Jesus Is the Saviour of the World – What If It Is Not My World?

Abstract

Christianity, as known in Europe, is culturally limited. When presented as universal, it takes on a cultural imperialist quality and exercises symbolic violence upon the others. Forms of Christianity originating in the former area of the Roman Empire (Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism) are routinely treated as the measuring stick for true Christianity with the help of the so-called ecumenical creeds. A case of this is the rejection of the Kimbanguist Church from the World Council of Churches (WCC). While most non-western churches would probably agree with the exclusion of a church proposing additional incarnations, it is telling that no major reconsideration of the limitedness of cultural-doctrinal representation of the WCC has followed. While developing further the
Hellenic thought, western doctrinal heritage builds primarily on its cosmology. Therefore, someone inhabiting a different cosmology needs to convert into western modes of thinking to become a proper Christian. To avoid this cultural imperialism, Christian theology requires renewal. Academic theology is the proper place to begin. This renewal is needed not only because of Christianity's demographic shift to the majority world, but also because the Hellenic-based modes of thinking are no longer the factory setting among the youth of the West.