This Africa, this Asia, this Latin America, this Caribbean, this Middle East, this Pacific, and one may add, this Europe, this North America, and indeed this world, are no more and no less than part of the cosmos created by God. Is not this the first thing our Bible tells us?

And just as the entire universe was not created to have a single sun, a single moon, a single star, but many suns, teeming moons and myriads of stars, the earth inhabited by us in the company of other beings and creatures is large enough to house many peoples, languages, cultures, religions and histories. Does not this reality of the world in which we live correspond to the mind of the creating God? Surely it does, for "in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth", God created it in no other way. Is not this the first lesson we should have learnt from our Bible? Should not this have been our theological starting point? Should not this have been the basic principle of the Reformed faith along with the principles of sola scriptura and sola gratia?

Why have we Reformed Christians, no less than Christians in other confessions and traditions, tried to reduce God's creation to a "Christian" colony? Is it because it is easier for us to handle our "Christian" colony than God's creation? Why have we always regarded the rest of the world as an afterthought in the creating activity of God? Is it because we have considered Christianity as the centre of God's work? Why have we always set our Reformed faith over against the cultures and religions of other people? Is it because we see ourselves as having gained, through our Reformers and Reformed theologians, special access to God's truth? Why have we always had a theological phobia towards others?

Choan-Seng Song, "Do This in Memory of Jesus", in HS Wilson, ed., Gospel and Cultures: Reformed Perspectives, Studies from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches 35 (Geneva: WARC, 1996), pp.19f.