Scattered
Author: Luis Jr PANTOJA
Publisher:
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 412
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDivided into five main parts, this work seeks to understand the phenomenon of the diaspora from many different perspectives. The lopsided distribution of articles that make up these parts, however--two demographic, two biblical-theological, two missiological, nine strategic, and eight narrative--reveals the book's strategic and practical bias. This is not necessarily to criticize the book so much as to point out the need for others to do further theoretically oriented research on the yet largely untouched issue of migration as mission. Its lopsidedness also reveals the book's conservative evangelical orientation, as many of the articles seem to force themselves to conform to a particular vision of world evangelization. Again, this comment is not so much to criticize as to point out the need for other mission traditions to look at the reality of the diaspora from different angles in order to understand it more fully. Melba Maggay's slim Jew to the Jew, Greek to the Greek: Reflections on Culture and Globalization (ISACC, 2001) addresses similar issues, but it cannot be considered a precedent for Scattered. The latter breaks new ground for a Filipino theology of mission as it enables the church at home to view its scattered peoples as partners in the cause. As Tira concludes in her article, "May the dispersion of the Filipino nation result [in] the gathering of many" (p. 165).
