In this brief essay, the author welcomes George Hunsberger’s call for public theology and missional theology to talk to one another, and secondly responds to it. He appreciates the proposed dialogue, but wishes to add another party to the conversation: the stranger. He even goes as far to write that no stranger means no missional theology and no public theology. Both theologies are defined by the stranger in our midst. Therefore, a better dialogue would enlist the stranger from the beginning. In light of all this, the essay finishes with two practical ways to do so. First, he calls for the church to be a mainstream minority, and secondly, for collaboration.
The Institute for Cultural Engagement, an official program of Multnomah University and Biblical Seminary