Product Description

Provides a model for examining the beliefs folk religions around the world and suggests biblical principles missionaries can use to deal with them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114543 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Clinton Arnold
A book for all Christians to read who are serious about deep-level spiritual transformation. Our cultural upbringing often hides from our awareness areas of life that need to be confronted by the gospel. Reading this book will help uncover aspects of our own worldview and practice that are more informed by North American culture than by the kingdom values of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are few resources available, apart from living in a cross-cultural context, that can do what this book can accomplish. Can a person worship Christ on Sunday and visit a witch doctor on Monday morning for a healing remedy? This is the question Hiebert and his colleagues deal with in an effort to uncover what people really believe in a variety of cultures. They demonstrate how Christian missionaries have often forced folk beliefs underground when they actually thought they had rooted them out. They do a masterful job of providing the framework of a biblical response to a number of issues.

Gerald H. Anderson, director, Overseas Ministries Study Center
Here is a book that really does what the title suggests: It effectively helps Christians understand and respond to the beliefs and practices of folk religion, at home and abroad.

Sherwood Lingenfelter, dean, School of World Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary
An excellent resource book to serve as a text in missiology classes addressing folk religions and critical contextualization. The book provides a substantive overview of the characteristics of folk religions and excellent guidelines for a thoroughly biblical response to these religions in Christian mission. A significant strength of the volume are the chapters which focus on the central questions of life addressed in folk religions, and the biblical principles essential for a Christian response. The exceptional chapter on sacred myths shows how Indo-European myths have influenced missionary bias and popular theologies of spiritual warfare. The book concludes by identifying the key theological issues of relevance for new and maturing churches in folk communities. For missionaries and Christian workers in folk societies around the world, this book provides sound theoretical understanding, comprehensive elucidation of the characteristics of folk religions, and fundamental biblical and theological principles for practical application in ministry.

Customer Reviews

Understanding Folk Religion
This is an excellent book to give an understanding of different worldviews. Particularly useful in understanding people with animistic beliefs.

A book for Pastors and Missionaires
Understanding Folk Religion is a highly useful work for gaining and understanding of the dynamics involved in folk religion and how it plays out in the lives of people all around the world, even in America. In reading this book one comes to the understanding that as a whole the Church has failed to provide answers for the real life issues people deal with on a day to day basis.

In so doing what has happened is the formation of a "split level Christianity." The authors write "the central concern of this book is the persistence of a two-tier Christianity around the world despite centuries of instructions and condemnations by missionaries and church leaders" (pg.15). Countless deeply committed Christians both worship God and attend church faithfully while also visiting the local shamans and witch doctors in hopes of being delivered from demonic oppression.

One of the useful aspects of this book is how the authors present the critical issues and follow it up with a Christian response. With the issue of Split level Christianity the first section discusses the background of how this came to be (e.g., a modern worldview that denies the existence of a spirit realm and thus not addressing these issues in a missionary context). Many times missionaries either attempt to stamp it out or just let it go. Instead, the authors assert the need for critical contextualization that in the end brings about a transformation of the culture thereby providing real life solutions for the problems of everyday life (e.g., the gospel). (See Ch. 1).

This is just one of many issues addressed in this important book. Don't let it fool you either, folk religion is not limited to traditional cultures, it is alive and well even in the Western world, why else would the daily newspaper have a section on horoscopes?

needed insights for theologions and missionaries
This book is a great eye opener for those studying religion and missions. Everyone involved in (cross cultural) ministry needs to reflect on his or her own christian worldview and come to the understanding of the influence of western culture on western theology. This book is from an anthropological perspective well documented on folkreligion and from an evangelical theological perspective well balanced in dealing with the occult. In a curriculum for worldreligion this book is included in a christian bible college in the Netherlands, not only for missionstudents; all students in ministry need this subject on how religion from below affects the daily practises of people.