![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/A-Corbis-42-63257748_gwlgmo-300x208.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not always easy to accept that maybe what you have believed to be true, taught to you by your elders in your favorite history classes, only represents one possible scenario. The understanding of world events from a Euro-centric perspective fails to acknowledge the significant influences people in the East have had in regard to ideologies, economics, faith experiences, the arts, fashion etc. Peter Frankopan\u2019s book \u2018The Silk Roads: A new history of the world\u2019 attempts to shift the historical focus from Greece, Rome and the West to Persia, China and the East, centering world events on the routes between West and East.<\/p>\n
Being a history buff, I was immediately drawn to this book. It is always enticing to read about historical events from a new perspective, one that will shed new light on previous conceptions about them. The Western historical perspective is limited by its narrow focus thus, reading from a more Eastern focused work offered to bring greater balance to my understanding.<\/p>\n
The idea that our culture is solely based upon the advances made by the Roman empire who built upon the Greek empire fails to acknowledge that these cultures while hugely influential were also shaped by those with whom they came in contact. \u201cWe do history and the human experience a disservice if we follow a linear, teleological narrative through time, imagining it to be unidirectional or neatly boxed<\/em>.\u201d[1]<\/a>To negate the influence of Persia, China, Afghanistan and the like on world events past and present is to maintain just such a unidirectional narrative. As Frankopan points out in the preface to the book; \u201cHistory was twisted and manipulated to create an insistent narrative where the rise of the West was not only natural and inevitable, but a continuation of what had gone before.<\/em>\u201d[2]<\/a>Unfortunately, for most of us taught in a Western school system, this is the narrow and limited history in which we have been instructed.<\/p>\n The overlap of the monotheistic faiths is highlighted in the early part of the text. From our current polarized perspective it seem untenable that people practicing Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam not only got along but, according to Frankopan they often borrowed from one another. This explains some of the undeniable similarities evident between the faiths. It is often difficult for It was at the very beginning of this DMin journey that we read Oden\u2019s text \u2018How Africa shaped the Christian Mind<\/em>\u2019, which for many of us was the first we had ever considered the influence that Christian thinkers and theologians of African descent have had on the worldwide Christian faith. Again, many of us have been trained in Western ideologies with little care or understanding how other cultures have impacted our faith expressions. This overtly Western perspective permits an arrogance that promotes an ethnocentric faith experience and assumes that this represents the entirety of Christian orthodoxy.<\/p>\n It is little wonder then that the Christian church is frequently written off as bigoted, myopic, and imperialistic. In this postmodern age where institutional dogma is roundly rejected and an inherent skepticism prevails, the Church can ill afford to appear ignorant and out of touch. In Fall 2017 Oden and now this semester Frankopan, challenge readers not only to consider an alternative view of Perhaps Frankopan\u2019s book will motivate us to further investigate other histories that we \u2018know\u2019 to be true making ourselves available to the possibility that our histories are more connected than we ever realized. It belies the idea that globalization, so ubiquitous in the contemporary world, is something new brought about by the technological age. We have been influencing one another from before recorded time.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/images.png\")
those of us so far removed from the initial developmental stages of the various faiths to accept the idea that there is any commonality between the faiths. It is much more comfortable for us to assume our superiority as sole possessors of all that is true. This is not pluralism as one does not necessarily have to undermine the belief in Jesus as \u2018The Way\u2019 in order to recognize what Christianity shares with other faith expressions. But, this view is not limited to ignorance about our connection with other faiths, the narrow Western view of history has also tainted our understanding of our own faith expression.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Unknown-1.jpeg\")
history but to carry this perspective forward into the present, recognizing the cross pollination that continues to occur between cultures. This will likely draw the Church toward a more multi-ethnic experience, more representative of the worldwide Christian movement, Imago Dei, and more attractive to emerging generations.<\/p>\n