Book Review: DOING LOCAL THEOLOGY

Clemens Sedmak, Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), pp. 182.

Whatever else missional means, this term has something to do with recognizing one's immediate context--whether the Pacific Northwest with its pluralism or the American South with its nominalism--as a mission field. For Westerners, this reality (or, at least, awareness of it) is a relatively new development. There is now a need for Christians to engage Western communities as missionaries. To be missional, then, is to be engaged in local mission (mission + local = missional).

To equip people for this engagement, Clemens Sedmak has produced a useful resource that also happens to be beautifully written. Although Sedmak does not use the term missional, his book Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity is a work of missional theology. Its focus on learning how to practice theology in ways that are contextualized for and comprehensible to particular people in particular contexts makes it a valuable companion for Jesus followers in the West.

The book is structured simply, with fifty theses serving as descriptive headings for short sections that could be read as devotions. (The fifty theses are helpfully listed at the back of the book.) For example, the third thesis reads: "Doing theology is a way of following Jesus. Theology seeks friendship with Jesus and communion with God" (6). Sedmak then exegetes this statement briefly.

The book's content is thoroughly "Jesusy" (to borrow Anne Lamott's word), with many of the theses making direct appeals to the example of Jesus. Sedmak directs his readers to do theology in the way that Jesus did theology. In this sense, his book is about discipleship--about following Jesus. It is Jesus, the Word who became flesh in a particular cultural context, whom Sedmak points to as justification for cultural engagement and contextualization. Different cultures have different ingredients, and local theology makes use of these local ingredients in order to live the gospel faithfully and effectively. What Sedmak calls "little theologies" (theses thirty-eight through forty-eight) are especially local, as they are limited theologies that "are...made for a particular situation, taking particular circumstances into account" (38).

"Little theologies are needed in times of confusion, and confusion arises in times of change such as our own" (120). Sedmak writes clear theology in a time of confusion. His book is simple yet substantial, written for anyone who is serious about practicing Christian faith for and with their neighbors.