Context, Plurality, and Truth

“The value of Vähäkangas’s penetrating study is a constructive way forward in valuing pluralism. He sees it as the inevitable result of theologies absorbing and shaping local cultures, so that they can serve Christian, and wider, communities faithfully and critically. Theologies will always be plural because we are all situated and contextual. This book will be important for those working in religious studies and theology.”


—Gavin D’Costa, University of Bristol





“Only a scholar of Professor Mika Vähäkangas’s global experience and depth and width of learning can pack into a little more than two hundred pages a trove of insights on what theology should be and how it should be done. Vähäkangas explores three key issues of theology in world Christianities, namely, context, plurality, and truth, and offers illuminating insights derived from critical conversations with major theologians around the globe. This book should be required reading for any course on methods of contemporary theology.”


—Peter C. Phan, Georgetown University





“Since the late 1980s, what has formerly been called mission studies or missiology came under growing pressure by postcolonial critique and the gravity shift of Christianity towards the Global South. Projects like global ethics, pluralist theology of religion, comparative theology, world Christianity, or intercultural theology were claiming to inherit its position in the theological curriculum. Contextual theologies and interreligious dialogue were high on the agenda. Mika Vähäkangas is positioning himself in these debates and has produced a thoroughly systematic textbook for the theological classroom.”


—Volker Küster, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz