Understanding Folk Religion: 25th Anniversary Edition
A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices
- Evangelism & Missions
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
This book has served the missiological community for twenty-five years as a resource for understanding human spirituality in any context. Thousands of students have incorporated the principles of this book into ministry around the globe. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition seeks to enable those who now bring their passion for mission to contemporary contexts affected by globalization, climate change, and political perspectives unimagined when this book originally appeared. Every community, wherever it is on earth, has its share of beliefs and values that manifest themselves in practices that reflect spiritual engagement. Those engaged in mission need to appreciate how underlying beliefs and values are reflected in handling spiritual power, worship and blessing, and interaction with others. Gospel communicators must account for these elements as they seek to make God's intentions known to people who are searching for God. The models presented early in the book are essential for establishing what people consider spiritually critical. Applying these models in any religious environment will enable message-bearers to engage with beliefs and practices that promote a gospel presentation that makes sense. To that end, we commend this book for effective missional engagement.
Endorsements (3)
“Dan Shaw and Tite Tiénou have done a great service to missiologists and theologians—both teachers and students—in offering this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of their 1999 book Understanding Folk Religion. The authors offer a new preface and a very helpful new prologue that helps readers navigate and profit more fully from their work. The book is also a tribute to their original fellow author, the late Paul Hiebert, a giant in the field of missiological anthropology and a great Christian human being.”
“For twenty-five years, Folk Religion by Paul Hiebert, Dan Shaw, and Tite Tiénou has been the preeminent missiological text on folk religious beliefs and practices. Although Hiebert is no longer with us, Shaw and Tiénou have done us a great service in updating this classic work. Its insights are just as relevant and transformative for mission today as they were in 1999.”
“With rapid globalization and spreading urbanization, haven’t we left the world where ‘folk religion’ was part and parcel of a former way of life or found only among people whose lives were enveloped with animism? Not so fast! Folk religion is alive and well everywhere, but many of us still struggle to understand it or to engage it biblically. This anniversary edition is as relevant and needed today as it was when first published, and together with a helpful prologue and current epilogue makes this a ‘must-read’ for anyone engaged in ministry.”
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