132 Review and Expositor 113(1)

In this compilation of eleven essays, most of which were written in 2004 and 2005, Guder
unmistakably reiterates that the church by its very nature is missional and cogently argues that the
purpose of doing theology therefore should be missional. Reviewing the cantors of modern dog-
matic theology, Guder analyzes the intellectual and political environment within which the church
theologized in the modern period. He delineates how Enlightenment and colonialism shaped how
the church thought of her identity and vocation. The church and its theology should be liberated
from the cultural captivity that it is entangled in, Guder argues. Guder is critical about the silence
of classical theologies on mission, which according to him is the purpose of the church’s
existence.
Guder’s Doing Theology does not discuss particular theological themes in detail, as the dog-
matic theologies did. He rather takes an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to theology. He
shares his vision for a theology that is missional, trinitarian, Christo-centric, and ecumenical. With
two chapters on “walking worthy,” the focus is on praxis. Faithful to his Reformed heritage, he
underlines the significance of the world, the locus of the church’s mission. He draws extensively
from Scripture. The final chapter reinterprets the field of ecumenics from a missional perspective,
offering unity and diversity as a missionary necessity.
If there is a single theme that connects these essays, it is, no doubt, ecclesiology. Guder’s under-
standing of church is drawn heavily from Karl Barth, Lesslie Newbigin, and Cardinal Avery Dulles.
Barth’s interpretation of the church’s election as a calling to witness forms the title of the book.
Citing George Hunsberger, his colleague in the Gospel and Our Culture Network, Guder proposes
that missional heuristics should read the Nicene marks of the church in a reverse order—apostolic,
catholic, holy, and one. He reinterprets each of these markers from a missional perspective. The
apostolicity of the church has more do with the ‘sent-ness’ of the church than with the lineage of
power, Guder persuasively argues. Catholicity does not obliterate a congregation’s rootedness in its
immediate locus.
Coming from the pen of an experienced and gifted teacher, the book’s style and language are
accessible. Guder begins every chapter with a set of questions, evoking interest in its argument. He
shares his preliminary answers to the questions and invites the reader to think further about the
subject. With three decades of teaching and writing, Guder has already revolutionized the fields of
ecclesiology and missiology. With this book, he challenges the church and academia to rethink the
mode and methods of theological enterprise and ministerial formation.

James Elisha Taneti

Campbell University, Buies Creek, NC, USA

Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World, by
Namsoon Kang. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2013. 250 pp. $32.99. ISBN 978-0-8272-0534-5.

As I write this review, thousands of Syrian refugees are flooding into the heart of Europe, seeking
refuge from their own war-torn homeland. Racial violence in the United States is on the rise as
white police officers continue to gun down young black men in the streets. The religions of
Christianity and Islam are struggling with radical elements within both traditions that prefer
destruction of the “other” over dialogue and peaceful co-existence.
In other words, it seems a good time for a book with a sub-title like “planetary hospitality,
neighbor-love, and solidarity in an uneven world.” Namsoon Kang, Professor of World Christianity
and Religions at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, is up to the challenge. Drawing
upon her obvious affinity for the postmodern philosophy of Jacques Derrida, she explores the pos-
sibility of a theologically-grounded response to otherness and difference that does not shy away
from the enormity of the challenge, but which celebrates our common humanity as well as our

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particularities and which argues that it is both, taken together, that offer the way forward for the
challenges we face.
Kang employs the concept of “cosmopolitan theology” as a foundational framework that can
assist humanity toward its dream of a just and peaceful world. Such a theology is unique in that it
engages both grand theological perspectives as well as smaller, localized ones, and critiques both
whenever their structures legitimate social inequality and the abuse of power. It offers a via media
that seeks the “decentered center” where “everybody can be the center but no one claims an abso-
lute ownership of the center” (p. 3). Though she admits that such a dream seems impossible, she
also insists that it is essential because it moves us beyond the world-as-it-is and toward the
world-as-it-ought-to-be.
Seizing upon Paul’s notion of the oneness of humanity, Kang offers a vision for a trans-national
and trans-tribal world in which all human beings understand themselves as neighbors to each other
and in which each person views his or her own particularities as points of departure as opposed to
points of arrival. The use of the plural for “particularities” is intentional. It is her conviction that we
tend to fix our identities around only one of our traits or characteristics, neglecting the multitude of
identities that characterize all of us. Her hope is that we will cultivate “trans-identity” and move
beyond the sort of “institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, ethnocentrism, and homophobism”
in which we often become trapped (p. 31).
In a wide-ranging chapter on the philosophical foundations of cosmopolitanism, Kang points
out that the western philosophical tradition has held a privileged space in theological discourse,
resulting in the acceptance of such concepts as objectivity and rationalism as understood in that
tradition. Utilizing her own “cosmopolitan” approach, she critiques Western contributions as
represented in such thinkers as Diogenes of Sinope, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Derrida, and
Hannah Arendt. She also then explores the contributions of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu of the
Taoist tradition in Chinese philosophy and concludes that the Taoist antipathy toward “essential-
ist claims of reason, law, order, morality, intelligence, and androcentric and anthropocentric
norms provides a profound ground in formulating a discourse and practice of equality, justice,
rights, and dignity of all living beings, which are the key issues that cosmopolitanism attempts
to address in the contemporary world” (p. 69). This assessment is valid and well-presented,
though one might question why the western philosophical position still holds the most prominent
space in the chapter.
Kang’s most accessible chapter is one that explores trans-religious solidarity and calls for move-
ment beyond “religious tourism.” It might serve as a starting point for dialogue on the first day of
a course on comparative religions. Citing the work of Charles Taylor on identity and Peter McLaren
on multiculturalism, she points out that as much damage can result from the reduction of the beliefs
and tradition of another religion as from absolute ignorance of the tradition. She calls for the prac-
tice of the best sort of cosmopolitanism in teaching about various religions—one in which the
intention is a critical engagement that “recognizes the power disparities between, among, and
within religions in the construction of individual and collective religious identities and practice” (p.
102). This sort of engagement must occur in a teaching environment that recognizes that, like
Christianity, all religions are evolving and changing and thus can never be reduced to simple belief
systems and rituals.
As the book moves toward its conclusion, Kang issues a call for planetary neighborliness. She
returns again to Paul’s insistence in Galatians upon the radical egalitarianism inherent within the
Christian tradition. It is this egalitarianism, taken as a philosophical rather than as a theological
construct, that enables an understanding of Paul as a philosopher beyond simply the Christian
religion. His notion that “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there
is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) offers, in Kang’s
estimation, the foundation for a “cosmopolitan ethos” based upon “equal citizenship in Jesus
Christ” (p. 130). From this foundation, she explores the possibility of solidarity across all human

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boundaries based upon the ideals of justice and compassion and grounded in our own individual
contexts, where we constantly must ask “Who is the other?” and “Who is my neighbor?”
Kang ends the book with a challenge to Christian people in general and theologians in particular
to cease being “passive transmitters of divine truth” and to become “active participants within
multiple communities and public sectors” who are determined to enlarge the circle of inclusion and
to achieve the grand vision of a world of justice and hope in which all universalities and particulari-
ties are celebrated and critiqued. Only then, she insists, will our hostilities and tensions give way to
the enormous possibilities for which our common humanity yearns. Cosmopolitan Theology goes
far toward showing us the way toward this elusive dream.

Robert N. Nash, Jr.

Mercer University, James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology, Atlanta, GA, USA

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