Doing Local Theology

Clemens Sedmak’s Doing Local Theology, presents the construction of “local theologies” as an enterprise that is not just for Latin Americans, Asians, or Africans. Nor just for theologians. Instead, it is the art of thinking theologically about any local church and implementing a process that grounds people intentionally and aesthetically in the deepest Christian dimensions of their daily lives. This book is beautifully written and will become a standard in courses on method in theology, foundations of ministry, and adult discussion groups. Theologizing, in Sedmak’s terms, is reflection on people’s everyday world, on everyday occurrences, and on local realities. Most of all, he shows how the everyday is where people encounter God in their relationships with one another, their larger communities, and the very physical environment we live in. If Robert Schreiter’s monumental Constructing Local Theologies provides theoretical underpinning on the nature of local theologies, Clemens Sedmak shows that it is an art in which people learn to understand themselves and find full freedom as God’s daughters and sons.