Power and Identity in the Global Church

Exploring how faith, culture, and power shape the global church

Power and Identity in the Global Church: Six Contemporary Cases applies contemporary sociological, theological, and New Testament insights to better understand how God's people can, do, and should interact in the field, thereby laying the groundwork for better multicultural approaches to mission partnership.

The authors--six evangelical anthropologists and theologians--also show that faithfulness in mission requires increased attention to local identities, cultural themes, and concerns, including the desire to grow spiritually through direct engagement with God's word. In this context, failure to attend to power imbalances can stunt spiritual and leadership growth. Attending to those imbalances should make Christian churches more truly brothers and sisters in Christ, equal members of the one global body of which Christ alone is the head.

Brian Howell is associate professor of anthropology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and the author of Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptist in the Philippines (Palgrave, 2007). His current research on short-term missions and Christian ethnography has appeared in Anthropological Theory, The Journal of Communication and Religion, Christian Scholar's Review, and The International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

Edwin Zehner holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University, where he is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Southeast Asia Program. He has published on missiological topics in Missiology, Anthropological Quarterly, Social Compass, and the forthcoming Evangelical Missiological Society book, Effective Engagement in Short-term Missions: Doing it Right! (William Carey Library, 2008).