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The Non-Western Jesus. Jesus as Bodhisattva, Avatara, Guru, Prophet, Ancestor or Healer? Martien E. Brinkman, Equinox, 2009 (ISBN 978-1-845-53398-4), 338 pp., pb $24.95 Brinkmans thesis is simple and startling. Every time a culture searches for a title for Jesus in India, Africa, China, Japan, or Indonesia there is a process of double transformation. The new title, let us say Jesus as avatar, coming out of the local culture is itself transformed as is our understanding of that title within Christian discourse. This process can open our eyes to new features in Jesus, which we did not previously see. But it can also lead to an obscuration of the gospel. Brinkman tests his thesis against a vast literature from the areas indicated above. This allows the reader to be introduced to a wide range of indigenous theologies while reecting on the critical issues involved in inculturation. Brinkman is not unaware that this is precisely the process through which the Western Jesus evolved. However, some methodological attention to this long history might have helped. Newman, for example, is an astute guide to inculturation in dogma and practices. Nevertheless, Brinkman is a fair, disciplined, and thoughtful guide, always alert to the social, political, and inter-religious dimensions of the materials he is investigating. I could not summarize the vast tracts of doctrinal geography he covers, so for the sake of illustrating the richness of his thesis and his ndings I shall stick to a single example: India (taking up roughly four out of his nineteen chapters). Brinkman indicates inculturation does not really start with the early Syrian Christians or the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Both groups simply imported their traditions intact, with little borrowing and penetration into the local cultures. (That might also be why they survived so long!) Inculturation begins with the Hindu reformers of the nineteenth century and then subsequent Indian Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. Brinkman investigates three trajectories. First, Jesus as avatar, whose role of mediator reects very much the characteristics of the avatar descending from Vishnu. Vishnu is said to descend to the world in non-human and human forms to save the world from lawlessness and chaos. The danger in this model is

Reviews in Religion and Theology, 18:1 (2011) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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docetism, whereby Jesus humanity can be compromised. Second, Jesus as guru, whose role of mediator is sculpted from the ascending to Shiva model from among the vast humanity seeking to rise to God. Here, the danger is adoptionism, whereby the humanity is overplayed. Both models draw upon the ascetic traditions of India, thus also bringing into relief the social aspects of poverty. A third and interesting model comes out of the dalit concerns. The dalit are the casteless people of India, sometimes called tribals or untouchables, who constitute roughly fteen percent of the population. Brinkman is astute in noting how this theology has more credence in the West, keen on liberation theologies, while the caste ridden nature of much of the church in India explains its marginalization at home. Thomas Thangaraj has developed a crucied guru model and it is precisely here that Brinkmans thesis illuminates the dynamics of double transformation. Such a guru introduces a change in the Hindu concept of guru, while at the same time bringing Jesus into a more intimate relationship as teacher, rather than a distant Lord (p. 166). Furthermore, by relating the initiation rites between guru and teacher to the rites of baptism and communion, a socio-ethical dimension is infused into the guru. To preserve the uniqueness of Jesus, the term Sadguru is employed, the true guru. This is fascinating, especially as Brinkmans project shows that there is no stasis in Christological reection but a dynamism that is both precarious, rewarding, and never complete. I am not entirely convinced that the double transformation thesis in the eld of inculturation is an original application as claimed (p. 20), for Newman has already noted this dynamic, as have patristic scholars exploring the inculturation of Platonism or medieval scholars viz. Aristotelianism, or Lamin Sanneh, exploring the African context of contemporary missiology and the dynamics of translation. But this does not detract from the value of the study, precisely because Brinkman extends the canvas impressively and traces illuminating patterns from Benares to Bangkok to Beijing. Gavin DCosta University of Bristol

Thinking with the Church: Essays in Historical Theology, Brian A. Gerrish, Eerdmans, 2010 (ISBN 978-0-802-86452-9), xxvi + 287 pp., pb $25.00 In Thinking with the Church Brian Gerrish retells old and new narratives in the history of theology from John Calvin to Friedrich Schleiermacher
2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.