We are familiar enough now with the distinction between doctrine and theology, between the doctrinal content of the Christian faith as a form of life (an ‘experience’) and the variety of theological formulations in which this form of life is recognized and registered in the continuing self-awareness of the Christian community. The distinction is not absolute: there are cases in which, for instance, it is extremely difficult to imagine how a particular doctrine could be presented in any but the terms of some particular theology; but in principle at least it is always possible to express the truth of the faith in theological systems which, while of course never actually conflicting, nevertheless diverge considerably from one another in standpoint and procedure. This pluralism of approach has not developed so richly as it might have done because Christian thinking has always been conducted in predominantly European categories and modes of understanding. It may even be that the rapid unification of world culture which we are witnessing today decreases the likelihood that any theology will ever emerge that displays a serious indebtedness to distinctively African or Asiatic approaches to experience. Even if the faith is to survive in these continents at all, it may be bound to do so now in basically European, or post-European, ways of experience and reflexion; but it is clear enough that, at least in principle, there could be some encounter with God in Christ which would take a form sufficiently expressive of originally African or Asiatic approaches to reality to produce a ‘spirituality’ and a ‘theology’ radically different from anything hitherto (though words like ‘spirituality’, ‘experience’, and ‘reflexion’ are themselves so profoundly interwoven with European approaches to reality that one wonders how appropriate they may be here at all). God, even God in Christ (perhaps God in Christ above all, because thus God incarnate), requires to be encountered, that is loved and worshipped, by man – and man is always man in some particular culture, in some particular tradition, in some particular epoch.