your purpose through our hesitation; take our hands and form your world anew.
William David Spencer, Aída Besançon Spencer February 1997
Preface
A t first Mary and Joseph must have been puzzled. Was not this child Jesus supposed to be Israel’s messiah sent by God to deliver the Jews? And, yet, here were astronomers from the East, drawn by God’s annunciation star in the heavens, waiting in deference to honor this incarnate gift of God as their camels snorted and stamped away the journey and weary, dusty servants unpacked regal treasures. As the years passed, Jesus’ family and followers grew accustomed to the steady queue of pilgrims and emissaries dropping in on him from points across the known world the Greeks in John 12:20–36, the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24–30, the woman cured of a chronic hemorrhage in Mark 5:21–34, identified by Bishop Eusebius as a Gentile because she built in gratitude a bronze statue of herself being healed by Jesus at her gates, and the ruler Abgar, whose reputed exchange of letters with Jesus, requesting a healing and offering sanctuary, were examined by Eusebius in the Record Office of Edessa (Eusebius History, 7.18; 1.13).
“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” Jesus warned his disciples in John 10:16. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
This present book is the sound of the other sheep. Through general revelation God has always spoken to all nations and finally through specific revelation God drew people of all nations to be reconciled through Jesus the Christ (God’s uniquely commissioned agent).
Speaking of his mission to die to forgive the sins that separated humanity from its Creator, Jesus explained to the seeking Gentiles and to his Jewish disciples in his last public discourse, recorded in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” All people, as we see revealed by the context, included the Gentiles, the “barbarians,” those who appear to be “other,” “different.” For each culture “barbarians” differ. For Anglo-Americans, British, and Europeans, the “Gentiles” may be Hispanics, Africans, Chinese, Koreans, and their descendants. For each successive group, everyone else becomes “other,” like a rotating compass dial, pointing away from us, when we have fixed ourselves as “north.”
Each of us who are not messianic, Christian Jews are among the “other sheep” Jesus promised to draw by the cross to be reconciled to God and to join a new supracultural “Israel.” We still remain other sheep, members of our own cultures, contextual within our own contexts, but now united as a rich, diverse panorama of southdown, rambouillet, cheviot, dorset, karakul, suffolk, hampshire, merino, shropshire and many more varieties of sheep in Jesus’ great transcultural flock. Drawn from that global flock, this book is produced by Jesus’ community of “others.” Some of the authors are dear friends; many we have never met, yet we are united through Christ. Each writes from her or his own varied culture with one central message, though the language, context, and history may give us a different perspective. That message has to do with the God who has drawn us together to be one people. This book concerns that global God who calls all people into relationship with God and each other through Christ. This book, in essence, is a Christian communal effort.
We are deeply grateful to each of the contributors as well as to God’s body on earth, the supracultural Christian context that made this writing possible. Specifically, we would like to honor four faculty secretaries who helped patch together the multipieced fabric that is the book’s final tapestry: Heidi Hudson, Beth Newhall, Diane Newhall, and Laura Gross. Laura especially labored arduously to finalize these chapters in a unified format. Julie Martin, as well, worked on the discs. Elizabeth Geesaman Lynn efficiently completed the Scripture Index.
We could never have had the financial resources or the time to pursue this project without the full support of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The excellent library staff was particularly helpful, especially our friend and colleague, the most able Dr. Freeman Barton.
We also thank the United Bible Societies for permission to use the New Revised Standard Version. If no version is indicated, the translation is either the NRSV or an author’s own translation from the original Hebrew or Greek texts. Special citation must be made of Bob Hosack, who first enlisted the project and championed it through two publishers, and Jim Weaver, who shared Bob’s enthusiasm and encouragement, Maria den Boer, our editorial liaison, and Baker Book House, the current cutting-edge publisher of evangelical Christianity with whom we are honored to serve.
Finally, we thank Almighty God, who reached out to each of us in our corners of the globe and made us joint heirs in Jesus’ nation.
Introduction
I f one message emerges from the book that follows, it is that God has infused knowledge of Godself into all traditions and, yet, God stands above every tradition calling all people into a new transtraditional relationship with the Supreme God of the universe through Jesus Christ: what the New Testament calls the rule of Christ. Contextual to each of our cultures, we Christians are yet supracontextual in Christ in that we enter a new context: the transcultural reign of God. God has entered human borders, but those artificial boundaries cannot contain the new nation God creates. Into that new nation all people are being called, all cultures are being examined and challenged, all contexts widened to a Christian inclusivity.
This is, therefore, not a “many faces but one God” book. This book is a global Christian manifesto a chorus of Christ’s voices around the world, unique yet harmonious. In a choir, sopranos, tenors, altos, basses, all provide a different tone. Each of our writers looks from a unique historico-cultural perspective at this two-part question: Through what attribute is God most understood in your culture and what attribute of God needs to be more fully apprehended? The point of the book is to build a global theosology a summary of how God is revealing Godself in this transmillennial period.
The book is not a potpourri of other voices. Each writer was given the same task: select the attribute of God most evidently operant and apprehended in your culture and supplement for the rest of us what each of our cultures has perhaps missed about that aspect. Then, tell us what attribute of God may have been deemphasized and needs to be appropriated from the revelation emphasized in the Bible and perhaps in other cultures. Essentially, this is a cross-pollination of insights into the general revelation of God, tested against the specific, unifying revelation in the Bible. How each writer went about the task is what makes the book so valuable, and to the editors so marvelous. Each chapter is unique.
Each writer, as both a loyal member of his or her nation, but as well a loyal citizen in the reign of God, assumes the f