Publisher's Synopsis
This book grows out of a desire to come to grips with our new context. Until a few decades ago we believed that Norway was for Norwegians. And Norwegians were Christian - most of them even Lutheran. Slowly at first, but then with increasing momentum, our neighbourhoods and villages changed from being mono-cultural and mono-religious into something less Norwegian, but more like a rainbow society. This book brings together the presentations of a symposium on these issues. It featured two international keynote speakers, Robert Schreiter and Kirsteen Kim, as well as a group of presenters and respondents, to discuss and reflect on the challenges to witnessing to Christ in societies with multiple faith traditions. There is hardly any context for the Christian witness which is not a multi-religious and multicultural context. Also the landscapes of multi-religious and multi-cultural contexts are changing. We are in our witness accountable for the hope we have in the living God, and we are accountable to those for whom the Gospel is given as a word of hope. That is not changing as the landscape and the focus of our joint pilgrimage of the Christian witness is changing. This book is a significant contribution to this reflection, connecting both the Norwegian perspective and the global, ecumenical, and inter-religious challenge. Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. The essays in this volume focus on the developing multi religious context in Norway, but like all good contextual theology they also have implications for the wider church. Because of this, these essays are like paradigms of the kind of theology and missiology that needs to be done in many contexts throughout the world. The face of our world is changing, and so must the way we think about--or, better, imagine--our witness to Christ. Stephen Bevans SVD, Louis J. Luzbetak Professor of Mission and Culture (Emeritus) at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. These papers wrestle with what it means to bear witness to Christ as Lord and Saviour, as changing demography raises new, urgent and sometimes troubling questions. This is contextualised dialogue in process.... Rosemary Dowsett, lecturer, convention speaker & author, United Kingdom. Beate Fagerli is theological adviser to the Council on Ecumenical and International Relations in The Church of Norway. Knud Jorgensen is adjunct professor at the MF Norwegian School of Theology and one of the editors of the Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series. Frank-Ole Thoresen is rector at Fjellhaug International University College, Norway.
