Constructing religious identity in intercultural Christian encounter Het opbouwen van een religieuze identiteit via interculturele christelijke 'encounters'

Cultural heterogeneity is a constitutive aspect of the global church that ‘goes all the way down’: innerecclesial differences can not only be encountered across local churches, but are also experienced within them. The concept of inculturation has been used to highlight ecclesial diversity across local churches. Scholars, however, have shown that it relies on theological assumptions and cultural theories that effectively conceal heterogeneity within local churches. Inculturation, therefore, does not allow us to understand inner-ecclesial heterogeneity in its full complexity, and does not offer a sufficiently nuanced lens to conceptualize Christian identity in view of cultural plurality. The question, hence, becomes pertinent how individual Christians construct their religious self and their religious others in encounters with different ways of practicing Christianity – and how we can theologically conceptualize these identity constructions. Taking a multidisciplinary approach that intersects qualitative empirical research and systematic theological reflection within a postcolonial theoretical framework, this project develops an answer to these questions through an analysis of narrative interviews that investigates how Christians construct their religious identity in intercultural encounters.