A collection of essays voicing “nontraditional” perspectives in Lutheran theology emerging from and for the Global South on a variety of studies and topics.
Traditionally, the Lutheran family of churches has been associated historically and geographically with German and Scandinavian peoples and cultures. Yet the largest Lutheran university operates in Brazil and the largest Lutheran churches are now in Ethiopia and Tanzania. A sector of Lutheranism has now become a microcosm of the momentous gravitational shift of Christianity to the Global South, sharing and appropriating in unique ways many of its features, tensions, and negotiations. However, students, teachers, and religious leaders in the West or the Global North are seldom familiar with the voices of seasoned and emerging Lutheran scholars doing theology from and for churches and communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and among the children of the Global South in North America. This lack of familiarity with southern cast Lutheranism leads to little or no integration of its insights and proposals into curriculum and scholarship at universities, seminaries, and other centers of higher learning and continuing education.
This collection studies the intersection of Global South Christianity and Lutheran ecclesial traditions. Divided into four major areas of research, the chapters introduce western readers to significant contributions of Global South authors writing on Lutheran identity, theological themes, worship and the arts, and missions and society. Using frameworks from fields of study ranging from systematic theology to musicology and from patristics to theologies of migration, authors deal with issues such as confessional commitment, justification and cultural hybridity, religious nationalism, catholicity and migration, public theology amid persecution, devotional modes of theological discourse, the intersection of ritual and justice, the interplay of tradition and innovation in worship, the postcolonial retrieval of African dance in worship, religious pluralism, urban missiology, and human trafficking.
Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Part One: Lutheran Identity 1. The Global South Meets North America: Confessional Lutheran Identity in Light of Changing Christian Demographics Leopoldo A. Sánchez M., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, US 2. Translating the Faith and Confessional Commitment: A Case Study of the Quest for Identity in the Global South Roberto E. Bustamante, Seminario El Reformador, Dominican Republic Part Two: Theological Themes 3. Toward an Evangelical Catholic Witness of Justification in Light of the Hybrid Experience of the Diaspora Alberto L. García, Concordia University Wisconsin, US 4. Christian Engagement in the Context of Religio-cultural Nationalism: An Interaction with Luther’s Two Realm Theology from a Hinduised Public Square in India Sam Thompson, Concordia Seminary Edmonton, Canada 5. Mi Casa Es Su Casa: A Lutheran Proposal on Being the Church Catholic in an Age of Migration in Dialogue with Roman Catholic Insights on Catholicity Leopoldo A. Sánchez M., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, US 6. Getting Beyond Lament: Recasting Contemporary Lutheran Eschatology Ibrahim S. Bitrus, Taraba State College of Education Zing, Nigeria Part Three: Worship and the Arts 7. What Has Ephraim the Syrian to Do with Martin Luther?: Retrieving Syriac Christianity for a Sola Scriptura Church Abjar Bahkou, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, US 8. Musical (Re)Localization as Contextual Theologization Marcell Silva Steuernagel, Southern Methodist University, US 9. Human Rights and Divine Rites: African American Sacramental Justice John Arthur Nunes, California Lutheran University, US 10. Between Tradition and Renewal: The Case of Lutheran Liturgy in Brazil Fabiane B. Luckow, Arts Center of the Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil 11. The Dancing African Church: Music in the Worship of African Christianity William O. Obaga, Confessional Lutheran University, Congo Part Four: Missions and Society 12. The Shifting Landscape of Lutheranism: Exploring the Rise of African Lutheranism and Its Implications Samuel Y. Deressa, Concordia University St. Paul, US 13. The Christian Witness in a Pluralist Context: The Case for a Pedagogical Enterprise Based on the Giftive Paradigm Maximiliano Wolfgramm Silva, Lutheran University of Brazil, Brazil 14. For a Church “Close to Home”: Lutheran Ecclesiology and Missions in the Margins of Urban Brazil Samuel R. Fuhrmann, Seminário Concórdia, Brazil 15. Theological Reflection on the Trafficking of Ethiopian Immigrant Domestic Workers from a Vocational Approach Ebise Dibisa Ayana, Concordia Seminary, US Conclusion Index About the Editors and Contributors
Leopoldo A. Sánchez M. is professor of systematic theology and the Werner R. H. Krause and Elizabeth Ringger Krause Professor of Hispanic Ministries at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. Samuel Yonas Deressa is associate professor of theology and the Global South, the Fiechtner Chair for Christian Outreach, and director of DCO Program at Concordia University St. Paul, Minnesota. Marcell Silva Steuernagel is associate professor of church music and director of the Master of Sacred Music and Doctor of Pastoral Music Programs at Southern Methodist University.
Reviews for The Other Lutherans: Voices from the Global South
The rich collection of essays that make up The Other Lutherans offers a thoughtful and illuminating contribution to the study of Global/World Christianity. Even the book’s title offers a provocative insight, in reminding us that all those “Other” Lutherans - in Africa, Asia, and Latin America - are anything but others and outsiders. Increasingly, they are themselves the global mainstream of the Lutheran tradition, and this wise book explores the implications of that tectonic shift beyond familiar Euro-American boundaries -- Philip Jenkins, Baylor University The Other Lutherans is a thoughtful and timely gift from theologians of the Global South that its editors Leopoldo A. Sánchez M., Marcell Steuernagel, and Samuel Yonas Deressa. Essays engage the thought of Martin Luther as they introduce topics of theological concern to doctrinal, practical-theological, and socio-political analysis, such as migration, music, religious pluralism, and human trafficking. This volume demonstrates generative excitement as it explores the global reach of Lutheran traditions and shows how constructive theology represents the theological method for the future. -- Christine Helmer, Northwestern University, editor of <i>The Global Luther</i> (Fortress Press, 2009) and <i>The Medieval Luther</i> (2020) The Lutherans of Europe’s establishment churches and of the immigrant churches of the Americas and Australia may not have lost their voices, but the confession and application of the Lutheran tradition will increasingly be articulated by the thinkers of emerging and growing majority world Lutheran churches. They are demonstrating how Luther’s way of thinking and his perception of biblical reality function in societal and cultural settings quite different from those of Europe and North America. This volume challenges readers to think with African, Asian, and Latin American theologians who are testing ways of witnessing to Christ in situations around the globe that thirst for the biblical message delivered within the framework of the Wittenberg way of proclaiming life and salvation through Christ. Readers will be stimulated and refreshed by the inter-disciplinary and international conversations generated by scholars involved in the practical life of the church, a group embracing both veteran teachers and a new generation of challenging theologians. -- Robert Kolb, Concordia Seminary
