ABSTRACT
Acolatse calls us to think of Christianity as a universal family of faith that transcends all geographical boundaries while emphasizing a theological understanding of the church. In this paradigm of interpretation, the decline of the church in one region of the world cannot be seen without the growth of the church in another region. This leads to a historical conception of Christianity. As the Western form of the faith emerged, it shifted its emphasis toward Enlightenment sentiments. Acolatse argues that this may have contributed to the decline of mainline churches in the Western world. She calls for a return to a missional understanding of the church and proposes some themes from African Christianity which might be adopted in the Western context.
