The Oxford Handbook of Asian Christian Theologies

Abstract

This Oxford Handbook of Asian Christian Theologies proudly joins its predecessor, The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia , in the prestigious Oxford Handbooks series. Whereas Wilfred’s volume deals with Asian Christianity as a whole, with emphasis on its regional varieties, cross-cultural flows, social-cultural processes, interactions with other religious traditions, and future trajectories, our volume, which is to be perused in the light of the information provided by its predecessor, focuses explicitly on Asian Christian theologies . As an academic discipline seeking to understand and express the Christian faith, Christian theology has been associated almost exclusively with the scholarly achievements of conciliar, patristic, medieval, and modern theologians, loosely identified as “Western.” With the maturation of Christianity outside of the West in the “rest” of the globe, especially following decolonization in the twentieth century, and with the rise of world Christianity as a global religion, serious and sustained efforts were made by local theologians to produce contextualized and indigenous theologies, in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The volume is divided into three parts, each responding to a major aspect of Asian Christian theologies. The first is their history and trends, the second is their contents, and the third is their major figures.