One of my favorite movies of all time is “A New Leaf” (1971, Elaine May and Walter Matthau). It has been described as a “Dark Comedy.” The story revolves around a
hedonist, Matthau, who decides to marry a rich heiress botanist (May). His goal is to have her die so that he can return to a life of decadent singlehood, but now with the financial resources to maintain the depravity. In the end, he finds that he has changed, and the movie ends on a more sentimental note. Obviously, the title “A New Leaf” has the double meaning of a botanist in search of a “new leaf,” and a man who “turns over a new leaf” (slang for making a major and positive change in one’s life).
So a leaf can refer to a part of a plant, a change in life, …. or a page in a book. I guess that I am looking to turn over a new leaf myself. I spent several years on my dissertation and finished it. Then I turned my dissertation into three articles and several blog posts.
So what should I do next? I mean, outside of some teaching and preaching, and administrating a counseling center in the Philippines.
I decided to start writing an “E-book.” That’s my new leaf. But what to write about? I am tired of writing about medical missions. I could write on counseling perhaps (with my wife Celia, a certified Pastoral Counselor). Maybe later. So I decided to take a poll of sorts. I looked at which blog posts of mine have had the most hits over the last few months. Below is the table.
I immediately removed “Home Page” and “About Me” from the ranking. I can quickly remove the item ranked #2 “Missions Thinking Outside of the Box.” That is because I knew from other research that people hit that one because they “googled” the phrase “thinking outside of the box” not so much because of the topic I was writing on. I can also cross off #4 for a similar reason (the term “peregrini” is a popular search engine item). I can also cross off #5 because, as I said before, I am tired of writing about medical missions. I have to cross off #7 because I, sadly, am not competent to write a book on Asian Theology… yet (or ever?).
This leaves topics on
-Power Encounter Missions (something I generally oppose)
-Role of Missions and Culture
-Response of Church in face of a dominant culture
-Role of Christians interacting with other religious cultures
-Role of story and metaphor in missions
-Missions contextualization
The dominant theme could be said to be “Contextualization of the Christian faith and message within other cultures.”
That’s nice but WAY TOO BROAD.
However, I have written on topics regarding the role of myth and parable within contextualization. I have been especially interested in the role it may have within counter-cultural contextualization. If one took the hits on posts specific to that, the combined would rank it at #2.
So I think that is the way I am going.
My title (until I change it for something better) is:
Theo-storying: Beyond Contextualization to Counter-cultural Resonance
Yeah it still sounds a bit obscure. Hopefully, I will be done with it by years end, and perhaps by then, the title will have improved. When I do I will make it available on this site. No charge. No obligations. Okay… time to start writing again…
