Cultural Anthropology in Christian Perspective (original) (raw)
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begin by telling their journeys as anthropologists both motivated by faith. While Janell's research was about ghetto formation and resident activism like racial and economic issues, Brian specialty is Global Christianity, short-term mission and church organization. A few technical terms were introduced like anthropos which is the Greek word for human and cultural anthropology as the description, interpretation and analysis of similarities and differences in human cultures.
MB 700 Anthropology for Christian Mission
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Textbook: Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, fifth edition by Gary Ferraro Readings: Anthropology and Christian Mission: A Reader, Darrell Whiteman (ed.)
MB 830 Anthropology for American Church Ministry
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1. John Naisbitt (1982) Megatrends 2. Eugene Nida (1954 or 1997) Customs and Cultures 3. David Burnett (1990) Clash of Worlds 4. William Dyrness (1989) How Does America Hear the Gospel? 5. Edward Stewart & Milton Bennet (1991) American Cultural Patterns 6. Robert Bellah, et al (1985) Habits of the Heart 7. Lesslie Newbigin (1989) The Gospel in a Pluralist
MS 671 Anthropology for Mission Practice
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b. Anthropology for Christian Witness, by Charles Kraft (493) c. Living in Color: Embracing God’s Plan for Diversity, by R Woodley (217 pp) d. Figu ring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide, by Craig Storti (167 pp). e. The Anthropology of Globalization: Cultural Anthropology Enters the 21st Century, by Ted Lewellen (267 pp).
WM 511 Cultural Anthropology Syllabus, Winter 2017 (Graduate level, modular)
This course is an introduction to the insights of cultural anthropology for intercultural ministry. It includes theories of culture and societies, religion and worldview, kinship and family structure, communication theory and the dynamics of change. Participants are encouraged to explore models useful in ministering to specific societies and cultures.
The Anthropology of Christianity
Religion Compass, 2008
This article surveys the literature that constitutes the newly emergent anthropology of Christianity. Arguing that the development of this sub-discipline was impeded until recently by anthropology's theoretical framing and empirical interests, this article explains that demographic and world-historical forces have made it such that anthropology has had to recently come to terms with Christianity as an ethnographic object. In doing so, anthropology also has had to address its problematic relationship with Christianity, either in the religion's direct effect on the formation of the discipline, or as reflected by Christianity's influence on modernity itself, which has been vital for anthropology as both a category and as a style of cognition. In addition to these meta-theoretical questions, the anthropology of Christianity has become a space in which anthropology has been able to re-examine issues of social and cultural continuity and discontinuity in light of conversion to Christianity. Specifically, the issue of social change (often thought through or against the issue of ‘modernity’) has involved specific ethnographic examinations of fields, such as the relation between linguistic ideology and language use, economic practice, changing formations of gender and race, and the modes through which the person is culturally structured, and how that category of the person stands in relation to the social. Rather than presenting an overarching theoretical narrative, however, this review notes that these issues play out in divergent ways in differently situated communities, especially where Christianity's individuating effect may be muted where is it functions as an anti- or counter-modern force; this dynamic and contingent nature of Christianity underscores that Christianity itself is a heterogeneous object, and thus promises to be an area of rich empirical research and theoretical focus that should be beneficial not only for this sub-discipline, but also for the field of anthropology as a whole.
The Anthropology of Christianity: Context, Contestation, Rupture, and Community
Still in its developmental stages, the anthropological study of Christianity is unsettled. This essay assesses the study of a faith tradition that has been relatively ignored until recently. The books under review offer examples of the emerging anthropology of Christianity. Four themes receive attention: challenges to the anthropology of Christianity, the comparative enterprise, authority and order, and the nexus of continuity and rupture. These themes provide a glimpse into anthropology's ongoing evolution in its own right and within the larger academy.
Gospel and Cultures in a Circular Relationship - Some Missionary Experiences
International Review of Mission, 1995
Controversy and discussion about the relationship of the good news of Jesus Christ to various cultures has been a part of Christian life and faith since thefirst century. Much of the New Testament was written in response to such questions. In recent decades, the study of anthropology in relation to cross-cultural mission has focused a great deal of attention upon issues of gospel and culture. The Division for Global Mission (DGM) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) offers training to its overseas personnel in order to enhance cross-cultural skills, and encourages dialogue with partner churches. In 1994, the theme of the annual summer missionary conference was "Gospel and Culture. I' Missionaries were asked to write case studies or storiesfrom their own experience and observation that illustrate ways in which the gospel challenges cultures, and how culture enriches and illuminates the gospel. At the conference, Dr Christopher Duraisingh, from the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, Switzerland, gave a series of lectures to approximately I50 missionaries, staff and guests, and issues of gospel and culture were discussed in small group sessions. Following the conference, missionary writings were compiled as "Gospel and Culture: Essays and Stories from Around the World" and passed on to Unit I1 of the WCC as a contribution to its multifaceted gospel and culture study. This article is based on the submissions of DGM missionaries, Dr Duraisingh 's lectures at the conference, and literature published in connection with the WCC study. A framework for understanding Gospel can be understood as the good news that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to God's self.. . and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (John 1O:lO). Culture can be described as "what holds a community together, giving a common framework of meaning. It is preserved in language, thought patterns, ways of life, attitudes, symbols and presuppositions, and is celebrated in art, music. .. " (WCC Canberra assembly, 1993).