One of the most striking examples of the value of intercultural theology for Western theologians is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The decisive insight for Bonhoeffer was his discovery that the church transcends the boundaries of class, race, and nation. He came to this insight through his negative experience in a nationalist German church (which in his view was a contradiction in terms) and through the positive experience of his ecumenical contacts, among them his discovery of the black churches in New York City. Bonhoeffer was the first-and, for at least forty years, the only-theologian who saw the political and theological relevance of the spirituality of these black churches.
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| | Intercultural Theology and the Study of Religions was introduced as a new discipline at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in the latest curriculum. Being defined as fundamentally interdisciplinary in teaching and research, it is more than just a new segment of theology. It refers to a changed socio-political context, which is to be apprehended not only through a dissociated description of phenomena, but by seeking out the places where people are struggling for recognition, dignity and respect. These signs of our times call for our commitment: (1) to a theological opening up to the challenge of the cultural and religious other, (2) to making the cultural and religious differences a valued innovation for one’s own discourse, and (3) to take up a problem-oriented focus. |
 | The intercultural and interreligious discourse pertains to the plurality of cultures within and beyond Christianity on the one hand, and to the plurality of religions on the other hand. |
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Mission Studies as Intercultural Theology and its Relationship to Religious Studies
In the second half of the 20th century, transculturality became a central theme of Mission Studies. Addressing this issue theologically has become known as “Intercultural Theology”. In its current approach, the subject – from a wide theological perspective - focuses on the encounters and disputes between Christianity and non-Christian religions, as well as on theological reflections about the non-western cultural dialects of Christianity in close connection with the general question of ecumenism. Additionally, there is the explicit and conscious acceptance of Religious Studies as a definite point of reference for mission research. The result is that Mission Studies has developed into a diversified, empirically substantiated Christian theology of cultures and religions. Against this background, Intercultural Theology/Mission Studies has to be seen as a theological discipline that reflects on: 1.) the relationship between Christianity and non-Christian religions and worldviews and 2.) the relationship between western Christianity and its non-western cultural variations.
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George Newlands, The Transformative Imagination: Rethinking Intercultural Theology (2004)
The question of the relation between faith and culture is at the centre of theological studies today. A major advance in human understanding in recent decades has been the discovery of the manifold ways in which human thought takes place within an almost invisible element which are the shared systems of representation and meaning denoted by the concept of ‘culture’. Testing questions have been posed regarding the nature of Church within a social representation of the human which understands culture to be a fragmentary and piecemeal milieu of meaning in which focus and stability are as quickly constructed as they are destroyed by the centrifugal energies of discourse, representation, negotiation and exchange.
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Annette Meuthrath : Interculturality
If contextuality is/should be one facet of theology, then interculturality is/should be the other. In answering the question “Which task do you think should be given priority in theology at the beginning of the 21st century?”5 Felix Wilfred wrote: “One of the tasks ahead is to forge greater dialogue among the various contextual and regional theologies.”6
Every Christian theology is influenced by certain contexts, but at the same time, it is an expression of a universal whole, a universal religion.7 In so far as each Christian theology is part of a whole, contextuality means not to be isolated from this whole but rather to be an integrative part of the universal unity. This plurality in unity can only function if there is a dialogue between people, between theologians of different cultural contexts. Such a dialogue across the cultural boundaries, such an intercultural dialogue prevents misunderstandings, isolation and one-sidedness.Read it all here
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In his essay on "Black Theology in American Religion," James Cone speaks of the "warring ideals" that have divided African identity and American identity. These same warring ideals continue today for black theologians in the debate between African and Christian identities. For Cone, black theology is distinctly Christian, but contextualized in black American experience with its roots in African culture.I
The re-contextualization of theology arises in a somewhat different way for women. Unlike subordinated races who have preserved some remnants of an alternative culture from a period prior to their enslavement, the subordination of women takes place at the heart of every culture and thus deprives women of an alternative culture with which to express their identity over against the patriarchal culture of family and society. Some cultures give women distinct religious rituals and cults and quasi-autonomous social and economic groupings, providing some basis for a women's culture or "sub-culture." But even these female groupings remain largely invisible to the public culture, defined as male
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