| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Is there a "Historic Christian Faith"? | In his survey of the growth of Christianity, Andrew Walls implicitly argues that there is no single historically valid or classic expression of the Christian faith, rather there are numerous culturally-conditioned expressions of the faith throughout the history of the church. |
| Is there no coherence to Christian expressions of the faith throughout history? | In spite of the wide differences among expressions of Christianity, Walls does argue for a common core of Christian commitments. |
| What are the five shared commitments of Christians throughout the world and history of Christianity? | (1) the person of Jesus called the Christ has ultimate significance; (2) all use the same sacred writings; (3) all use bread and wine and water in a special way; (4) each group thinks of itself as having some community with other Christians; (5) each group sees itself, in some way, as standing in continuity with ancient Israel. |
| What is the Indigenizing principle? | The indigenizing principle affirms that it is of the essence of the Gospel for God to accept us as we are, on the ground of Christ's work alone – we don't have to give up our culture, history, language, etc., in order to become a Christian. |
| What is the Pilgrim Principle? | God not only takes people as they are, but he transforms them into what he wants them to be – God whispers to each Christian that he has no abiding city and warns him that to be faithful to Christ he will put him out of step with his society. |
| What does Gustavo Gutierrez remind us about theology? | Guttierez reminds us that theology is "critical reflection upon Christian praxis in the light of the word" – i.e., testing your actions by scripture. |
| What follows from the recognition that Christian theology is addressed to the setting in which it is produced when, as is the case in much of Africa, the context is one of staggering poverty and suffering? | Walls argues that "the domestic tasks of Third World theology are going to be so basic, so vital, that there will be little time for the barren, sterile, time-wasting paths into which so much Western theology and theological research ahs gone in recent years." |
| What are the six ages of Christian History identified by Walls? | (1) Jewish; (2) Hellenistic; (3) Barbarian; (4)Western Europe; (5) Expanding Europe and Christian Recession; (6) Cross-Cultural Transmission |
| Does Walls believe that there is a "Christian culture" or "Christian civilization"? | No, unlike Islamic culture or Islamic civilization, there is no single, identifiable, Christian culture across its huge geographical spread. |
| What is the "principle of translatability" for Walls? | Walls argues that the "principle of translatability" is the notion that Christianity can take root across cultural frontiers. This principle is demonstrated most acutely in the incarnation and Scriptures. |
| What biblical passage does Walls employ in order to best express the meaning of the "Translation Principle" in Christian History? | John 1:14 – to which he adds, "Any confidence we have in the translatability of the bible rests on that prior act of translation...the translation of the Word into flesh". |
| What is the proper or true Christian analogy with the Qur'an? | Christ not the Bible. |
| True or False: Incarnation is translation. | True. |
| What is significant about the name that is given to Jesus, the Messiah, in the new Hellenistic-pagan context of Antioch (Acts 11:20)? | In this Hellenistic context, Jesus is called "the Lord", Kyrios, the same title that the pagans gave to their own cult deities. This allowed them to connect their own previous thinking to the new reality of Jesus as Kyrios – over time, the association with other deities fell away completely. |
| True or False: Patrick, rather than Wulfila, insisted upon the use of the vernacular in his efforts to spread Christianity. | False, it was Wulfila the Goth, who sought to translate the whole Bible into Gothic. |
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