Living in the Family of Jesus

All churches are culture churches," writes Andrew Walls, and the process of Christ encountering culture is very like the process of translation from one language to another. Arguably, with its myriad people groups, Melanesia has much to teach the rest of the world about what happens when Christ encounters local culture. This collection, gathered in honour of John Hitchen, begins with a look at specific case studies of the Gospel's encounter with local culture in Melanesia itself, before turning to broader themes particularly raised by the Melanesian context. Case studies from Asia and the wider Pacific then throw further light on the incarnational process of encounter, demonstrating both that Melanesian struggles are not unique and that as a result there is much for the rest of the world to learn from the Melanesian experience. The book concludes with some penetrating analyses of the dynamics at work when the Gospel encounters human cultures for the first time.