Conclusion

the holy spirit in a spirit-filled world

Kirsteen Kim

pp. 243-256

in: Amos Yong, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim (eds), Interdisciplinary and religio-cultural discourses on a spirit-filled world, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

Awareness of a wider pneumatological understanding of life, the universe and human society—such as is promoted in this book—necessarily leads Christian theologians to a deep interest in, and enrichment of, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit since this is framed in the same language of 'spirit." This concluding chapter will pick up some of the insights of the earlier ones to point to such new developments in Christian pneumatology. It will also draw attention to an important substratum of this volume: that helpful sources for doing theology of the Holy Spirit in a spirit-filled world are to be found in popular religion and in Christian theologies that relate to religious traditions in Africa, Asia, and other regions where there is awareness of a wider spirit world. Increased interaction with emerging theologies from different parts of world Christianity will aid theological reflection in interaction with plural pneumatological thought in contemporary science, and in political, cultural, and religious studies. Developments in philosophy and science add credibility to plural theologies, illumine the biblical material, and create further possibilities for global theological conversation that does not marginalize those whose many-spirit cosmologies differ from predominant Western and elite one-Spirit worldviews. The chapter will examine the difficulties for Christian theologians negotiating the spirits and suggest areas of Christian theology that would benefit from further exploration of the spirit-filled world.