Throughout its history, the Church has always been involved in the task of engaging with culture. Yet the cultural shifts that have been transpiring over the last several decades have catapulted this ever-present task to center stage. One sign of the recovery of the importance of a specifically theological engagement with culture is the birth of Cultural Encounters. This journal promises to provide a much needed forum for Christians from a variety of ecclesial backgrounds and who represent a diversity of theological viewpoints to engage in a scholarly conversation about the implications of a central evangelical conviction that they hold in common, namely, the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ is the Lord of culture.
Paul D. Molnar
Cultural Encounters is a timely and important new journal because it seeks to understand culture in light of the revelation of the triune God acting within history to reconcile and redeem all aspects of human history, including culture. What makes this a journal that academic theologians will want to read and contribute to is the fact that it aims to reflect on the relation of Christianity and culture in an academically rigorous manner. I look forward to the emergence and development of Cultural Encounters under the leadership of Paul Louis Metzger.
J. Jayakiran Sebastian
It is indeed a welcome development to have a journal devoted to exploring the interconnections between theology and culture in a sensitive and sincere manner. For those of us coming from contexts where Christianity exists in the midst of economic disparity and religious plurality, the hope is that this journal functions as a forum where triumphalism is problematized; where arrogance is criticized; where insensitivity is interrogated; and self-sufficiency is challenged; and where generally excluded and ignored voices are listened to with respect, in a spirit of honest engagement and interaction, recognizing the polychromatic dimensions of our faith.