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: 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: 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…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on May 25, 2017
With the ability to interface with cultures worldwide through travel and technology, and relating to various cultures in our communities, the development of CQ is essential if we are to create healthy relationships and communities. Cultural intelligence, as defined by Livermore as: “the capacity to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures” (24), is…
By: Lynda Gittens on May 25, 2017
At this moment in America, the term ‘intelligence’ has been on the news, social media, and social conversations. There are several ‘intelligence’ terms: Intelligence Quotient (IQ), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Now on the news the terms we hear or read about Israel Intelligence, Europe Intelligence, and the U.S. Intelligence. In the atmosphere…
By: Jim Sabella on May 25, 2017
Summary There was a time when people stated that the world “is becoming” more and more global. We may be at a point and time where that is no longer the case; in many ways, we now live in a global world. And yet, culture is still culture, and geopolitical lines are still hard lines…
By: Mary Walker on May 25, 2017
“The challenge for us as leaders is to see our existence not only in terms of our own interests but ultimately about things larger than us.”[1] Of all the books we’ve read so far, this book really rocked with me the most. David Livermore’s enthusiasm for his subject, Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is very captivating. Because…
By: Geoff Lee on May 25, 2017
“I have a friend in London – do you know them?” “Y’all are visiting England – do they still serve bland food like they did when I visited twenty years ago?” These are just a couple of the culturally intelligent questions I have heard or read from a certain nationality in the past couple of…
By: Kristin Hamilton on May 20, 2017
There is so much meat in Martin Percy’s Shaping the Church: The Promise of Implicit Theology that I cannot wait to sit down and really devour it as a full meal rather than as a buffet from which I only have the ability to eat a few bites from each section. I’m not sure exactly…
By: Chip Stapleton on May 19, 2017
If you have never had the pleasure of watching Iron Chef (in any of it’s many variations) it is a pretty serious cooking competition/reality show, that centers around a ‘secret ingredient’ challenge each week. Once the secret ingredient is revealed – in dramatic fashion, of course – the competing chefs have have one hour to create…
