Additional information
by Samuel E. Ewell (Author), Willie James Jennings (Foreword by)
Faith Seeking Conviviality traces the journey of a U.S. missionary into Brazil (and beyond), seeking to be faithfully present while also questioning the default settings of "good intentions." Taking Ivan Illich as the primary theological guide on that journey, Faith Seeking Conviviality narrates the discovery of a renewed imagination for Christian mission that arises as a response to two persistent questions. First, given the colonial history of Christian missionary expansion, on what basis do we go on fulfilling the "Great Commission" (Matt 28:16-20) as Christ's disciples? A second question, intimately related to the first, is: What makes it possible to embody a distinctively Christian presence that is missionary without being manipulative? In doing theology with and after Ivan Illich, Faith Seeking Conviviality does not offer a pull-off-the-shelf model for mission, but rather a framework for embodying the incarnational logic of mission that entails a "convivial turn"--delinking missionary discipleship from the lure of techniques and institutional dependence in order to receive and to share the peace of Christ relationally.
Author Biography
Samuel E. Ewell III is a co-director of EAT MAKE PLAY, a neighborhood-based community co-op focused on regenerating a circular economy that is citizen-led and place-based. He also works with Companions for Hope, a Christian community based in the Summerfield parish, where he combines prison and community engagement, urban permaculture, and theological facilitation as a way of cultivating abundant community at the edges of inner-city Birmingham (UK). He is also the author of Building Up the Church: Live Experiments in Faith, Hope, and Love (2008).
