Australian Theologians Writing On Mission
August 1, 2005 – 11:26 am | by Duncan
Stephen Said and Al Hirsch have put out an 11 minute podcast at Neurotribe this last week. Good listening. Especially in relation to their comments on Australian theology.
Stephen: So where would you say is the place for theologising in the Australian context? Where is that done? Who would you say are the major contributors to the conversation?
Alan: Well that’s a good question, because I don’t think, in terms of any published author, that anyone’s doing it in any significant way in this country. Do you know of any doing a theologising like McLaren?
Stephen: Not in such a public forum. I’m not sure if that’s just the nature of the Australian context or what. I can rattle a few names of people that you and I know but they’re not systematising it and putting it out in the public domain.
Alan: I think that highlights the distinction. It’s very very hard to find someone who’s doing the specific theologising particularly in the missional context. What we are finding is that people are doing a lot about missionary thinking. If you had to zone it down it goes down to missional ecclesiology. How the church shapes itself in light of the mission.
So… is it true? Who in Australia is rethinking our theology of mission and church and getting it down for others to read? I can think of Dean Drayton with his fresh look at the New Testament, “Which Gospel? Three New Testament Perspectives”, published by Mediacom. And there’s Mark Strom, “Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace & Community” back in 2000, published by IVP.
Is our theologising happening mostly on blogs and other web sites?
Anybody out there?
4 Responses to “Australian Theologians Writing On Mission”
By Darren on Aug 1, 2005 | Reply
Darren here (posting from university)
There are a number of people that I believe are writing and thinking about theology and missiology in an Australian context…
A couple of people that automatically come to mind are Scott Cowdell and Stephen Pickard who are both at St Marks Theological College in the ACT.
I do have a longer list somewhere… I’ll find it.
By philjohnson on Aug 2, 2005 | Reply
Duncan
In answer to your closing question about “where” the theologising is happening …
1. The first clear place is in academic journals. Theological and missional issues concening Australian culture are certainly written up in academic journals, which of course have a limited audience and limited form of circulation.
2. There are not very many local Christian books released nowadays largely because local religious publishing has shrunk to mostly denominational in-house concerns. The shrinkage in the market reflects, in part, the impact of globalisation in publishing as many publishing houses/imprints have been swallowed up in publishing “empires” like Harper Collins (Rupert Murdoch). Second, the shrinkage also occurred as local Christian book megamarts emerged with sale by catalogue and franchising their stores. These stores operate on a “discount” ethos, which largely involves an artificial inflation of prices, which are then “slashed”, or occur due to bulk-buying, or occur through end-of-hardcover print-runs that allows “firesales” of unused stock. This practice of direct importing and discounting undecut the capacity of local Christian publishing houses to compete and survive — thus Bookhouse Australia, Albatross etc all disappeared in the 1990s.
3. Point 2 has meant that local theologians/missiologists have had to resort to the in-house boutique denominational publisher, or sought an overseas publisher. Or perhaps has lead to e-journals and blogs.
4. The Eastern Orthodox churches in Australia have “theologised” about both “ethnic” ministry in the Australian context; and, the landscape of the Australian desert has stimulated mostly Greek Orthodox writers here to link the ancient desert Fathers into the Aussie desert framework. This sort of work appears in the journal “Phronema” published by St Andrews Greek Orthodox Seminary (Sydney); again, a journal with limited circulation.
5. I feel that I have been working on contextual apologetic, missional and theological issues for some 15 years, and that work is grounded in the Australian context. My publishing life with books began with Albatross (”Shooting for the Stars”, 1993; Sacred Quest, 1995); then Strand (”Riding the Rollercoaster”, 1998); and now occurs in overseas contexts through Lion in the UK, Victor Books in the USA, and contributed chapters to a book published by Kregel (USA). I have also contributed to local journals like The Lutheran Theological Journal (1997, 1998, 2000 and 2002); and overseas (forthcoming in 2006 in International Journal for the Studyof the Christian Church, Missiology) and in secular journals like Australian Religion Studies Review (2004; and in alternate spirituality contexts (like Fiona Horne’s “Pop Goes the Witch”).
My materials about contextual missions with new religions and new spiritualities is grounded in theory and praxis undertaken in the Australian context.
By Duncan on Aug 2, 2005 | Reply
Thanks for your comment Phil. I’m wondering about how we get Australian Christians to engage with such missiology. Limiting theological conversation to handful of academics at a missiology conference is problematic. One of the good thing about your books, Phil, is that your thinking about missional engagement and context is very much linked with your practice.
By alan hirsch on Aug 28, 2005 | Reply
Hi Duncan
just stumbled upon this blog. I could not think off hand when asked the question. Which does raise an issue. But I agree that Phil is doing some really good thinking in missional ways. Ross Langmead’s work on Incarnational Missiology (recently published) is very good as well even if it is technical. It is written from a distinctly liberation theology perspective and unfortunately does not directly address issues of emerging church.
Hope you are well.