Yong shows what happens when the revolutionary practices of Jesus and the early church are applied to Christian relations with persons of other faiths.
Building careful Biblical scholarship and insights into the practices of Jesus and the early church, launched on the day of Pentecost, Amos Yong: (1) shows that the religious “other” is not a mere object for conversion in the Scriptures but a neighbor to whom hospitality must be extended and from whom Christians should be open to receiving hospitality; and (2) argues that the practices of the Christian community must reflect this insight if they are to be faithful to the trinitarian God of Jesus Christ.
In a book that will be pivotal in the shift to a new paradigm of theology of religion, interreligious interchange, and missionary theory and practice, this subversive case is all the more impressive in not reducing Christian theological categories to modern, scholarly vogues. Instead, he shows how contemporary practice needs to catch up with the revolutionary Biblical notion of extending hospitality beyond every boundary of faith, nation, and ethnicity.
Amos Yong is professor of theology, Regent University School of Divinity. A clergyman with the Pentecostal Assemblies of God Church, his scholarly life is dedicated to deepening Biblical theology and promoting ecumenical and interfaith understanding.
