By: Lynda Gittens on June 7, 2017
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5 (NIV) THE RISE AND FALL OF APARTHEID BY WELSH In 1948, Apartheid was for the people with black skins, white Afrikaans, Coloured, and Indians. It, for the most…
By: Geoff Lee on June 7, 2017
Those of us of a certain age have lived through some amazing historical events in recent decades. I was living in Germany when the wall came down and East and West Germany were reunited in what was a relatively peaceful process. I was living back in the UK when the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement came…
By: Jim Sabella on June 7, 2017
Summary: It seems like a simple enough word, apartheid: apartness; but the story of Apartheid is one of unbelievable pain and one of unbridled abuse of power. It is a story of a people who became the target of an insidious and legal effort to pretend that they did not exist by enacting draconian segregation…
By: Mary Walker on June 7, 2017
“A miracle? A negotiated revolution? A ‘refolution’? All of the above can be, and have been, used to describe South Africa’s transition from being the world’s last surviving racial oligarchy to a democratic order. The theme of this book has been that the transition occurred because the principal antagonists, the ANC and the NP,…
By: Pablo Morales on June 7, 2017
Growing in cultural awareness has been a progressive experience in my life journey. I can say with certainty today that cultural context is more complex and intricate than I had ever anticipated. It shapes us more than what we realize. Let me share a few experiences as I reflect on this week’s reading. LANGUAGE: Even…
By: Kristin Hamilton on June 2, 2017
It may not have been his intent, but Thomas C. Oden’s How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind left me wondering why non-Western cultures are generally viewed as less intellectual and intuitive than those from the West. I’ve noticed this bias in myself when reading works by Origen and Augustine (and other early Christian scholars), in…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on June 1, 2017
Thomas C. Oden author of How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind challenges the Western Christian narrative of Christianity and its origins in Africa. Oden states his purpose for his book in the beginning when he writes ” The thesis of this book can be stated simply: Africa played a decisive role in the formation of…
By: Stu Cocanougher on June 1, 2017
“Africa” For many, that word brings up a wide variety of thoughts. Jungles Exotic wildlife Bongo drums Grass huts Abject poverty War masks and spears Tribal Dances Oral storytelling Pagan religions The reality is that Africa could just as well be characterized by… The childhood home of Jesus. The home of Joseph, Moses, Simon…
By: Katy Drage Lines on June 1, 2017
Once, to break up the 10-hour drive from Eldoret back home to Turkana, our family turned off the tarmac to follow signs to the Treasures of Africa Museum in Kitale. This odd little private museum was founded by an eccentric Scotsman who wildly claimed that the Karamajong language—a kissing-cousin to Turkana, in the vein of…
By: Lynda Gittens on June 1, 2017
How Africa Shaped Christianity To my generation, the stories of the white missionaries going into an uncivilized world of Africa to share Jesus have always been the truth told; and the only book the white slave owners allowed their black slaves to read was the Bible has always been the truth told. Those truths…
By: Jim Sabella on June 1, 2017
Summary: Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries and over 1 billion inhabitants. Of those 1 billion inhabitants approximated 460 million are Christians and yet I know very little about Africa and its Christian history. I don’t believe that I am alone and Odeon would agree that much of the…
By: Geoff Lee on June 1, 2017
How Africa Shaped The Christian Mind Who knew? Christianity did not begin and was not primarily shaped in the West! The culturally insensitive would think that it did and that it was – that we are at the centre of the universe; that Christianity moved North to South and that it is a recent import…
By: Mary Walker on May 31, 2017
In an interview with Christianity Today Thomas Oden said that he dreamed that his epitaph would read: “He made no new contribution to theology.” The dream somehow said to me …that my calling as a theologian could be fulfilled through obedience to apostolic tradition.”[1] Mourned by many, Thomas C. Oden went to be with the…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on May 31, 2017
If Africa was the significant yet unrecognized influence on the origins of Christianity as promoted by the author, I couldn’t help feeling like I just discovered I was adopted and “my parents” were not my biological parents. I felt a bit duped by the misrepresentation of Christianity in my younger years of Christian teachings, for…
By: Kevin Norwood on May 26, 2017
I was in Londonderry, Northern Ireland on a school tour with my friend Derek Switzer. Londonderry or Derry, as he would call it, is quite an interesting place. The city is so divided that it is not possible to even call it by name without making people choose their side. Protestants loyalists call it Londonderry…
By: Stu Cocanougher on May 26, 2017
My 20th birthday was celebrated in a simple concrete and tile home in Pasig, Metro Manila. Weeks earlier, I boarded a 747 from Nashville to spend my 10-week summer break in the Philippines. My partner and I lived with a Filipino family who adopted us as their own. Our task was simple, serve Pasig…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on May 26, 2017
“Leading in the twenty-first-century world means maneuvering the twists and turns of a multidimensional world. The continually shifting landscape of global leadership can be disorienting; experience and intuition alone a re not enough. But cultural intelligence offers a way through the maze that’s not only effective but also invigorating and fulfilling.“[1] Leading with Cultural Intelligence…
By: Jason Kennedy on May 26, 2017
I am a student of history and of people. I am fascinated in studying how people think about any particular event or action. Recently, I have discovered a documentary on Netflix entitled The Seven-Five. It is a gritty tale of how cops, those sworn to serve and protect, ended up running drugs for Columbian drug…
By: Chip Stapleton on May 26, 2017
My third Sunday at Good Shepherd was a bit of a whirlwind. I was still very much learning the ‘ins and outs’ of what a ‘regular’ Sunday and so this ‘special’ Sunday was a complete mystery. This fact was complicated by the fact that I didn’t know that there was going to be a baptism…
By: Kristin Hamilton on May 26, 2017
Like David Livermore, I am fascinated by cultures and their differences. I love learning how different cultural values are lived out daily in the community as well as how they contrast with other cultures. Leading With Cultural Intelligence is like reading an encyclopedia or a dictionary in which I uncover new things that help me…
