A.B. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel in the Evangelical Church of Vietnam: A Study of Selective Theological Assimilation

The officially distinctive mark of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) is the Fourfold Gospel emblem. It is inherited from A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), through the teaching of C&MA missionaries in Vietnam. However, ECVN adapted some of the teachings and reinterpreted the symbols in the Vietnamese context. The reason is that the assimilation of the Fourfold Gospel to the ECVN’s theology has been selected through a fundamentalistic perspective and a serious uneasiness about Pentecostalism, and hence, it has become disconnected from its original theological foundation.

Literature and Religion: A Dialogue between China and the West

David Jasper and Ou Guang-an, Literature and Religion: A Dialogue between China and the West (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020), ix + 176 pp., ISBN 978-1-5326-5218-9, $24, paperback.

heologies of Land: Contested Land, Spatial Justice, and Identity

K.K. Yeo and Gene L. Green, eds. Theologies of Land: Contested Land, Spatial Justice, and Identity, Crosscurrents in Majority World and Minority Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021), 194 pp., ISBN 9781725265080, $25.00, eBook.

Not Scattered or Confused: Rethinking the Urban World of the Hebrew Bible

Mark McEntire, Not Scattered or Confused: Rethinking the Urban World of the Hebrew Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2019), ix + 288 pp., ISBN: 978-0664262938, $40.00, Paperback.

Comparative Reading as an interfaith dialogue: Reincarnation in the Bhagavad Gita and Resurrection in Thomistic Theology

In a context such as India, religious differences are the focal point of almost every sociopolitical interaction amid growing religious intolerance. This article proposes comparative theology as a viable approach because it takes religious diversity seriously and accords due respect to other religious texts and practices. But while seeking knowledge that bridges religious boundaries, one may confront the possibility of confronting “logically inassimilable” differences in the form of conflicting truth claims. This article will argue that by using apologetics as a truth-seeking endeavor we can constructively approach such instances of cognitive dissonance. For this purpose, a comparative study of reincarnation from the Bhagavad Gita and the resurrection from Thomistic theology will be used as a case study.

Audience Engagement in Lukan Framing of Petrine Speeches in Acts: Considerations for Preaching in an Asian Context

This article evaluates the initial readiness, content engagement, and ensuing response of the listeners in each of Peter’s five speeches in Acts as presented from Luke’s perspective in order to examine the role of the audience in relation to the speeches. Are the Lukan Peter’s speeches shaped and influenced by the narrative audience involved? If so, in what ways and to what extent? We will observe in the five speeches whether the audience within each Lukan frame is presented as Jew or Gentile, crowd or an authoritative figure, receptive or hostile and whether Peter’s speech content manifests a particular rhetorical fit with the depicted audience. Based on these findings from Peter’s speeches, we conclude by considering some applications for preaching to audiences in Asia.

The Sacramentality of Marriage: A Protestant Perspective

From the beginning of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Protestants have departed from the long-held consensus in the Western church that marriage is to be seen as an ecclesial sacrament. This article examines some of the impact of this momentous move on the Christian understanding of marriage. It suggests the need for Protestants to recover, in fuller measure, the sacramentality of marriage, in other words, an affirmation that the outward and visible marriage between a man and woman carries inward and spiritual significance. The article proposes a way this might be done, utilizing John Wesley’s understanding of the “means of grace.” Our hope is that a more robust Protestant view of marriage will contribute more fully to the ongoing discussion on the subject among the various sectors of Christianity and result in the blessing of the church and the world, especially the church in Asia, where sacramentality is inherent in the Asian worldview.

Christianity as “True Religion” According to Karl Barth’s Theologia Religionum: An intercultural Conversation with Selected Asian Christian Theologians

This article orchestrates an intercultural theological conversation between Karl Barth’s theology of religions and selected Asian Christian theologians. The latter rightly stress that Barth’s criticism of religions is mainly concerned with Christian religion, although it does allow for the recognition of “other true lights.” Yet, insufficient attention is paid to the fact that Barth considers Christianity in particular “the true religion.” In critical conversation with these Asian reflections, it becomes clear that we need to move beyond Barth because (1) his Christocentrism neglects God’s presence as Creator and Spirit in other religious traditions, (2) Barth’s actualism does not allow him to properly distinguish between the word of God in the Christian Scriptures and in the “other lights,” and (3) this actualism stands in the way of a full recognition of the historical nature of revelation and salvation in Christ.

What Has Cordilleran Spirituality to do with Evangelicals?

This article brings out some aspects of the Cordilleran primal spirituality of the northern Philippines and two vital lessons for Evangelicals influenced by the Enlightenment worldview. Evangelicals in the West tend to dichotomize the supernatural realm and the natural world. Their propositional spirituality and individualistic lens have shaped many Filipino Evangelicals. In this essay, I use a hermeneutic of appreciation of culture since it is a vital interlocutor of Christian theology. I argue that Cordilleran spirituality has something to contribute to evangelical Christianity. Of particular interest are the Cordilleran view of the existence of spirits and their hermeneutical community.

The Book of Jeremiah as Case Study in Asian Contextual Theology

The past decades have seen many calls for Asian contextual theology thais both recognizably Asian and true to the Bible’s message. Given the lack of consensus on how to do such theology, however, the present study proposes that the Old Testament itself provides a worthy example to follow. Using the book of Jeremiah as a case study, it is suggested that the prophet’s engagemenwith the historical situation and theological issues of the sixth century BCE— fatalism, the identity of the divine vis-à-vis monism, prosperity theology, and cosmic suffering—offers a hermeneutical model for engaging modern Asian religious issues such as Islam, Hinduism, folk religion, and Buddhism.