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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The Violence of the Christian Life #dmingml

You can imagine my surprise when Jason Clark, lead mentor for the Global Missional Leadership DMin track, asked us to listen to a sermon he gave to the Vineyard Church in Sutton, London. Clark planted the church in 1997 while he was an investment broker in London. On the surface, one can understand not seeing the connection. On the otherhand, the focus of his investments has merely changed from funds to people, from the temporal to the eternal. While there are times we naturally question the validity and implications of the eternal in our day to day activities, they don't seem as far removed as they once might have been, given the uncertainties and instability of our world.

One of the primary objectives of a mentor is to stretch his students. Clark is a master of this. I have read more widely these past six months on a range of topics that I never once contemplated I would be interested in. I have consumed both historical and modern texts related to the Protestant work ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber), radical community activism (Alinsky), transformational models of international development (Myers), economic and social changes of the 19th and 20th Century (Polanyi), a culture consumed with pleasure & leisure (Erdozain) and sport (Hoffman). A subtle thread (and sometimes not so subtle) that Clark weaves throughout the online interactive discussions is the concept and reality of consumerism. How it influences, intrudes and sometimes masters key lifestyle and life changing decisions.

Anyway, back to the sermon. Firstly, what strikes me is the title. One could expect an historical reflection on the 'Christian' Crusades. But no, this was not what it was about. Or, perhaps we would think that a title like this could be coined by someone trying to discredit the Christian faith, rather than entice people to intelligently consider it. Herein lies a significant truth for Clark. While he does want people to consider why a personal relationship with God is a remarkable thing, he wants people to be clear that this is markedly different from going into a supermarket and weighing up whether or not you want to buy something. He wants people to understand that should they decide they want God to be central to their lives, there are forces in our culture that are constantly at work to prevent this reality.

As we approach Easter, both the secular and the sacred are familiar with the bloody story of Christ being falsely accused, beaten, having flesh torn from his body, and then cruely hammered onto a cross and left to die. This is the epitomy of violence. But this does not represent a call to violence, but rather a recognition of violence to God himself.

Similarly, Clark holds up the example of the Apostle Paul, who prior to being stopped in his tracks by a blinding light, was on his way to persecute Jews who were giving their allegiance to Christ - who the religious leaders of the day despised! But let's press on. Clark goes on to say that the very essence of the word "persecute" is what Paul now uses in relation to how he devotes his own life to Christ. In the same way that his hatred of the Jews who had turned to Christ, had brought about an intensity and destructive force in his life, he now says, that same intensity and force or pressure he devotes to pursuing a relationship with Christ.

What Clark is wanting us to understand is, that the enjoyment of God necessitates a spiritual intensity or aggressiveness that needs to take hold of us so that whatever may distract us or prevent us from achieving this goal is absolutely and thoroughly thwarted. There is so much more to say here, but if you want to listen to the sermon yourself, just click on the link. Clark does a much better job at articulating this than me. - 

In finishing, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that we deal with forces in this world that Clark would say are violently and forcefully at work to destroy what we value. We love our children, but can see that they must content with many destructive and negative influences. Marriages become vulnerable and susceptible to affairs and addictions when unhealthy behaviours are allowed to linger. The material comforts and physical pleasures of this world have a tendency to superficially fill a void in our lives in such a way that we are convinced spirituality has become redundant, and perhaps worse, we wonder if it ever really existed.

In the same way that this Easter we reflect on the violence of the cross, Clark contends that real freedom only comes when God violently seizes us and rescues us from all that is destructive, negative and critical, and all the more when we cannot see those things because we have become blinded by the comforts and pleasures we consume. And then once we are rescued, in turn, we violently protect what we have discovered against whatever it is that would take it from us.

I hope this is the last sermon Clark asks me to listen to for quite a while. It's a little easier to pick up a text on economics! :)