To speak of interculturality, is it to give in to a fashion, a reflection of the spirit of the times, to the desire for exoticism or evangelical folklore? In fact, no, it is simply to take into account the real situation of evangelical churches, often and largely multicultural today. This diversity is the counterpart of the unity of the Church. It contributes to its enrichment, its embellishment and its growth.
But how can we organize and live this multiculturality? Through cultural assimilation? Through the juxtaposition of different cultures? This book has chosen interculturalism, that is, the interaction of cultures. Because the Church, to use the language of Édouard Glissant, is the diffracted world of Babel, but recomposed at Pentecost, by the coming of the Spirit. The authors of this collective work seek to develop an intercultural Church project, because the Church is the place where God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled: "all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12). The Church is the bridge of solidarity that connects life to life, cultures to cultures, which allows us to overcome the cultural obstacles of a torn, divided and fragmented world.
This book is the result of the work of the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Intercultural Christianity of the Free Faculty of Evangelical Theology (Vaux-sur-Seine).
Contributors to this work: Jean-Christophe Bieselaar, Henri Chai, Frédéric de Coninck, Josepha Faber Boitel, Jean-Claude Girondin, Marianne Guéroult, Ruth Labeth, Charles-Daniel Maire, Dominique Ranaivoson.
ISBN: 9782755002324