Forming Leaders for the Public Church: Vocation in Twenty-First Century Societies

Christian churches and their leaders must address global situations with Gospel-rooted compassion and justice, and public theology provides a trinitarian theological framework for this. Essays by public church leaders from the Global South and Global North explore the global implications of public theology, based on the work of Gary M. Simpson. This book encourages the church to bear today's crises with courage, mutuality, and cooperation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 15 April 2023
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

These challenging times demand that Christian churches and their leaders faithfully and effectively address diverse global situations with Gospel-rooted compassion and justice. In order to do so, public theology provides a trinitarian theological framework that fuels wise and compassionate public participation in God's mission within the world today. This book explores the global implications of public theology within unique situational particularities, with essays from public church leaders from the Global South and Global North. The essays are principally based on the public theology and theological commitments of Gary M. Simpson, a Lutheran pastor and systematic theologian. Simpson's public theology is an intersection of Lutheran theology, post-colonial approaches to missiology, the growing field of congregational studies, and the Civil Society turn in Critical Social Theory. By expanding on various aspects of Simpson's public theology, these essays provide a glimpse of newly-emerging global public theology with leadership implications for twenty-first century contexts.

This book calls the church to bear today's multi-dimensional crises with courage, mutuality, and cooperation. Congregations who seek to participate in God's mission by confronting these challenging realities will find encouragement through the theological reflections, first-hand experiences, and innovative public leadership narrated in these essays. The church must rise to the occasion and demonstrate its faithfulness to the Gospel by addressing these global situations with compassion and justice. Public theology provides the necessary framework to guide the church in this endeavor, and this book offers valuable insights and perspectives to help the church fulfill its mission in the world.

Weight: 604g
Dimension: 235 x 158 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781978714229