What does it mean to be a Christian minority community, particularly in the context of Islam? That is the question of this collection. In this volume the identity and the vocation of the Church as a minority is addressed by scholars, looking at a New Testament letter to a minority community (1 Peter) and other historical sources.
What does it mean to be a Christian minority community, particularly in the context of Islam? That is the main question of this collection of high-quality academic contributions. Believers belonging to religious minority communities can struggle when it comes to defining their identity as part of the majority society while yet differing from that majority in various ways. It could also lead to the question as to how they they might contribute positively to society, being in an often vulnerable position as minority. In this volume the identity and the vocation of the Church as a minority is addressed by different scholars, looking at a particular New Testament letter to a minority community (1 Peter) and engaging with different historical sources. The contribution of Jewish and Muslim Scholars leads to an interesting conversation, since all monotheistic religions face similar challenges. The volume draws the themes together in two concluding chapters, the first written from a social-scientific perspective, the second from a theological-missiological perspective, that represent the key ideas emerging in addressing this important question.
1. The Church as Minority in the Context of Islam
2. Reading 1 Peter in
Constructing Minority Identity: Living as a Christian Minority in an Islamic
Context
3. Suffering as an Integral Part of Mission in 1 Peter
4. Being a
Christian Minority and Creating a Soft Difference: Perspectives on 1 Peter
from a Social Identity Complexity Perspective
5. Identity, Persecution,
Pilgrimage, and Exile: The Role of 1 Peter in Shaping the Discipleship
Journey of Believers of Muslim Backgrounds through the Come Follow Me Course
6. Through the Eyes of Christian Minorities: A Reading of 1 Peter 2
7. Two
Jewish Minorities in the Diaspora; The Targum and Yefet ben Eli on Song of
Songs
8. When the Margins Become The Centre: Jews, Statehood, and Belonging
9. Aphrahat and the Jews: An Early Church Perspective on Being a Persecuted
Minority
10. Arab Christians: A Peculiar Minority Paradigm
11. Identity,
Witness, and Service of Protestants in the Middle East: The Perspectives of
Hovhannes Aharonian, Wanis Semaan, and George Sabra
12. Sunni Islamic
Perspectives On Muslim Minorities in the West
13. Redemptive Suffering and
Sectarian Hostility: Shii Islam as a Minority Faith
14. Blessing or Curse:
The Identity of Christian Minority Communities from a Social Scientific
Perspective
15. Resident Aliens: Theological Reflections on the Identity and
Vocation of the Church as Minority in the Context of Islam
Bernhard J.G. Reitsma is Professor of Church and Theology with a special focus on Islam at the Protestant Theological University in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and head of the Graduate school. He is a minister with a special assignment in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands.
Erika van Nes-Visscher is a researcher connected to The Church in the Context of Islam Foundation.
