30 January 2011

Are Your Theology and Work Biased by Your Culture?

Kevin Howard has written an interesting post on his blog, Need Not Fret, about theology, the gospel, cultural filters, and how one might think about all of those. It's an interesting read; it should cause you to think; it's a topic to which anyone doing missions and ministry in Africa should give some serious thought. I've listed some interesting (to me) quotes from the article just to whet your appetite. Read the whole article and see what you think: Allen Yeh, ETS, and Cultural Theology
  • Apparently a man in the ETS forum on world Christianity asked "Why do we need to look at the New Testament from an African perspective?" [Allen] Yeh felt frustration at the presumption behind the question, and I suppose some frustration is justified. At the same time if there is not some truth in the man's question then there is no core truth in Scripture or in the gospel itself to pass from one culture to another. Perhaps the man could have posed a better question along the same lines, like, "Can a particular culture focus too much on their ethnic identity when doing their theology such that it becomes ethnocentric to a fault?"
  • "Western theology also has some serious flaws in it," Yeh says. Who can disagree?  It does and this is an important observation. But sometimes it is too easy to make western theology the world-wide whipping boy and leave other cultural theologies unscathed.
  • "Platonic dualism...evangelism is seen as more important than social justice; non-Westerners would never make such a prioritization!"
  • To see a difference [between evangelism and social justice] and prioritize does not equal apathy or doing nothing for social justice.
  • That most any African believes in a supreme God helps to start spiritual conversations, but that many also believe in a group of intermediate divinities (more personal spirits to interact with humans) hinders true faith in Christ.
  • Scripture turns out to be more reliable ... than does culture even though none can read a passage without cultural influences.
  • Because we are all depraved then culture will show many traits of man's fallenness.  Some of God's image will shine through but so will grave sinfulness.
  • How does your own culture impact your interpretation of the gospel?
  • How does your culture impact what you do and how you do it in your work in Africa?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

29 January 2011

Map: Muslim Population — World, Region, Country

Just a quick post this morning. Someone pointed me to an interesting map that I wanted to pass on. It's from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a project of the Pew Research Center. The map is titled World Muslim Population Report. You can select a map of the whole world or of individual regions to see the total Muslim population of a region or an individual country, the percentage of the population of that geographic entity that is Muslim, and the percentage of the world Muslim population represented by that entity's Muslims.

Sub-Saharan Africa is 29.6% Muslim with 242,544,000 Muslims, representing 15% of the world's Muslims. Tanzania is about average in Sub-Saharan Africa with Muslims making up 29.9% of its population.

Perhaps it's quite obvious why this is important for this blog, but I hate to assume. That's 242,544,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa who are trying to please Allah with their works but who are missing the mark — who are falling short of the glory of God — because they have rejected Jesus as God's promised Saviour.
  • Will any of those 242,544,000 Muslims hear about Jesus from me or you or see Him in my life or yours today?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

27 January 2011

Are Elephants Muddying Your Water? (edited)

I'm currently re-reading Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future by Tim Elmore. Great book for us "old folks" who have the privilege of working with or teaching or parenting those born from 1984 forward. Elmore says he is focusing on those born starting in 1989, but what he says applies to the broader Y Generation. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who works with or leads people in this age group.

Photo by Amo Meintjes, Kruger National Park, South Africa
One of the things Elmore talks about really struck home with me this morning and has a much wider application than dealing with the iY or Y Generation. While not directly related to church planting in Africa, part of our responsibility for discipleship is to teach those who become followers of Jesus to obey what Jesus taught.

In Generation iY, Elmore gives an illustration of a study done a group of adolescent elephants who had been separated from the herd and left on their own in the wild. It seems that, after a lengthy period of separation, these elephants were disturbed by seeing their image reflected in a pool of water. So, they would stir the water to "erase" their image -- they muddied the water. (I haven't, yet, found another reference to this study. If anyone knows who did it, please let me know.)

How often do we muddy the water when it comes to letting others — or even ourselves — see us as we really are? How often do we muddy the water when we talk about reality, whether that's talking with our children, with those we lead, or with co-workers? How often do we try to muddy the water when talking to God?

Elmore lists these reasons we lie — oh, I'm sorry, why we muddy the water:
  • Because we're insecure.
  • Because speaking the truth takes time and work.
  • Because the truth can be painful.
  • Because facing the truth makes us responsible.
  • Because we've lost sight of the truth ourselves.
  • Because we genuinely want [these young] people to be happy.
[Tim Elmore, Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future (Atlanta: Poet Gardener Publishers, 2010), 110-111.]

I also just finished reading a novel, The Justice Game by Randy Stinger (Tyndale House Pub, Carol Stream, IL, 2009). Interesting reading along with this section of "Generation iY" because the 2 main characters had to deal with exactly this issue — how much could they muddy the water before it became wrong? For the record, this was a good fiction book, if you like lawyer fiction. (I just found that the Kindle edition of The Justice Game is still no longer free at Amazon — click the book title to go to the page. Check carefully, though, before "purchasing" — Amazon sometimes gives Kindle books away for a limited time and I cannot be held responsible if you click "Buy" and have to pay. Yes, there's a testimony there and no, I don't get anything if you download the book, not even if you accidentally pay for it.)
  • How much are you willing to muddy the water? (Note: I am not suggesting that you muddy the water at all.)
(See: Colossians 3:9, 1 John 2:21, Revelation 14:5)

For the Kingdom,
Bob A

26 January 2011

More Church Planting Resources

Recently a friend wrote asking if I could give him a list of resources of best practices related to missions. This is how I responded:


(Background to this paragraph: My missionary sending agency is in the throes of a major reorganization — I hope we get out of throes soon.) One of the problems of the current reorganization and, to a slightly lesser extent (maybe), the last reorganization (1997) is the loss of natural avenues of reporting and learning. The burden falls to a given individual to take the initiative to share (and ask for) information.

Frankly, the blogs of individuals may be the single best source for best practice kinds of information. The problem is that you have to find those blogs and then read them (RSS feeds really help one to keep up with all that).

Here are some sources -- many of these are stories and prayer request type resources. Most of them I periodically review to see what's going on around the world:
I hope this is a little bit helpful.

  • What resources have you found helpful?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

** The term "#missions" on Twitter has no usage restrictions. Therefore, there are some who use that tag for things other than Christian missions. In other words, caveat emptor — there are inappropriate comments included in this Twitter feed. It's possible that the IMB filters out the objectionable content before allowing it to show in this particular feed. However, if you do your own filter for "#missions" on Twitter, the less than appropriate material will show up.

14 January 2011

Africa: A New Gold Rush

It's no secret that I like information. In my Strengths profile, Learner is very high (Learner: People strong in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.). Because of that, I quickly look at any new source of statistics. A couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal posted an interactive map of Africa showing a variety of statistics. They termed it: Africa Map: A New Gold Rush.

Granted, I'm not quite sure at this point how these might be useful to mission work in Africa. At the very least, they help give a clearer general picture of what's going on in a given country.

One thing that stood out to me is the very low direct foreign investment in Kenya, the country where we have served for almost a quarter of a century. It's lower than any country in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the whole continent, only Ethiopia and Eritrea are lower. There's no explanation but, based on experience and current topics of high interest in Kenya, I would guess it's the natural result of corruption — nobody wants to deal with that.

  • What do you see in regards to your country that stands out?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A

PS

I haven't posted in quite a while. Partly, that's been because of the apparent lack of interest. That's quite all right. If this doesn't meet a need, then that's fine. But, the other reason has been my own schedule and the holiday season. We were in West Africa for a month helping with orientation for new personnel. Then, our adult children and daughter-in-law were here over the Christmas holidays. We had a great time but non-essential tasks were shelved.