By: Mike on October 4, 2017
Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren’s, How to Read a Book, is a practical time saving approach that helps readers “grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually.”[1] Growing through reading is the book’s key theme. Two motivations that answer the “why” we should read books are: if we start reading we are taught about the “world and…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on September 15, 2017
This week we read the book Visual Faith by William A. Dyrness. Throughout the book he advocates for a renewal of the arts within worship and faith culture. One of many statements that he made stood out to me: “We must become better stewards of their gifts as we allow them to expand our corporate…
By: Trisha Welstad on September 15, 2017
Apartheid has not been a subject on the top of my reading list until very recently. With the plan of visiting South Africa and the preparatory reading of David Welsh’s, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, I have a new appreciation for the leaders and the people of South Africa who persevered through decades of…
By: Chip Stapleton on September 15, 2017
In one sense, as a reader engaging with his book, Visual Faith: Art, theology and worship in dialog, the stated goal that William Dyrness puts forward seems almost ridiculous: ‘This book aims to extend and enrich a Christian conversation on the visual arts’ (Dyrness, 9). The question rings hollow because in a culture where we are constantly…
By: Kyle Chalko on September 14, 2017
I knew the word apartheid. Well, I had seen it. Turns out I didn’t know how to pronounce it properly. And that probably is a good illustration for how much I actually knew about apartheid. Going into this study, mostly naïve, I knew of Nelson Mandela, but only in the type of sense, I know…
By: Jean Ollis on September 14, 2017
In reading David Welsh’s “The Rise and Fall of Apartheid”, PW Botha’s own rise and fall of power captured my attention. Although an unlikely character to focus on (Mandela and De Klerk are certainly more notorious), Botha’s intersection between his Christian faith and leadership within the Nationalist Party (NP) prompted me to want to dig…
By: Jason Turbeville on September 14, 2017
My earliest memories of apartheid came from a movie. “Because your black”….in Lethal Weapon 2, when Danny Glover and Joe Pesci had gone to the South African consulate as a distraction the idea of apartheid hit home for me. Why would a person of color want to even go somewhere they were hated? Even the…
By: Kristin Hamilton on September 14, 2017
When I taught US History to high school students, I pointed out to them what I had learned in my art history classes – that art is a mirror of what has just happened or is currently happening in the world. That’s why many artists aren’t appreciated until long after their death, when we finally…
By: Lynda Gittens on September 14, 2017
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a saying of the American and British community. It justifies the rights of the person who does not agree with another one’s view of something visual. In our society art refers to pictures, dance, music, sculpture, and more. Dyrness discuss the inclusion and exclusion of the…
By: Stu Cocanougher on September 14, 2017
As I read this week’s assignment for the DMinLGP program, I realized that some of the information in this book was extremely relevant to the team of 17 that I will take to Serbia this November. The following is written to these team members. Serbia Mission Trip Team: I know that you are excited…
By: Mike on September 14, 2017
The book by David Welsh, The Rise and Fall of the Apartheid, is a book about how black South African’s fought and gained a democratic voice from the elite ruling class of white Afrikaners.[1] Welsh’s work was published at the same time I was living in Botswana, a country known for its bushmen tribes, diamond…
By: Chris Pritchett on September 14, 2017
In his monumental work, “The Rise and Fall of Apartheid,” Welsh chronicles the conditions that led to Apartheid, the injustices and divisions that took place under its regime, to the influences that led to its collapse, along with the challenges that came in the aftermath of transition. The complexity of the situation as described by…
By: Jennifer Williamson on September 14, 2017
In The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, David Welsh offers a comprehensive and balanced history of South African politics in the 20th century. While I had some idea of the causes and challenges related to apartheid, I had not realized how complex the issues had been. Nelson Mandela is rightfully portrayed as a hero who…
By: Dave Watermulder on September 14, 2017
In his book, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, historian and political scientist David Welsh quotes Absolom Vilakazi to say, “disorganization and disintegration are simultaneously accompanied by reorganization and reintegration.”[1] Part of what Welsh sets out to show in his book is the dynamic flow between “disorientation” or the deteriorating situation in South Africa for…
By: Greg on September 14, 2017
Do you ever wonder why people do what they do? Why we act the way we do to certain scenarios and situations reflects an understanding on who we are in that situation. I was thinking as I walked down the street today about the way the old people in Chinese society demand respect. It is…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on September 14, 2017
David Welsh’s book, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, was very insightful and highlighted some aspects regarding the ending of apartheid in South Africa that I already had some interest in as a result of some movies and documentaries I have watched on the subject. The relatively peaceful transition was shocking to most everyone who…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on September 14, 2017
As I was listening audibly to the book Visual Faith, on art and its relationship to the church, many times the voice would say, “Image not included because of rights restriction”, and all I had was the words and my imagination. The author would describe the picture and I would try to visualize what he…
By: Dan Kreiss on September 13, 2017
Living in New Zealand during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s allowed me a closer perspective of the ultimate demise of apartheid in South Africa and the ascendency of the ANC and Nelson Mandela in the new Republic of South Africa. I well remember the white South African immigrants fleeing what they anticipated would…
By: Jay Forseth on September 13, 2017
When I was in my college history class, I was taught apartheid was “apart-hood” and it brought to my developing mind a vivid picture of painful “separateness” for all people. My first memories of racial division came as a kindergarten student in the Denver Public Schools. My parents bought a house in the Denver city…
By: Jim Sabella on September 13, 2017
“I believe that making beautiful forms is theologically connected to our call both to listen and respond to God in prayer, praise, and sacrament.”(1) The church in which I grew up met in a rather utilitarian building on the side of town that was filled with immigrants. As the church developed and grew it moved…
