Gospel, Culture, and Transformation

Gospel, Culture and Transformation explores the practice of mission especially in relation to transforming cultures and communities. Mission as Transformation has become a mainstream definition of mission in orthodox Christian circles, especially in the Two-Thirds World and among those involved in ministry with the poor. Vinay Samuel has played a leading role in developing this understanding of mission which he defines as follows: --Transformation is to enable God's vision of society to be actualized in all relationships, social, economic and spiritual, so that God's will may be reflected in human society and his love be experienced by all communities, especially the poor.-- Christian faith is faith in the incarnation of God in a particular place in history so all theology should have to do with the particular. This work studies mission in the work of the leading Indian Mission Theologian, Canon Dr. Vinay Samuel between 1984-1996. It is taken from the author's larger work Seeking the Asian Face of Jesus (Wipf and Stock, 2011). Lamin Sanneh (D. Willis Professor of Mission and World Christianity, Yale University) wrote of that book, --Dr. Sugden brings a sharp theological focus to bear on issues of context, identity and cultural particularity . . . The literature on contextual theology and situational ethics now has a standard to rise to.-- A companion volume, Mission as Transformation, is edited by Viney Samuel and Chris Sugden (Wipf and Stock, 2009). Chris Sugden is the Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream and a former director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.