From Contextualization to Glocalization Intercultural Theology and Postcolonial Critique

The era of Globalization - characterized by the end of the bi-polar world order and the expansion of neo-liberal capitalism as well as the compression of the world through new communication technologies - has already stamped its mark on theology. Especially those theologies which consider themselves as contextual undergo deep transformations from localization to deterritorialization, from being mono-cultural to hybridity and from being community centered to multiple belonging. The shift from contextualization to glocalization that becomes visible behind these processes is traced in the works of two African and one Asian woman theologian as well as one Asian male theologian. While Musimbi Kanyoro, Kenya, is still practicing a late modern form of inculturation theology, with the works of Musa Dube, Botswana, Kwok Pui-Lan, US, and R.S. Sugirtharajah, UK, postcolonialism irrupts into contextual and intercultural theological reflection. As a consequence the pendulum swings from the particular back to the universal, now defined as exchange and interdependence.