Polycentric Christianity: Theological Multiplicity and Unity

Introduction

In Acts chapter two, the second volume of his two books written for Theophilus, Luke documents a momentous event that occurred on a Pentecost day in Jerusalem. The event of that day has great significance for what we today call Christianity or the Christian faith. This chapter, known for its account of the coming of the Holy Spirit on each of the followers of Christ gathered in one place, also tells the story of the worldwide dimension of what happened in Jerusalem that day. 

Here we read of the presence of individuals described by Luke as “devout men from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5) with the indication of the specific places of their provenance (vv. 6 to 11).¹ We join these devout people in the amazement they express as they witness the event: “We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (v. 11). We note how Peter concludes his long explanation of what had just taken place: “… the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (v. 39). 

The trajectory leading to polycentric Christianity begins here in this declaration made by Peter. Every person who confesses Jesus Christ, and is baptized in his name, regardless of geographic or social location, belongs to the one community the Lord God establishes for himself. The question asked by the devout people in this chapter, “What does this mean?” (v. 12), has relevance in an age when all Christians know that their faith is expressed in a variety of tongues and forms around the world. 

The diversity discernible in Christianity throughout history, and around the world today, not only presents opportunities for the church, but also raises questions, especially ones related to theological multiplicity and unity. This essay focuses on this question: “As the map of global Christianity changes toward a polycentric Christianity, how should we understand the multiplicity versus unity of the global church?” 
It will address the question in three ways: first, it will acknowledge the reality and significance of polycentric Christianity; second, it will suggest that the multiplicity and unity of the global church should be understood as unity-in-diversity; and last, this essay will propose that the church sustains its unity-in-diversity by engaging in Christian theologizing as an ongoing family conversation.

1. Reality and Significance of Polycentric Christianity

We cannot deal with the reality and significance of polycentric Christianity without paying attention to what the expression means. “Polycentric Christianity” describes the worldwide community of Christians. In that sense, “polycentric Christianity” may be another expression for “world Christianity” or “global Christianity,” both well-known terms in missiological studies in reference to the contemporary map or status of Christianity.²

While a casual reading of these studies may convey the impression that polycentric Christianity represents a new development in the history of the Christian faith, Sebastian Kim and Kristeen Kim remind us that “Christianity is – and has been since the first century – polycentric” and that “it is spread worldwide and globally interconnected while being at the same time locally rooted in many societies and cultures.”³ Kim and Kim are not alone in how they express the reality of polycentric Christianity. 

For our purposes here, I mention Andrew F. Walls and J. Paul Rajashekar, among others, who assert similar views. Walls affirms “From the beginning, the Christian faith has been worldwide in scope”⁴ and Rajashekar maintains: “Christianity, as everyone knows, has always been a global religion and took root in diverse cultures and contexts for two millennia. Unless we have been oblivious to this reality, it does not make much sense to speak of ‘World Christianity’, as if it is a new phenomenon.”⁵ Why, then, does the idea of polycentric Christianity seem to suggest a sense of newness?

An emphasis on Christian growth documented in the “global south” in the twentieth century can give the impression that polycentric Christianity is a recent occurrence. This emphasis, coupled with insufficient attention to the cultural and social diversities that have always marked the Christian faith, may unduly highlight its geographical aspects and thus hinder the acceptance of the reality and significance of polycentric Christianity as an essential trait of the Christian faith from the very beginning. But, in a sense, what we witness today is not just a change in the map of global Christianity toward polycentric Christianity. We are rediscovering the importance of polycentrism for the Christian faith.⁶ 

Viewing Christian theology as a single system⁷ constitutes another factor that could create misunderstanding regarding the reality of theological multiplicity implied in the recognition of what I described in 1993 as the “polycentric nature of Christianity.”⁸ The “polycentric nature of Christianity,” built on the conviction that “Christianity is not permanently wedded to any human culture” and “has as many centers as the number of cultures of its adherents,”⁹ is significant for how we should understand theological multiplicity and unity in the global church. Specifically, it draws attention to the question: Must we view unity and diversity as opposites?   

2. Polycentric Christianity as Unity-in-Diversity 

The notion of polycentrism suggests diversity. For this reason, issues related to unity and multiplicity are legitimate concerns for Christians when they read or hear the term “polycentric Christianity.” For example, how does the existence of multiple centers of the Christian faith fit with the vision of the unity of the body of Christ articulated by Paul in Ephesians 4:5-6 (“one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God”)? 

Unity is compatible with diversity because in this chapter Paul also reminds the Ephesian Christians of the link between the variety of gifts and “the unity of the faith” (vv. 8 to 16). What Paul wrote to the Ephesians is consistent with the metaphor of the body he uses in 1 Corinthians 12 to depict how diversity relates to unity in Christ’s church. Was Paul’s teaching in these two letters limited to the immediate concerns he was addressing? No, the metaphor of the body establishes the framework for how we should understand multiplicity and diversity in the global church today.       

Today, as in the past, unity and diversity represent two aspects of the universal and local dimensions of the church. The universal dimension of the church, that the word “unity” evokes, does not require uniformity. Rather, the church expresses its universality in the diverse and local particularities of Christian life. This is the lesson to be learned from Acts 2:11 (hearing the mighty works of God in one’s own language) and subsequent Christian mission work that resulted in a variety of Christian churches and communities around the world where believers engage in “thinking through the meaning of the faith in their own languages and their own contexts.”¹⁰

This “thinking through the meaning of the faith,” another way of defining theology, occurs in specific times and places, and is indispensable for Christians if they want to reach maturity and realize the unity envisioned in Ephesians 4:13-14. 

As important as context is for theology, Christians must avoid “thinking through the meaning of the faith” by focusing on their situation exclusively. In our age of awareness of polycentric Christianity, as in the long history of the church, “doing” theology requires paying attention to the interplay between the “local” and the “global” by engaging in conversation essential for sustaining the unity-in-diversity of the worldwide family of the Christian faith. 

3. Unity Sustained by Engaging in Theology as a Family Conversation

We should consider Christian theology as “process as well as content”¹¹ if it is to sustain unity-in-diversity. Viewing theology primarily as “content” can convey the idea that it is a finished product. In this understanding, theology is to be communicated and taught. Adjustments for the sake of clarity in communication may be allowed or encouraged but, overall, theological multiplicity represents a threat to unity.

Describing theology as “process” focuses on its contextual character and points to the unfinished dimension of the theological task. As David J. Bosch observed,

The words “experimental” and “contingent” also apply to systematic theology because of the four features Gabriel Fackre has suggested for this area of Christian thought: “comprehensiveness, coherence, contextuality, and conversation.”¹³ The last two features, “contextuality” and “conversation,” remind us that  “Christian theology remains both a corporate task, one in which the church as a whole has to engage, rather than being spoon-fed by one or two high-octane teachers, and also an incomplete task, because each generation needs to become mature in its thinking.”¹⁴ Today, the communal work of theology requires the participation of Christians from all parts of the global church.  

As Christians engage in constructing theology, they should remember that from the beginning theology served the purpose of communicating the living word of the living God to living humans in the diversity of their existence in the world. Christian theology, in this perspective, is life-giving as it bears fruit in doing God’s work in the world. Here we see the connection between Christian theologizing and mission. Bosch exhorts theologians to “not forget that the early Christian mission was the progenitor of theology; that the church was by circumstances forced to theologize; that theology, biblically understood, has no reason to exist other than to critically accompany the church in its mission to the world.”¹⁵

Understanding theology as an ongoing process for the sake of God’s mission in the world is necessary at this time of vibrant paganisms and idolatry around the world. Conversation, an essential feature of this process, sustains the unity of the global church as it seeks to make God known to all people.  

Conclusion

As the map of global Christianity changes toward a polycentric Christianity, how should we understand the multiplicity versus unity of the global church? The Christian faith has always been polycentric. Its polycentrism entailed theological multiplicity. The polycentrism of Christianity we witness today is the result of God building his church among the diverse nations of the earth. Today, as in the past, theological multiplicity and diversity are not opposites. Thus, we should understand the unity of the global church as unity-in-diversity.

Endnotes

1. All Scripture from the ESV. 
2. From the abundant literature on “World Christianity” or “Global Christianity”, I recommend the following:  Martha Fredericks and Dorottya Nagy, eds., World Christianity: Methodological Considerations (Brill, 2021); Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Eerdmans, 2003); Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland, eds., Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity (Baker Academic, 2006); Lalsangkima Pachuau, World Christianity: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2018); Jonathan Y. Tan and Anh Q. Tran, eds., World Christianity: Perspectives and Insights (Orbis Books, 2016) and Timothy C. Tennent Theology in the Context of World Christianity (Zondervan, 2007). I also note Allen Yeh’s Polycentric Missiology: 21^st Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere (IVP Academic, 2016).
3. Sebastian Kim and Kristeen Kim, Christianity as a World Religion: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 3.
4. Andrew F. Walls, “Overseas Ministries and the Subversion of Theological Education,” International Bulletin of Mission Research, Vol. 45, No.1, January 2021, 11. 
5. J. Paul Rajshekar, “Theology in the Context of World Christianity,” Journal of Lutheran Ethics, Vol. 5, Issue 11, November 2005, https://www.elca.org/JLE/Articles/632.
6. The perception of Christianity as a “Western” religion continues but suggestions for rectifying this misunderstanding exist. See, for example, Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh University Press/Orbis, 1995) and Chee Pang Choong, “Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and its Implications for Christian Identity in Asia,” in A Global Faith: Essays on Evangelicalism and Globalization, edited by M. Hutchinson and O. Kalu (Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, 1998), 214-226.
7. For the idea of Christian theology as a single system in mission history see Kenneth Ross, “Polycentric Theology, Mission, and Mission Leadership,” Transformation, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2021, 212-214, DOI:10.1177/02653788211026334. It is worth noting that Ross starts his article by acknowledging the polycentric nature of theology from the beginning.
8. Tite Tiénou, “Forming Indigenous Theologies,” in Towards the 21^st Century in Christian Mission, edited by James M. Phillips and Robert T. Coote (Eerdmans, 1993), 248 and 249.
9. Ibid.
10. Ross, “Polycentric Theology, Mission and Mission Leadership,” 216.
11. Jeff Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology (Routledge, 2017), 56.
12. David J. Bosch, “A New Paradigm, Part II of Mission in the 1990s: Three Views,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 14, Issue 4, October 1990, 150, https://doi.org/10.1177/2396939001400401. Bosch represents just one of numerous authors who called attention to the contextual and contingent aspects of Christian theology.
13. Gabriel Fackre, “The Revival of Systematic Theology: An Overview,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, July 1995, 230. 
14. N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Book I, Parts I and II (Fortress Press), 569. Italics in the original.
15. David J. Bosch, “Theological Education in Missionary Perspective,” Missiology, 10, no. 1, 1982, 27.  https://doi.org/10.1177/009182968201000102.