Book reviews

The Qur’an in Context: A Christian Exploration by Mark Robert Anderson

Mark Anderson has answered a foundational question: ‘Can Christians fully grasp the Qur’anic worldview without becoming Muslims?’ Anderson has, by engaging the Qur’anic faith dialogically (grace) and by analyzing its doctrines thematically (truth).

The Capacity to be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength by Clemens Sedmak

Clemens Sedmak takes readers on a tour which spans the globe and plums the depths of the human spirit. Along the way, he introduces a diverse cast of novelists, philosophers, clerics, missionaries, and prisoners—from Chinua Achebe and Saint Augustine, Vaclav Havel and Isaiah the Solitary to Corrie Ten Boom and…

Intercultural Ministry: Hope for a Changing World edited by Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Jann Aldredge-Clanton

Intercultural ministry is “the defining theological line of the twenty-first century.” So begins this volume of fifteen essays that seeks to answer the question: “how do we build healthy communities that bring us together as next-door neighbors and global neighbors?”

Engaging Globalization: The Poor, Christian Mission, and Our Hyperconnected World by Bryant L. Myers

Globalization is complex, highly debated, and often misunderstood. A number of Christians, acting out of fear, seek to resist globalization. Others, because of its complexity, have given up trying to understand it. Instead, they attempt to ignore this global-sized elephant walking around the room. Bryant Myers in his…

Encountering the History of Missions: From the Early Church to Today by John Mark Terry and Robert L. Gallagher

John Mark Terry and Robert L. Gallagher, articulating their thesis in the concluding chapter of the book, assert that we can learn from both the successes as well as failures of the efforts of missionaries who have gone before us.

Building Bridges to Oral Cultures: Journeys Among the Least-reached by Carla Bowman with James Bowman

I agree with the importance of taking an oral approach to sharing the Good News about Jesus Christ because there are over four billion people in the world who can’t, don’t, or won’t read. Few, if any, of these people, would read scripture, even if it was published in their language.

Churches on Mission: God’s Grace Abounding to the Nations edited by Geoff Hartt, Christopher R. Little, and John Wang

Samuel Escobar’s analysis in his work The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone that the new global mission is characterized by “missions from everywhere to everywhere” offers a helpful backdrop to what the editors were aiming to accomplish in Churches on Mission: God’s Grace Abounding to the…

African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, and Impact Edited by Robert J. Priest and Kirimi Barine

Evangelical Christianity’s explosive growth on much of the African continent cannot be fully understood without paying attention to the leaders God has used to bring this about. The present book breaks ground in the study of leadership in African churches by building on a foundation of extensive empirical research.

Building Bridges to Oral Cultures: Journeys Among the Least-Reached

This book records, in an engaging autobiographical style, the fascinating journey the Bowmans have taken with the sole purpose of discipling believers in grassroots oral cultures and contexts.

Faith-Based Development: How Christian Organizations Can Make a Difference, by Bob Mitchell

Reviewed by Jerry M. Ireland

Training Missionaries: Principles and Possibilities, by Evelyn Hibbert and Richard Hibbert

Reviewed by Cameron D. Armstrong

The Last Christians: Stories of Persecution, Flight, and Resilience in the Middle East, by Andreas Knapp

Reviewed by Matthew Friedman

Restored to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Shame, edited by Paul H. DeNeul

Reviewed by Cory Wilson

Muslim Insider Christ Followers: Their Theological and Missional Frames, by Jan Hendrik Prenger

Reviewed by John Cheong

Eastern Voices: Volume 1: Insight, Perspective, and Vision from Kingdom Leaders in Asia in Their Own Words, Compiled by Asian Access

Reviewed by R. Bruce Carlton

Contemporary Mission Theology, edited by Robert Gallagher and Paul Hertig

Reviewed by Geoff Hartt

Christian Barriers to Jesus: Conversations and Questions from the Indian Context by J. Paul Pennington

Reviewed by David Cashin

Serving God in a Migrant Crisis: Ministry to People on the Move

The primary objective of Serving God in a Migrant Crisis is to address the problematic ‘disembodying’ of displaced peoples—an attitude carried too often by Western Christians …

Living Among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-Making and Ex-Muslim Christians

This book begins with the research question of whether ex-Muslim Christians (CMBs) engage in theology making. How do converts and their communities become makers of theology?

Christianity and Religious Plurality: Historical and Global Perspectives

… one should instead speak of plurality—an acknowledgment that human societies have always contained multiple religious systems that remain clearly distinct from each other.

Scattered and Gathered: A Global Compendium of Diaspora Missiology

Scattered and Gathered is a much-needed contribution for those seeking to frame liberal arts and theological education in the context of an ever-changing diaspora society and a great resource for churches seeking to address the needs of the diaspora among them.

Serving God in a Migrant Crisis: Ministry to People on the Move

Christian Mission & Economic Systems: A Critical Survey of the Cultural and Religious Dimensions of Economies

Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-Making and Ex-Muslim Christians