blog book tour for Coffeehouse Theology

So many books, so little time. This one got my attention — COFFEEHOUSE THEOLOGY: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life by Ed Cyzewski. The title is inviting to the masses, but the part that is crucial is how it surfaces the issue of how culture shapes theology!

The blog book tour starts today, runs through most of October and spills over to November! Ed will stop by here at djchuang.com on October 13th. 1st stop at kingdom grace. I’ll dig into the book more by then, and raise more of the unexplored culture aspects of theology, particularly about the mostly missing multicultural perspectives and explore a bit on the bi-cultural perspectives of Asian Americans. (cf. complete list of bloggers where the tour will visit)

The introduction to Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life is online courtesy of Theooze:

CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES, UNDERSTANDING GOD

… Rather our culture—who we are and our values—becomes both our greatest strength and largest obstacle in theology. Culture can be a strength because it serves as a tool when we use our understanding of culture to study God. Think back to the Beatitude’s example: Christians in the U.S. tend to spiritualize the message of Jesus because we understand the pride so prevalent in today’s culture. Yet, every culture has weaknesses, too. God is so much more than what we can see by ourselves. So while addressing the pride of our culture in the Beatitudes, we can easily miss out on God’s concern for the poor and the blessings he sets aside for them.