«This book shows that the hymns, songs, choruses and psalms we sing are deeply rooted in our culture and our faith. It provides an opportunity and a means to begin to analyse, understand, adapt, reject and honour what is good and vital in our hymnody and what is less than God-pleasing and God-honouring. The author has done a worthy service by creating a tool of analysis and understanding, which can be applied to singing of any kind in any and every religious setting. Read it with joy and be challenged to think very carefully about what we sing and what we are doing to ourselves and to others as we express our faith together in the community of God's people.» (Dr. David Cook, Holmes Professor of Faith & Learning, Wheaton College. Fellow, Green College, Oxford) «Dr Méndez has served with distinction on the Heritage and Identity Study Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and has therefore become known and appreciated world-wide as a historian of depth and sound insights. This focus on Mexican history will become a major text to be studied and enjoyed in many contexts.» (Rev L.A. (Tony) Cupit, Former Director of Study and Research and Assistant General Secretary Baptist World Alliance)
Contents: Evangelicals in Mexico: Their Hymnody and Its Theology - The Religious Background of Mexico - Key Characteristics of Mexican Religious Context - Review of Hymnody in the Context of Christian Worship - Research to Identify Typical Hymnody - Theological and Contextual Reflection on Evangelical Hymnody - Final Conclusions.
The Author: Dinorah B. Méndez was born in 1962 in Durango, Mexico. She has degrees in Informatics from the Technological Institute of Durango and in Theology from the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary. She studied for her Master of Divinity at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and gained her doctorate from Wales through the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. She has worked as missionary in Mexico City and has been a teacher of theology and history at Mexican Baptist Seminary since 1989.