WHOSE RELIGION IS CHRISTIANITY? The Gospel beyond the West, by Lamin Sanneh. Eerdmans, 2003. Pp. 138 (BR115.U6S26).

This book is a dialogue of 125 questions and answers, commonly called the Socratic method. Socrates was a master of the dialectical method of teaching, using a series of questions to get a student or opponent to think.

Dr. Lamin Sanneh, a native of Gambia, is the first African to chair the department of missiology at Yale Divinity School. Dr. Terry Schram, missionary translator and member of St. Philip's, suggested for our library this book and another by Sanneh, TRANSLATING THE MESSAGE. They are now in the Renouf Collection.

Christianity as a world religion is expanding rapidly in Africa, partly because of the decline of western colonialism. Additionally, indigenous people have been invited to dialogue.

Here is a sample of dialogue in WHOSE RELIGION IS CHRISTIANITY? QUESTION 73: "You also observed that nothing is more indicative of the indigenous theological advantage than the adoption of indigenous names for God in Bible translation and their introduction into Christianity…You were not, I thought , suggesting that Christianity was completely interchangeable with indigenous religions…but that their theological compatibility allows Christian engagement to produce results that have indigenous credibility rather than just foreign approval. In your argument this view occupies a central place, doesn't it? "

ANSWER: "Yes, it does. And you represent it fairly." (Pp. 78-79).

Dialogue will help answer Dr. Sanneh's question, "WHOSE RELIGION IS CHRISTIANITY?"

. . . The Library Committee