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This is an exciting, informed, thoughtful, and ground-breaking book on one of the most vital--and threatening--issues facing the contemporary church. Father Burrows seeks effectively to show that the older forms of church and clerical life, developed in the West, are both irrelevant and stultifying when transferred in to the Third World--and that, as a consequence, new forms of church and clerical life, forms still within the Catholic heritage to which he affirms, must be developed if the church is long to survive in that new world. Frankly admitting that his suggestions are only the beginning and by no means final, Burrows nevertheless makes crystal-clear the need for more open attitudes towards the forms of church and the need for more open attitudes towards the forms of church and clergy if the newer churches are to become genuinely creative forces in the Third World rather than lingering embassies from the First World. I found the work exceedingly stimulating, the approach fresh and open, and his suggestions more than worthy of careful thought by all those concerned with the Church in a global context.
-Langdon Gilkey, Shailer Mathews Professor of Theology, University of Chicago Divinity School
New Ministries deals with topics of vital concern for the Christian churches and it does so in a way that will catch and keep the reader's interest. Burrows handles this rather explosive topic with personal sensitivity and with scholarly care.
-Paul F. Knitter, Professor of Theology, Xavier
About the author
William R. Burrows is research professor of missiology in the world Christianity program at New York Theological Seminary and managing editor emeritus of Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York.
