#dmingml Contrasting African & Western attitudes on money. Interesting perspectives on macro & micro solutions

Just concluded the most insightful book on financial matters contrasting African and Western attitudes I have ever read. I wish I had known of this before my last seven trips to the continent!

 

David Maranz wrote African Friends and Money Matters out of the frustration many Westerners experience when they travel and work in Africa.Although most people who visit would expect attitudes to be different, on aday-to-day level most people don't anticipate what this might look like on a practical level.

 

Starting with an overview of Africa's economic system (with a very broad brush stroke, as it differs considerably country by country), Maranz presents 90 observations of African behaviour to money and how they specifically contrast with Western behaviours. These 90 observations provide a wealth of knowledge and insightthat anybody who travels to Africa or intends living there will find to be extremely helpful. As one contemplates the notion of poverty and development in the light of alleviating severe social issues within their geo-political landscape, Maranz's work provides some revealing observations. The 90 observations are broken down into six major categories: 

 

•    The Use of Resources

•    Friendship

•    The Role of Solidarity

•    Society and People of Means

•    Loans and Debts

•    Business Matters

 

If you anticipate travelling to Africa in the future, I encourage you to get a copy of Maranz’ book and consider his 90 observations. They are well worth reading.

 

For the sake of brevity however, I want to highlight one conflict that emerged: It relates to short-term and long-term thinking, or micro-solutions to macro-solutions, and the attitudes that sit behind them.

 

Short-Term & Long-Term Wealth

 

The fundamental economic consideration in the majority of African societies according to Maranz, is the distribution of economic resources so that all persons may have their minimum needs met, or at least that they may survive. Central to this is the welfare of family and kin, and the importance of solidarity and sharing. In contrast to this, the primary consideration in the West is the accumulation of capital and wealth: a rather individualistic pursuit.

 

Of course, these are generalisations and although a little simplistic do help us to understand some of the conflicts we experience when those of us in the West who are comfortable pursuing financial security and wealth in an overtly consumerist culture, are suddenly confronted with the realities of what many African families and communities do not have, and barely able to provide for their basic human needs for shelter, food, health and education that the West has taken for granted. Bryant L. Myers in Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development, addresses some of these conflicts and understandings from the perspectives of what he defines as the poor and the non-poor.

 

Distribution of wealth and the expectations that we have of those who have wealth and how it should be used are varied, and one can appreciate why the perspectives of those who are merely trying to provide for the basic needs of their families and kin are different from those who have the capacity to meet these needs and go beyond this to simply accumulating more money, wealth and possessions.

 

Maranz draws out another distinction in the different economic systems. Where African societies tend to focus on micro-solutions, the West focuses on macro-solutions that tend to consider larger scale solutions that benefit a greater number of people beyond the immediate problem with the view that this may eradicate the problem altogether. Micro-solutions on the other hand focus on improving only the immediate situation or problem. It is a short-term solution only. Maranz provides some examples of why this occurs, and at the root of them is the fundamental importance of relationship and community for the African. Therefore, solutions focus on increasing interactions, no matter how inefficient they may seem. According to Maranz however, this is increasingly coming under threat where

 

“major disruptions have come from urbanization, the influence of Western ideas of individualism, greater geographic mobility, long-term economic crises, and the transition from family self-sufficiency to cash dependency”. (9)

 

Reflecting upon this belief, I could not help but wonder if in the West we too have had out lives disrupted in a similar way: urbanization, individualism, mobility, fluctuating financial markets, and cash dependency. These have indeed led to greater efficiencies in many dimensions of our daily lives, and it would be difficult to argue that these have not resulted in a quality of life we enjoy and have come to expect.

 

What is troubling however, is the reality that we still seem unable to resolve the poverty many of us experience in our relationships, and that the cause of this may be the very things we are notprepared to let go.

 

Perhaps we are not so macro in our thinking after all!

The Day After Tomorrow! #dmingml Apparently, today was supposed to be a big day!

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No, it wasn’t the World Cup or the World Series. Wall Street didn’t collapse, and the banks weren’t depositing money back into everyone’s bank accounts, although, the U.S. Federal Treasury were still printing more money! :)

I woke up this morning to an array of comments, questions and irritated people who were frustrated that there was so much hype around a ‘prophecy’ given by an 89 year-old tele-evangelist that the world was going to come to an end. Fortunately, living in the Southern Hemisphere and in a time zone that would usher in a new day before most other countries, I was able to reassure a friend that today clearly was not going to mark the end of the world.

Although we get annoyed by the outlandish predictions of people in relation to the world coming to an end and who speak as if they have unequivocal authority from God to do so, most of the world’s population continue to be fascinated with the mystery of God and the beliefthat the physical and material world provides an inadequate explanation for why we exist and what happens when we die. One only has to do an Internet search on Rob Bell’s recent book on hell to see that it has been Amazon’s best selling book. Ever!

While I can’t say that I’m reading a riveting, fast, page-turning book about how the world will come to an end, it does describe a fascinating journey about the historical development of Christianity throughout the centuries, both its highs and lows, and how it has shaped modern Christianity. Philip Jenkins in his book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity provides a meticulous look at the shaping influences on how Christianity spreads, including how increasingly it is returning to its roots in what he calls The Global South. Until recently, the overwhelming majority of Christians have lived in the West, which probably explains why most of us are largely ignorant of the increasing spread of Christianity in Africa and Asia.

He challenges common views held by secular ‘authorities’ in the West and modern skepticism that Christianity is dying. In fact, he presents overwhelming evidence that well and truly debunks this theory, showing its remarkable growth as it shifts from the West to the South. He argues that where Christianity has collapsed in the face of secularism, it is spreading to places where it can find a more receptive home. As author Philip Yancey says simply, “God goes where He’s wanted” (19).

But while the process of globalization has helped to facilitate this shift, it is not merely transferring another form of American, British or Western imperialism that played a significant role in earlier missionary endeavors. Not only is the Global South replete with thegrowth of non-traditional denominations and bears little resemblance to mainline Protestantism in the U.S, there is a much stronger supernatural orientation. It has an identity of its own. It is uniquely different to Christianity in the West. Jenkins says that, “The day of Southern Christianity is dawning” (3).

Specifically in relation to the growth of Christianity in the South, and Africa, the spread of Christianity didn’t originate from major marketing campaigns, or well organized and coordinated endeavors fromtraditional religious institutions in the West. What enabled it to spread as a grassroots movement was “the networking effect, as the word was passed from individual to individual, family to family, village to village.” Christianity was not considered to be for merely individual consumption, but to be shared.

As I conclude this portion of my review, I also discovered that finding a receptive home for Christianity doesn’t necessarily equate to finding a comfortable home, as someone who lives in the West would naturally assume. There was no “conversion for convenience” or as we often hear in the West that, ‘Christianity is only a crutch for people to lean on in difficult times.’ Jenkins provides horrendous statistics that show Christians as the most persecuted religious group that has ever existed.

More to come soon.

SCARED! A book that will take you to a place where it is easier to put your head in the sand, but instead you know you can't! #dmingml

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Enter: Tom Davis. I first met Tom about four years ago. We started bumping into each other at different events, and I loved his passion for life and the work he was doing with orphans, some of them who had been deeply impacted by the global sex trade. Our kids shared a love for soccer, and our families always enjoyed getting together. Last July he urged me to enrol to do a Doctorate with him through George Fox University. The first few times I said "no," but then, after considering how not everyone has the opportunity to share a journey like this with someone like Tom who sees the world through a different lens and is willing to engage it, I realised I was facing a unique opportunity where my comfortable life would be stretched and be challenged to engage important issues in our world when it is easier to leave them alone.

Enter: Scared. I had read a couple of books written by Tom – Fields of the Fatherless, Red Letters, and now, this one. Although Scared is a novel, there is nothing novel about it. It has characters we can relate to and be inspired by. You get a strong sense in reading this powerful book that there is a bit of Tom in each of the characters and he develops them in such a way that we see a little of ourselves too.

Enter: Stuart Daniels, a washed up photo journalist who's marriage is all but over is sent to Swaziland, Africa to do a story on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. His most famous photo is also the source of his greatest grief: a haunting image that places him at a scene where he is a passive witness to gross injustice in Congo. Reluctantly he leaves at a time when he knows there is every possibility when he returns, his wife won't be there, and neither will his career.

Enter: Adanna, a 12-year old Swazi girl who all but steals your heart. What she endures makes your heart break and you want to teleport yourself back through time to do everything in your power to rescue her. I still naively remember taking the book with me on a flight from Denver to Los Angeles thinking it would be a good way to kill some time and finish the book at the same time. I was totally unprepared for the shameless tears that flowed as I got closer to the end. 

Enter: Pastor Walter. His life is changed by the death of a 12 year-old boy during a church service. In the West, our perceptions of pastors and church leaders have been tainted by some of the abuses we have read about where some ministers abused their position of authority and leadership, while others see the church and their ministers as irrelevant relics of the past. Sadly, this overlooks the incredible work that many do in caring for the vulnerable in our world: the character of Pastor Walter is a testimony to such people.

Davis does a masterful job taking us deep into the psyche of each character. Almost too much. I found that I could no longer cling to excuses of ignorance or that cliché "what can one person do? What difference could I make?" Yes, the book is riveting, powerful and moving. It is also much more. It exposes your heart to something that it should never have to be exposed to, and yet God forbid that we continue to ignore the plight of our orphans: Many who suffer from curable diseases, lack of fresh water and inadequate food. Others are displaced because of civil wars sparked by corrupt political leaders, while hundreds of thousands are cruelly trafficked to fulfil the grotesque sexual appetites of evil men and women.

Tom is a man with the 'X Factor.' He is not happy sitting around doing nothing. He carries a heavy burden for orphaned children. He doesn't write for fame or recognition. He writes to get the message out hoping that many will be inspired out of their ignorance and apathy. He prays that by the time we have read the last page and close the cover of the book, that it will be the beginning of something new in our own heart and the lives of orphans who desperately need help. 

"It's my firm belief that God has already sent the answers to solve the world's most difficult issues and the answer is people like us getting involved," says Davis.

Please. Read the book!

"Freakonomics" by Levitt & Dubner encourages us to ask better questions and not accept the status quo #dmingml

The Art of Asking Discerning Questions

You won't agree with or like everything that Levitt and Dubner present in "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything", but it does make you wonder if we are asking the right questions when we need to be.

Why do the authors think of themselves as “rogue” economists? Levitt and Dubner appeal to the person in the street who doesn't have time to read all of the research available on an area of interest or something significant that appears in a headline. They consider themselves 'rogues' because in essence they don't accept "conventional wisdom" that often draws loose or shaky conclusions from research that is already based on a set of assumptions or firmly held beliefs. They draw upon numerous examples of where this is the case, but because "conventional wisdom" is more about "convenient truth" in that most people can't be bothered really trying to find out what the problem might be, they settle for an explanation or interpretation from someone else, usually an 'expert' or 'authority' figure. What research strategies do the authors offer for posing fresh research questions for our ministry context and problems? Their method is not really rocket science. They take a particular finding or result that supposedly explains the reason for its existence, and then rather than accepting it as truth, begin to explore if there is a better question that should have been asked. It's a form of professional skepticism. Don't believe it until you have absolutely discovered what is the right question to ask. This is a helpful strategy any organisational context. Learn to discern the best question to ask about a given situation. Don't just accept the commonly held view, or what Levitt & Dubner would call "convenient truth." In any context, especially in matters of faith, we are often tempted to become defensive about a position we take, rather than allow others to question it, or even question it at a deeper level ourselves. We find it easier to retreat rather than explore new explanations that have a better foundation. Often in practice, "convenient truth" says don't rock the status quo, keep the peace, even there is a better way.  We need to discover the art of asking discerning questions, and be ready when others do the same.

#dmingml Christianity is often perceived as a Western colonial import to Africa, and yet it is more African, than Western! his fact is not commonly known or accepted.

I’ve travelled to the African continent five or six times, and have always been intrigued by the diversity of rich cultures, languages and geography. Of course, going to a Game Reserve and seeing the Big Five is also an amazing experience! But this attractive tapestry would be incomplete if we ignored the extreme poverty, lack of resources, disease epidemics, and the atrocities and devastation caused by its civil wars and political corruption.

While this description seems dramatic, it is indicative of the internal conflicts a person experiences when they visit. Paul Collier’s book, The Bottom Billion, addresses some of the contributing factors as to why some of the poorer countries are unable to get ahead, and he certainly doesn’t lay the blame purely at Africa Corporate (or who Oden describes as “The Global South”), but also at the feet of the exploitive, capitalist Western world.

I have just commenced a summer semester of study with George Fox University, and was assigned a book to read called, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, by Thomas C. Oden. Early in the book he sharesabout the phenomenal growth of churches on the continent and that the Northern continent – primarily America and Europe – are beginning to wonder if the future of Christianity lies more to the south of the equator (10). In fact,sociologist, David Barrett projects that the burgeoning Christian population in Africa will grow to 633 million in 2025.

I must admit that I was a little intrigued by the title and was reminded that my cultural understanding of Africa and experience of being Christian is heavily influenced by a predominantly Western mindset. Of course, this is one of the key points of Oden’s book, that Christianity is not a “white man’s” faith at all, but actually more native to Africa than even Islam.

Western arrogance would perhaps argue against Oden’s claim that Christianity’s historical roots were heavily African for fear of losing their status as the world’s intellectual and religious mentors. Drawing on a significant body of historical texts and documents, Oden states that Euro-American theology has entirely overlooked “the literary richness of the distinctive ancient African Christian imprint on the intellectual formation of the Christian mind” (57) including having ignored “the close engagement of early African Christian teaching with indigenous, traditional and primitive religions in North Africa.” (58)

Crucial African influences includes the shaping of the idea of the university, the role in integrating the two Testaments, the formation of Christian dogma, the fostering of a method of ecumenical and conciliar decision making on contested issues, spiritual formation and establishment of monasteries, and the gradual integration of classical Christian scriptural interpretation into the language and premises of Neoplatonic philosophy (a philosophical and religious system of thought developed in the Roman Empire) (55).

From Oden’s research, he reveals that Africa was not only one of the early voices of Christianity and that it was indigenous, but that the ancient African theology of the first millennium played a key role in the formation of Christian culture and provided a critical interface for people in Africa and Asia who’s religious beliefs were rooted in Judaism and Christianity. Because it played such a decisive role in shaping European and Asian theology Oden encourages African scholars to rediscover their heritage and appreciate it for its value rather than see intellectual Christian development as predominantly Western or European. This is at the core of Oden’s hypothesis: that much intellectual history flowed south to north, something that is rarely acknowledged.

In much the same way that Oden encourages African scholars to rediscover the important role Africa played in the development of intellectual Christian thought, I find myself being more cognizant as to how my own cultural context and experience of faith has been influenced by Western thought – both religious and secular, sometimes giving it greater shape and richness while at other times challenging its core and eroding the heritage on which it was established. One thing is certain, while my faith can rest comfortably in a culture of Western tolerance and indifference, for many of my friends in Africa they have no such luxury.

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