Drawing on the resources of contemporary systematic theologians Kevin Vanhoozer and Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Elmer A. Guzman explores the generative dimension of mission for the formation of doctrine for a church that needs to witness in a pluralistic world. Guzman argues that the understanding of doctrinal formation and development depends on the missional dimension of doctrinal hermeneutics. This means that these theological concepts and practices are justified based on the negotiation between the identity markers of theological sources and the diversity markers provided by the context. This book shows how perspectives that arise from the structural elements in theological methodology shed fresh light on missional theology and the interconnections between the doctrinal loci in theology.
Elmer A. Guzman is an assistant professor of systematic theology at the Theological Seminary of Parana Adventist College, Brazil.
1. Missional Hermeneutical Models in Christian Theology: The Contextual-Cultural and the Fixed-Dynamic Approaches 2. A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World: The Missional Doctrinal Hermeneutics of Veli-Matti Karkkainen 3. A Canonical Linguistic Approach: The Missional Doctrinal Hermeneutics of Kevin J. Vanhoozer 4. A Critical Comparison of Karkkainen's and Vanhoozer's Missional Doctrinal Hermeneutics
Evangelical systematic theologian Vanhoozer and Luther-costal constructive theologian Karkkainen are refracted by Guzman's Adventist missiological lens in surprising ways. Readers of The Dialectics of Mission will be invited to revisit their considerations of the coherence and potency of both interlocutors while appreciating the ongoing emergence of Adventist theological and missiological perspectives in the global conversation. -- Amos Yong, Fuller Theological Seminary This work engages the fields of missiology and systematic theology by surveying major twentieth-century models of missional hermeneutics and assessing their value for traditionally Christian doctrinal claims. Guzman brings constructive systematic theology and important missiological concepts closer together by providing a valuable perspective on the tensions between claims of universality and contextual understandings of the Christian God. -- Joao B. Chaves, Baylor University; author of The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South: Southern Baptist Missionaries and the Shaping of Latin American Evangelicalism Elmer Guzman's work The Dialectics of Mission: Between Vanhoozer and Karkkainen provides a highly insightful and illuminating treatment of missional doctrinal hermeneutics by way of a careful study of the works of two highly influential theologians, Kevin J. Vanhoozer and Veli-Matti Karkkainen. Guzman's work is nuanced, clear, engages with an impressive array of scholarship, and makes an important contribution to theological scholarship. Highly recommended! -- John C. Peckham, Andrews University
