One Church, Many Tribes : Following Jesus the Way God Made You

Rating:
Summary: You might be surprised...
Review: ...at how balanced this work is. Twiss does an admirable job of presenting a coherent and sensitive biblical viewpoint on the cultural influences on both Scripture - which he obviously holds in high regard - and our theologizing. This allows the reader to have a greater understanding of how cultural blind spots exist in our theological and religious thinking. At the same time, the author explores both the possibility and desireability of cultural awareness, sensitivity and incorporation into our theology and church's (or messianic synagogue's) life.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful thought-provoker...
Review: One Church Many Tribes is a deeply spiritual book that helps "white bread" readers like me to understand some of the greater universalities of our Christian faith. I strongly recommend this book for readers everywhere, and especially for those who live in areas with a Native American population.

Rating:
Summary: For More Than Just First Nations Believers
Review: This book is half exploration of the Native experience with the Church, and half examination of how a Christian life should manifest itself in particular cultures. Twiss gives a good general introduction to the spectacularly poor manner in which First Nations peoples have been treated as not merely targets of evangelization, but as believers who did not find the alleged brotherhood of the faith either very brotherly or faithful. It is a sad, disgusting tale, made personal by the account of Chief Spokane Garry.

It is the rest of the book, however, where the hope shines through. Here, Twiss asks the darn good question: Why shouldn't First Nations persons use their own instruments, music, dress, and dance to honor God? Yes, why not? He expands the argument to include aboriginal peoples all around the world, and it is actually applicable to any culture that wonders why it's being fed the Western way as the alleged way things are to be done. He developes a careful, Biblically sensitive mindset on how to think through these issues, such that one can disassociate cultural items from an original context that may not have been consonant with Biblical values, and give them new life in the Christian worldview. It is a great vision of Christ transforming culture. When this type of thinking catches on around the world, the kingdom will grow in leaps and bounds. For anyone who feels their culture, or subculture, has been stepped on by middle-class Western values that someone has tried to hide in God's mouth, this book will help set you free to drum, create, dance, and dress in ways that both make sense to your people and honor your God.