REVIEW FOR THEOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY: HOW THE GLOBAL CHURCH IS INFLUENCING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT AND DISCUSS THEOLOGY

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Timothy C. Tennent, an American theologian, is Professor of World Missions and Indian Studies and the current president of Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr. Tennent and wife, Julie Myers, reside in Ipswich, Massachusetts, with their two children, Jonathan, and Bethany. Tennent (born on September 24, 1959) did his college education B.A. from Oral Roberts University, quickly followed by a Masters’ degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. He later did a Doctorate of Philosophy degree from the University of Edinburgh's in Scotland, where his dissertation was on Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, an Indian theologian.
His teaching career started at Toccoa Falls College. At Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, he served as professor of world missions and Indian studies. He was elected to his current office as president of Asbury Seminary in 2009. He still a visiting professor at the Luther New Jr. Theological College of Dehradun, India.
He authored "Building Christianity on Indian Foundations" together with "Christianity at the Religious Roundtable". He has also published items in the series “Encountering Mission” and “Invitation to Theological Studies.”
In November 2009, Tennent had signed an ecumenical statement differing categorically with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage. Often called the Manhattan Declaration, it called on evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox not to comply with every matter within set of laws that went against their religious consciences.
Summary
Tennent’s work seeks to integrate systematic theology together with missiology from the perspective of numerous non-Western theological viewpoints. His work starts off with a general view of faith, and the global comparison between the Christian aspects of God compared to the Islamic view of Allah. To Tennent, Yahweh and Allah refer to the one true God from an Etymological and ontological perspective. However, the areas plus attributes of the Bible holds that Allah does not are glaring so much that he concludes God and Allah are not the same.
Tennent has keenly been observing significant changes in global Christianity as it experienced a paradigm shift in culture through the centuries and particularly today from the West to the mainstream world church. He steadies the need for authentic nationalized theological activities with an appreciation of the advances of systematic theology involving universal questions of the faith. He notes numerable trends in majority world theology like the acceptance of the authority of Scripture and conservative, orthodox and traditionalist views. Moral and ethical conservatism together with sensitivity to poverty and social injustice came in significantly in daily life. He notes the ability to articulate the gospel amidst religious pluralism and appreciation for the corporate, not merely selfish; dimensions of biblical teaching are elements that cannot be left out.
The subsequent chapters discuss additional issues raised by the merging of Western systematic theology with international theological reflection. Tennent deliberates each doctrine in light of the tasks and innovative thinking from alternative cultures of the world. He discusses Christian theology proper inside the Islamic milieu, and bibliology within the Indian Hindu setting and anthropology within the shame-based nations of the Far East are in the same manner. He deals similarly with Christology from a traditional African vantage point, soteriology amongst Chinese and Japanese Buddhism and pneumatology in the background of Latin American Pentecostalism. Tennent expounded a little more so in the judgment of ecclesiology in world Islamic contexts and eschatology within Chinese nationalism.

Critical interaction
Every chapter in this book is distinctly subjective. Hence, it is best to analyze it by pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. His work is of a conservative nature but features an archetypal theology in numerable world contexts.
Strengths
His application of theology has stood out to a real and specific global context. He describes the necessity to do theology from a universal perspective and has made a case to verify his assertions. Looking at the insider movement controversy, he writes that despite mission frontiers and agencies supporting the C-5 contextualization, self-identity lies at the heart of the issue. Identity and allegiance are at the core of the contextualization issue, and this is correct.
He is also spot on to admonish for Western theologians to heed to and learn from majority world believers. He says they are indeed missing out when they do not travel abroad to teach and get taught from those of a different background. He refrains from over criticism for their ethnocentrism and shuns from subjecting a demeaning tone when describing elements of global theology he opposes.
Weaknesses
It is depressing to note that the picture created on the Back to Jerusalem Movement is in a positive light. He has polished the tendency of some eschatologically driven missiologies slash and burn activities where hardly any follow-up occurs when sharing the gospel. A number of Major Houses Church Network in China is suffering from unhealthy and heretical doctrines. ‘If repentance is not genuine when not accompanied by weeping,’ one network claims.
Conclusion
The reality is the center of Christianity has shifted from the global West to the South and East. The theological topics he has outlined focus on very crucial issues in global Christianity today. His application to real contexts founds an understanding in the form of theology. His ability to balance and approach each topic with fairness is adorable.