Christianity and Religious Plurality: Historical and Global Perspectives

Over the past two centuries the Christian faith has spread to all continents. Although more global than ever Christians are religious minorities in most societies. Religious freedom is hardly universal. In the past fifty years millions of people have been uprooted from their traditional homelands in Asia Africa and Latin America. Some have emigrated to Western Europe and North America. The West has become the scene of cultural linguistic and religious variety on a scale unimagined in 1900. Today the full range of faiths and religious practices from all continents are present in Europe and North America. Christians are challenged to come to terms with this changed situation. These developments have intensified religious plurality. Christians all over the world are being urged to understand and engage with this new situation. This volume highlights this new reality and specifies some sources for engagement not least among them the Judeo-Christian scriptures--fundamental to all Christianities--that emerged out of religious plural contexts. On the basis of their faith in the Triune God disclosed in this text all followers of Jesus Christ must interact with these opportunities in todays radically context-sensitive world. While the relativistic ideology of religious pluralism has been rightly subject to critique for the last generation evangelical theology has yet to come to grips with the fact of religious plurality and its implications for Christian theology and witness in the present time. Shenk and his colleagues here provide historical missiological and global perspectives on this phenomenon not only showing what we can learn from how others before us have responded but also indicating how the plurality of our neighbors can be a source of our own revitalization. The cases covered in this book will never be dated! --Amos Yong author of Hospitality & the Other: Pentecost Christian Practices and the Neighbor (2008) It takes a plurality of theologians to deal with the complexity of the worlds plurality of religions. Wilbert Shenk and Richard Plantinga have assembled an all-star cast and they have delivered wisdom that we all need to hear read and act upon. A must-read for anyone interested in Christian mission in the twenty-first century. --Terry C. Muck scholar of religion (with research interests in Theravada Buddhism); comparative missiologist; professor Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1990-2000) and Asbury Theological Seminary (2000-2012) Considering that Western Christianity is increasingly confronted with religious plurality it was an excellent idea of my colleagues Shenk and Plantinga to publish a collective volume on the encounter with religious belief systems such as primal religions Hinduism and Islam taking into account phenomena such as diversity and migration. The volume excels in combining scholarly expertise with faith commitment. It challenges people in church and society and helps Christians in the West and East to rethink missions in a rapidly changing global setting. --Jan A. B. Jongeneel Professor Emeritus of Missiology Utrecht University Wilbert R. Shenk Senior Professor of Mission History and Contemporary Culture Fuller School of Intercultural Studies Pasadena California. Among his publications are Changing Frontiers of Mission and Enlarging the Story: Perspectives on Writing World Christian History. Richard J. Plantinga Professor of Religion Calvin College Grand Rapids Michigan. Among his publications is Christianity and Plurality.