NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 68, Issue 4, 2014

Uncritically claiming that Christianity’s centre of gravity has shifted from the West to the global South is problematic because such a claim does not pay sufficient attention to the underlying power dynamics at play. I critique the popular conception of World Christianity where the West is tacitly omitted from the ‘World’ of World Christianity and therefore retains its normative character. Furthermore, I critique the usage of the con Read More

This paper argues that attention for the biographical, ideological, and cultural diversity, as it is present in a typical New Testament class room, can be very productive, especially when paying attention to the intercultural hermeneutics involved. In fact, this approach leads to new scholarly insights, also of a historical nature, and may well be more viable and even more productive than a supposedly ‘neutral’ approach.

Thomas Römer heeft een drievoudige redactieproces van het deuteronomistische geschiedwerk bepleit. In dit artikel wordt zijn these getest aan de hand van de berichten over koning Hizkia in 2 Koningen 18-20. De theorie van Römer kan niet worden gefalsifieerd. Wel blijkt zijn benadering te leiden tot interessante en functionele inzichten in de herinneringen aan Hizkia. De koning werd gezien als een rolmodel in de tijd van Josi Read More

This article explores perceptions of the past, and in particular of the apostle Paul, in recent newspaper articles that discuss male circumcision, using Charles Taylor’s category of the ‘social imaginary’. Applying Taylor’s category of the ‘imaginary’ to this contemporary debate shows that the past is constructed in several ways, sometimes in understanding history as progress, but also as a warning or a deciding factor in contemporar Read More

In 1947, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, two members of the so-called Frankfurt School of Sociology published The Dialectic of Enlightenment. The book, written in exile, did not study national-socialism as an accident or exception in European history, but rather as the result of an ongoing process of rationalization. The authors included a fierce critique of the capitalist modus of (re-)production as ‘culture indu Read More

This article reviews Het leven volgens Willem Jan Otten. Redenen van het hart  (red.), , : , , blz. € 19.95