ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that the old-school confessional and ethnocentric theology has no place in today's Western secular academia. He focuses on the academic discipline under the name “theology”. Mission studies has represented a widening of the horizon in theology in the sense that through it, non-Western cultures and religions have gradually been introduced into the theological agenda, resulting in contextual theologies where the interaction between faith and culture is lifted into focus. The renewal needed for theology in Western academia can use World Christianity as its model. What is done in the study of World Christianity needs thus to become a standard approach in theology. Theology can no longer afford to externalise the task of cultural plurality to contextual theologies, mission studies, or World Christianity, but the multiple voices in terms of cultures and subcultures need to be recognised throughout.
