{"id":13061,"date":"2017-06-01T15:12:04","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T22:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13061"},"modified":"2017-06-01T15:12:04","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T22:12:04","slug":"what-our-history-books-forgot-to-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-our-history-books-forgot-to-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What our History Books Forgot to Tell Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>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<\/a> in Kitale. This odd little private museum was founded by an eccentric Scotsman who wildly claimed that the Karamajong language\u2014a kissing-cousin to Turkana, in the vein of Portuguese and Spanish\u2014and Gaelic, are intrinsically related. The entire museum of Nilotic and Celtic artifacts was built to support a common origin for the two distant languages. As a (very) amateur linguist fluent in Turkana, I was fascinated by this claim. While it seemed irrational, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the suggested similarities. For instance:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. (Gaelic) cainnean<\/em>: live embers\u00a0(Karimojong) ekeno<\/em>: a fireplace (Turkana) akeno:<\/em> fire<\/li>\n
  2. (Gaelic) acras<\/em>: hunger\u00a0(Karimojong & Turkana) akoro<\/em>: hunger<\/li>\n
  3. (Gaelic) ceilich<\/em>: to eat\u00a0 (Karimojong & Turkana) ekelai<\/em>: a tooth<\/li>\n
  4. (Gaelic) lach<\/em>: a laugh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(Karimojong & Turkana)\u00a0alakara<\/em>: happiness<\/li>\n
  5. (Gaelic) im:<\/em> butter\u00a0(Karimojong) akimyet<\/em>: butter (Turkana) akimet<\/em>: fat<\/li>\n
  6. (Gaelic) caora: <\/em>a sheep\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(Karimojong & Turkana)\u00a0ekoroi<\/em>: a male goat, buck<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And many other instances. While the similarities seems farfetched, after reading Tom Oden\u2019s How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind<\/em>, it seems much more probable.<\/p>\n

    Oden\u2019s hypothesis is simply this: \u201cThe [early] Christians to the south of the Mediterranean were \"\"<\/a>teaching Christians to the north. Africans were informing and instructing and educating the very best of Syriac, Cappadocian and Greco-Roman teachers. This flow of intellectual leadership in time mature into the ecumenical consensus on how to interpret sacred Scripture and hence into the core of Christian dogma.\u201d[1]<\/a> Oden, a systematic patristic scholar, lays out his argument, then challenges contemporary Africans to find evidence to support it, thus inspiring them to lay claim to their rightful identity with an active heritage in the birth of Christianity. In similar fashion to Cahill\u2019s claim that Christianity, ousted from mainland Europe by barbarians, was reestablished via the monks of Ireland and Scotland,[2]<\/a> so Oden extends those roads to include Africa\u2014as a\/the motherland for early Christian exegesis and orthodox doctrine, transported via exiled desert fathers\/mothers into Celtic monasteries. The circle becomes complete as those European Christians influenced by early African Christian theology return the Good News again to the continent in the modern mission movement.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

    When I have visited Israel, the pilgrims surrounding me are often from Africa (usually Nigeria<\/a>). While visiting Israel is a pilgrimage valuable for all Christians, I have found tremendous benefit in pilgrimaging to other historically significant Christian sites as well, such as Iona (and listening to stories of my husband\u2019s trek on the Camino de Santiago). Personally, I would love to see my Turkana siblings learn about and embrace the African origins of our faith, and have the opportunity to visit, not only Jerusalem, but northern African sacred sites.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>As somewhat outsiders to this part of the story (ie. non-African), those of us from the West must recognize that we have inherited an origin story that has prejudicially erased the African-ness of early theologians and Christian communities. This is deeply lamentable. But for Africans, this can be an opportunity for hope. When we know our name\u2014our story, where we\u2019ve come from\u2014we have a heritage that gives us pride and standing. Too often I have seen the consequences of colonialism that Oden describes: \u201cWhen victims are tempted to view themselves are entirely victimized by others\u2019 domineering wills, then the sense of immobility and despair takes deeper hold.\u201d[4]<\/a> Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Augustine\u2014these are Africans that laid the groundwork for our understanding of the study of scripture, orthodoxy, and ecumenical consensus. When their stories are told to Turkana students, their African identity must be included.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Thomas Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2007), 28.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland\u2019s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe<\/em> (Anchor, 1996).<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> An essential caveat to include here is that Christian communities in Africa, while decimated by both Rome and Islamic invaders, have remained as signposts\/living stones within the Coptic and Ethiopic churches. These communities and their stories cannot be overlooked.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Oden, 27.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Church leaders in Turkana can attend Turkana Bible Training Institute (founded by our family and CMF International in 2005)\u2014a 2-year certificate program taught entirely in the Turkana language. Today, missionaries, Kenyan church leaders, and guests all teach courses, including one on church history. (see http:\/\/www.cmfi.org\/explore\/where-we-work\/kenya\/<\/a> and http:\/\/joshuaruthbarron.cmfmissionary.org\/ministry\/<\/a> for more on this.) Recently, TBTI has partnered with Hope International University<\/a>\u00a0to provide the certificates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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\u2014a kissing-cousin to Turkana, in the vein of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[261,988,953,920],"class_list":["post-13061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-nilotic","tag-oden","tag-turkana","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13062,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13061\/revisions\/13062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}