By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on June 8, 2017
Unity makes or breaks a country… In summary of the recent read, “The Rise and Fall of Apartheid”, it appears that unity was the secret ingredient for the rise and fall of the South Africa apartheid. The lack of unity of Africans set a stage for an apartheid to take hold, in the same way,…
By: Phil Goldsberry on June 8, 2017
Introduction Why does this people group, denomination, socio-economic quota, or ethnicity get a pass? Can being from a certain continent give you a “green card”, “Get Out of Jail Free-card”, or “I can do what I want because I am __________ – card (You fill in the blank)”. After my rant, I reflected on my own…
By: Aaron Peterson on June 8, 2017
The small size of Matthew Michael’s, Christian Theology & African Traditions is deceiving because it really is an immense theological textbook that deserves to be in every pastor’s library. This book will serve as a great reference for me. I appreciate and value this work. Maybe it’s because I’ve taught World History for over 20…
By: Claire Appiah on June 8, 2017
The renown evangelical theologian and academic, Matthew Michael, has produced a quasi-systematic theology work which seeks to understand Christian theology through close dialogue with the Bible, especially in the context of African worldviews and traditions. He sees the necessity of Christian theology engaging the worldviews of the African people in terms of their beliefs, values,…
By: Rose Anding on June 8, 2017
Introduction The African evangelicals recently began to disagree on their intention to develop a Christian theology in an African context. In connection to that, they have taken a plan to develop and African Bible commentary. Drawing illustrations from Matthew Michael’s Christian Theology and African Traditions, this paper notes some of the reality of the…
By: Marc Andresen on June 8, 2017
What is the view from our heart? The heart’s view is what we perceive to be reality. In Christian Theology and African Traditions Matthew Michael encourages us that theology must engage at this level: at the level of worldview. Michael’s book is a good companion volume to How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind by Thomas…
By: Katy Drage Lines on June 8, 2017
David Welsh’s extensive treatise on South Africa’s experiment with social engineering (aka ‘apartheid’) is an excellent introduction for those who are not South African. For those of us visiting South Africa later this year as part of our doctoral research, it is essential reading to understand the South African context. Even for me, as a…
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…
