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This is, in effect, a companion to his earlier The Art of Indigenous Inculturation with three case studies that show how Christianity has made its home in local culture—along the way receiving new insights and modes of expression:
“Intercultural Epiphanies represents my continuing journey to be in closer touch with inculturation from the side of the Global South. Here, local cultures, sedimented with the contingencies of colonial and sociopolitical history that often blur the outline of their cultural identity and heritage, are on a liberative pilgrimage toward self-realization, renewal, and, ultimately, intercultural reconciliation.”
Antonio D. Sison, CPPS, is professor of systematic theology and culture, and the Vatican II Chair at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. Among his authored books are The Art of Indigenous Inculturation: Grace on the Edge of Genius (2021) and Deep Inculturation: Global Voices on Christian Faith and Indigenous Genius (as editor-contributor, 2024).
“In this beautiful, inspiring book, Antonio D. Sison probes beneath colonial iconography and architecture in Asia and Latin America and discovers astonishing understandings of faith articulated by simple Christians right under the noses of their colonial masters and taskmasters. His artist’s eye helps us to see God’s revelation and reconciliation in unlikely places and among unlikely peoples, leading us to intercultural epiphanies.”
–Stephen B. Bevans, Louis J. Luzbetak, SVD Professor Emeritus of Mission and Culture, Catholic Theological Union
“Antonio D. Sison unquestionably establishes himself as one of the foremost authorities on the encounter between Christianity and cultures. Combining vast theological scholarship with deep insights on art and architecture, Sison offers a rare tour de force on interculturation in the Global South, including the Philippines, Vietnam, and Mexico. I strongly recommend the book for all those interested in how the Gospel is accepted and celebrated in the Global South.”
–Peter C. Phan, inaugural holder of the Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Georgetown University
“Antonio D. Sison shows how the peoples of the Global South turned inculturation into an act of reconciliation—reclaiming their dignity even within the faith of those who colonized them. Read alongside Pope Leo XIV’s reckoning in Magnifica Humanitas with the Church’s own complicity in slavery—that ‘wound in Christian memory’—Sison’s book becomes the grace-filled truth-telling the whole Church now needs to hear.”
–Enzo del Brocco, CP, president, Catholic Theological Union
“Antonio D. Sison shows how inculturation can become a locus theologicus—a pathway to reconciliation, in which God and the Christian Gospel manifest through the aesthetic and poetic sensibility of the Global South. Liberation and inculturation become intertwined as an epiphany in the serendipity of mutual creation.”
–Angel F. Méndez Montoya, professor, theology and the philosophy of religion, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City
