{"id":13876,"date":"2017-09-07T18:56:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T01:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2017-09-11T07:52:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T14:52:40","slug":"the-christian-mind-and-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-christian-mind-and-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christian Mind and Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

While reading\u00a0How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind\u00a0<\/em>by Thomas C. Oden, one thing continually ran through my mind.\u00a0 I was angry I had never been taught about the African influence on Christianity, but I was even more upset at myself for not figuring it out on my own.\u00a0 I have always known Athanasius, Origen, and Augustine had times spent in North Africa but it never dawned on my they were from Africa.\u00a0 I had always assumed they moved from Europe south.\u00a0 It is embarrassing to admit this prejudice thought.<\/p>\n

One thing is clear in going through this book, Oden is passionate about this subject.\u00a0 I found it interesting and maybe a little strange Oden spent a large portion of the book encouraging theological scholars in Africa to pursue the majority of groundwork in proving his theory.<\/p>\n

In chapter two, Oden talks of the seven ways Africa has shaped the Christian mind.\u00a0 He postulates that the library at Alexandria was the “model for university libraries all over Europe”.1<\/p>\n

This is a very interesting idea, although the library at Alexandria was Hellenistic, it clearly was in Africa.\u00a0 Oden goes on to talk about the different influences seen in exegesis, dogma, and ecumenical decision making all having beginnings in African thought.\u00a0 In my mind the idea of Universities and colleges has always been something exported from Europe.\u00a0 Places like Oxford, The Sorbonne, Cambridge, and Salamanca to name a few.\u00a0 If you look up oldest universities in the world these and other European Universities populate the lists.\u00a0 They fail to mention any outside of Europe.\u00a0 Even if you make the parameters just Africa you will get universities started in the 1800’s.\u00a0 There are some mentions of Muslim schools, but there is no mention of any ancient schools in North Africa.\u00a0 If you dig deep enough there are discussions about the possibility of the materials from the Alexandrian library possibly surviving and being the basis for the beginnings of universities in Europe but that is where my search ended.\u00a0 It is possible but hard to prove the university system was based on the library of Alexandria, which would be a tremendous gift to the world.<\/p>\n

The chapter which had the greatest affect on my heart was Defining Africa.\u00a0 What does it mean to be African.\u00a0 The statement “A demeaning prejudice has crept into historical lore that these great figures were not Africans at all–merely Europeans in disguise”2, speaks to the unintentional prejudice I already held and put a light on my own thinking.\u00a0 The idea of European seeds being what grew Christianity was something I held onto but not because of thinking less of the minds in Africa, I held onto them because I never thought it through.\u00a0 I have always admired Athanasius and his writings but never gave thought to where he was from.\u00a0 The discussion on what makes something indigenous was very interesting.\u00a0 If Christianity after 2000 years is not indigenous then neither is Islam, nor many of the settlers in South Africa, such as the Bantu,\u00a0 and other regions.\u00a0 How long does something have to have a history to be considered indigenous.\u00a0 Even in the Americas, the indigenous peoples came from Asian over the Bering Strait, so the question remains how long does something have to be part of the culture to be considered to represent that culture.\u00a0 I would argue over 2000 years would be plenty.<\/p>\n

While it does not matter where a thought or a way of looking at scripture originated, as long as it holds to scripture and is not heretical, it does not hurt to give the proper respect to those who set the cornerstone in how we look at God.\u00a0 When the idea of African Christianity being a foundation for Western thought is\u00a0 looked at I think Oden has hit a nerve.\u00a0 Christians in Africa should be proud of their heritage and be able to understand where they have their beginnings.<\/p>\n

Oden also discusses the seeds of martyrdom and ascetic monasticism within the African continent.\u00a0 These thing just add to the importance of understanding and discovering how Christianity and its belief systems were shaped.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a good perspective to see past my own blinders. While this book is far from a comprehensive treatise on the seeds of Christian thought in Africa, it does serve its purpose.\u00a0 To call those who would listen to examine our way of thinking, not to relegate those who we see as giants of theological thoughts to be something they are not, just because they spoke what could be considered a European language.\u00a0 My own thought process has been changed, and that makes all the work coming over the next three years more than worth the time and effort.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 \u00a0Thomas C. Oden, How Africa Shaped The Christian Mind:\u00a0 Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, <\/em>(Downers Grove, Il: Invervartisty Press, 2007). 43-44<\/p>\n

2. Ibid. 62.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While reading\u00a0How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind\u00a0by Thomas C. Oden, one thing continually ran through my mind.\u00a0 I was angry I had never been taught about the African influence on Christianity, but I was even more upset at myself for not figuring it out on my own.\u00a0 I have always known Athanasius, Origen, and Augustine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"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":[],"class_list":["post-13876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876","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\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13876"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13961,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions\/13961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}