What Taimaya Ragui brings to the fore in this book is the context of the confessing community--the one holy catholic church in its varied local expressions. What happens when the centrifugal force of contextual theology meets the centripetal force of catholicity? The great contribution of this book lies in its demonstration that there need be no final conflict between locality and catholicity: the confessing community, which is to say the local church as interpretive community, can be fully catholic and fully contextual--two natures, as it were, in one ecclesial body.
Confessing Community: An Entryway to Theological Interpretation in North East India
This book offers an entryway to the discussion between theological interpretation of Scripture and contextual theology (i.e., tribal theology). It argues for the need to consider the importance of reading the Bible with multiple contexts in mind, while addressing the tension between church and academy in the area of biblical interpretation.
Adapting from the theological method of Kevin J. Vanhoozer, it argues for a multi-contextual biblical-theological interpretation of Scripture that maintains evangelical ethos (i.e., the solas of the Reformation), recognizes canonical sense (i.e., the measuring and guiding criteria), asserts Catholic sensibility (i.e., value the contribution of the local and Catholic church), and affirms contextual sensitivity (i.e., the local/tribal confessing community). These are the contexts that enable Christians to read the Bible as what it is, namely, human and divine discourse.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9781506486789
- eBook ISBN 9781506486796
- Dimensions 6 x 9
- Pages 200
- Publication Date February 14, 2023
Endorsements
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
In this significant work, Taimaya Ragui brings together a unique conversation between theological interpretation of Scripture (TIS) and contextual theology. He does it in such a way that each can learn from the other. I highly recommend this book not only for its accurate accounting of TIS and tribal theology but also as a great example of doing theology.
Varughese John, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies
This North East Indian theologian examines a major problem in biblical interpretation: Should we aspire to be context-free (like in the West) or to be context-bound (like North East India)? Astutely diagnosing the resulting dangers and building on Kevin Vanhoozer, Taimaya Ragui brilliantly offers a clear way forward: a multi-contextual biblical-theological interpretation of Scripture. Enormously important for North East India and for interpreters of the Bible everywhere, Confessing Community is a clarion call for church and academy to refocus on and retrieve what God has said and done and is saying and doing in Jesus and the Spirit.
Ian Walter Payne, Theologians Without Borders
Some do theology without the Bible. Others study the Bible without being aware of their theology. In this excellent book, Taimaya Ragui combines the Bible with theology in an insightful way that avoids both problems. His theological interpretation of Scripture is a much-needed methodology to encounter the contextual realities facing majority world academia and churches.
Dr. Nigel Ajay Kumar, theological education consultant
Dr. Ragui has given us an important book, engaging the theological interpretation of Scripture with a significant Asian context. Where so much of theology is written with a blind Western worldview, we need such a thoughtful and stimulating voice to expand our thinking and help contextualize our theological method more sharply. I thoroughly commend this book to a wide readership.
Bishop Paul Barker, Anglican Diocese of Melbourne