This pathfinding volume offers a radical critique of the ways World Christianity has been conceptualized by focusing on what has been excluded or marginalized. Attending to race, gender, sexuality, and culture, contributors present rich methodological insights and astute analyses of local Christian contexts that broaden our historical and theological horizons. I highly recommend it.
Alterity and the Evasion of Justice: Explorations of the “Other” in World Christianity
As a contribution to the Fortress series on World Christianity as Public Religion, this volume delves into questions of religious alterity and justice in World Christianity. This volume asks what histories, practices, or identities have been left invisible in the field of World Christianity, and emphasizes liberationist concerns to consider what the field has overlooked or misrepresented. It recognizes that World Christianity scholarship has elevated voices of marginalized Christians from the Global South and challenged Eurocentric modes in the study of religion, but scholars of World Christianity must also attend to the margins of the field itself. Attention to the overlooked "other" within World Christianity scholarship reveals communities that have been excluded and questions of justice within the Global South that have been neglected. This volume points to gender, sexuality, and race as intersectional themes ripe for exploration within the field, while also identifying areas of study that have fallen outside the dominant World Christianity narrative, such as the Middle East and the theological expression of indigenous and aboriginal communities in the aftermath of European colonization. The contributors to this volume advance a robust intercontinental conversation around alterity and the evasion of justice in World Christianity.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9781506491318
- eBook ISBN 9781506491325
- Dimensions 6 x 9
- Pages 364
- Publication Date August 29, 2023
Endorsements
Kwok Pui-lan, Dean's Professor of Systematic Theology at Candler School of Theology, Emory University
Just as women's theology represented the "eruption within the eruption" of liberation theology, so this volume represents the eruption within the eruption of World Christianity. By focusing on alterity, the editors and authors deepen the meaning of World Christianity as a challenge and corrective to Western academic discourse. In giving voice to the "other," they add richness and complexity to understanding Christianity as an intercultural, multiethnic, and gendered world religion. This exciting book continues urgent and creative conversations about World Christianity as public theology, and as a global community in which justice matters. I recommend it very highly.
Dana L. Robert, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, and director, Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University
After an initial burst of interest in World Christianity as a field of study, with a steady flow of publications, it is time for what might be called the second generation of scholars in World Christianity to examine the lacunae in the writings of its pioneers. Alterity and the Evasion of Justice is an important and challenging collection of essays that bring to the fore issues left hitherto unexplored, especially those concerning injustice in its multiple forms. Coming from different parts of the globe with their distinctive contexts, the authors of these essays draw our attention to decolonialism, liberation, feminism, queer studies, and race and cultural theories--so many inconvenient truths that vastly expand the horizon of World Christianity. I enthusiastically recommend this volume for courses in the history of Christianity.
Peter C. Phan, Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Georgetown University
Alterity and the Evasion of Justice: Explorations of the "Other" in World Christianity is among the most important books yet to appear in the field of World Christianity. It accurately names and analyzes the silencing of the "other" that has taken place in both the study and practice of World Christianity. It also serves to let the "others" speak and be heard as compelling voices for justice. No one who cares about what is happening in World Christianity can ignore this work.
Dale Irvin, professor of World Christianity, New School of Biblical Theology
As much as the study of World Christianity has successfully decentered the field by drawing attention to the new expressions of, and dynamics in, Christianity as a global religion, it has also established its own centers of attention and power. Partly this is because Christianity worldwide, as well as in its fresh manifestations, often reinforces social and political norms and hegemonies. The important contribution of this book is that it makes the quest for "the other"--marginalized voices, topics, and perspectives--its central aim. Driven by an ethical passion for social and epistemic justice, the editors and contributors critically engage with questions of gender, sexuality, ecology, and race, to mention just a few areas of investigation, thereby making a significant decolonial intervention in the field. This volume reminds us of what Christianity, at its best, can be: a critical social imagination and a pursuit of new horizons.
Adriaan van Klinken, professor of religion and African studies, University of Leeds
Womack and Barreto's new volume extends the contextual riches of this thoughtful and very important series, which broadens the scope of global Christian voices and perspectives that have long been neglected or unheard. The focus is on epistemic colonization, which has excluded "certain ways of being and knowing" from their appropriate participation in World Christianity. Here is a refreshing reimagining of what ecumenical means: to include religious traditions whose adherents were never before invited to the conversations. Here also is attention to what may be the most challenging issues for Christians in the Global South: naming evasions of justice in their own communities. The reader is drawn in to learn, struggle, and grow through this exciting contribution to the increasingly complex face of World Christianity.
Elsie Anne McKee, Archibald Alexander Professor of Reformation Studies and the History of Worship, emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary