Models of Contextual Theology

TLDR

Bevans's *Models of Contextual Theology*, first published in 1992 and now in its seventh English printing, is a staple handbook that examines the meaning of contextualization and introduces key thinkers such as Hauerwas, Milbank, Newbigin, and Pope John Paul II. The revised edition expands the original five models by adding a counter‑cultural model and incorporates reviewer suggestions to clarify the three chapters on contextual theology.

Abstract

Stephen B Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology has become a staple in courses on theological method as a handbook used by missioners other Christians concerned with the Christian tradition's understanding of itself in relation culture. First published in 1992 now in its seventh printing in English, with translations underway into Spanish, Korean, Indonesian, Bevans's book is a judicious examination of what the terms to contextualize mean. In the revised expanded edition, Bevans adds a counter-cultural model the five presented in the first edition -- the translation, the anthropological, the praxis, the synthetic, the transcendental model. This means that readers will be introduced the way in which figures such as Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Lesslie Newbigin, and (occasionally) Pope John Paul II need be taken into account. The author's revisions also incorporate suggestions made by reviewers enhance the clarity of the original three chapters on the nature of contextual theology the five models.