No matter how original a scholar’s imagination, . . .

“No matter how original a scholar’s imagination, no matter how penetrating and critical his judgment, society does far more of the writing of any book that lives than the author himself.”[1] However humiliating it may be formulate such a principle, its justification scarcely requires demonstration. We can no more escape the influence of our cultural climate than people at the equator or in the Arctic regions can remain unaffected by their physical conditions. This seems plain enough when pointed out, yet in theological discussion it is rarely thought necessary to take account of the environment in which ideas are formulated and the motives of their sponsors. A book is cited and a name mentioned in connection with an attractive theory; let it be endorsed by a few impressive authorities and it rapidly spreads; in due time it may be regarded as critically orthodox. But how did that theory come to be formulated? What precedents did it have in its own field, and what prompted the author to put it forward. Most significant advance in thought are the product of long processes, brought to an issue by a gifted person…(George Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days, 1998, p. 1)

---

[1] C. C. McCown, The Search for the Real Jesus (New York, 1940), 18.

Nollywood’s booming Christian film industry

Nigeria: Christian movie capital of the world (CT):

Nollywood recently surpassed Hollywood in film production, according to a UNESCO survey released in May. The Lagos-based industry has existed for less than 20 years, yet produced 872 feature-length films in 2006, nearly twice Hollywood’s 485 productions. (Both trailed India, which produced more than 1,000 films.)

Most Nigerian films, almost all of which are low-budget affairs shot on location and released on DVD, are spiritual in nature. About 20 percent are Christian, according to Obidike Okafor, an arts and culture reporter at Nigerian newspaper Next. Others champion Islam, animism and witchcraft, or simple morality.

The Christian-themed movies often aim at encouragement and evangelism more than sheer entertainment. Groups or churches often screen the films and follow them with discussions or an altar call…

…"Half of the Christian movies are not done by faith-based organizations, but by directors who want to take advantage of the strong religious inclinations of Nigerians to sell [movies]," Okafor said. "The others do it to promote their faith."…

…Nollywood’s Christian films offer revelations into what one of the world’s fastest-growing Christian populations believe, [Philip] Jenkins said. "When people are discussing splits within [Nigerian] churches, or moral issues, it helps to know the supernatural vision underlying some of these concerns. … If you went to America in 1800 and wanted to find out about the nature of their religion, you’d listen to the hymns. These videos also give you a good snapshot [of what Nigerians believe.]"

Keep Reading

 

Technorati Tags: Nollywood,Christian movies

my bizarre blog stats; peeling back the curtain for friends

You, my friends (especially my wife and my supervisor) know that I’m not blogging these days; I try to focus on my dissertation– with exception of a helpful link or quote here and a brief reflection there. Since I’m extremely small fry in the blogging world, I don’t get too excited about my stats. I do, however, check occasionally to amuse myself and to see what kinds of things people are reading and linking to. Today, I was struck by the stats for the last three days.

• Monday: 170
• Tuesday: 170
• Wednesday: 170 (exactly; no fudging)
• Thursday/Today: will surely break the chain (70 more to go as I as I write).
• Last Thursday: 169
• Last Friday: 171

In case you are curious, the most popular post almost every single day is a cartoon – “What financial crisis?” rural Africans. (Posted 27 October 2008).

In case you don’t know, I’m also an ugali expert.  Anywhere from 5-10 people every single day find me in their quest for ugali. Along the same lines, I’m apparently a source of information for Buckingham Palace – Buckingham Palace’s new Dinka guard (photo), malaria’s 3 stages, and  Dubai airport–see here and here.

Oh yeah, last month I was apparently one of the 20 hottest blogs in east africa. Timing is everything. According to Afrigator,  I was the #12 most popular blog in Kenya the day she posted–that made me #18 in East Africa. Today, I’m #29 (#351 in Africa).

In case you are curious, all this makes me #143 in the biblioblogging world for September.  (My only top 50 appearance was in February (#49), thanks mostly to my crisis cartoon.) Hope that provides a good boost to everyone’s self-esteem .

Appreciating African values in the American rat-race

Recently, the Daily Nation had an interesting story about Peninah Njuguna, a Kenyan-American Kiswahili and culture lecturer at South Carolina University, who left the job she had held for six years to become a kindergarten teacher. She has a master’s degree in adult education and agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin, a doctorate in curriculum and institution development from the University of South Carolina and a master’s degree in early childhood education from the same institution.

“When I quit my university job in 2001 to teach in a kindergarten, many people thought I was crazy. Some professors felt I was wasting my education,” Njuguna says…

…“The American system does not meet the needs of the black community. Parents work very long hours and leave their children at daycare centres. They have very little time for their children. We have no house-helps because we simply cannot afford such a luxury,” says Njuguna, a graduate of business education from the University of Nairobi.

Although she and her husband, Dr Njuguna Nagi, a marriage counsellor and therapist, acquired US citizenship after settling there in 1986, they decided to put their children through the Kenyan secondary education system before they settled in the US. They say this helped the children — Zawadi, Tumaini and Baraka — get a sense of community, “which is lacking in the US”.

“Zawadi”, Njuguna explains, “symbolises the many gifts God has given us Africans. We should exploit these gifts. We should not look so much to the West for help.

“Tumaini,” she continues, “means there is no hopeless situation in mankind, while Baraka represents people’s capability to help one another. Each one of us deserves to be successful. We all deserve to make it in life. Every person can give hope and encourage others to give. Giving is not just about money. We need to restore hope to our people, one person at a time.”

Says Njuguna, a trustee of the Kenya Christian Fellowship in the US, whose aim includes strengthening social culture and race among Kenyans in the US: “Many children in the US are left to video games and television. In fact, they are left to bring themselves up. Fathers have little time for their sons. But they are good dads working to earn a living for their families.”

…migrating to the US or any other developed country is not reason enough for one to discard one’s African values and cultures.

“We have to understand ourselves and our culture. Even the “modern” African woman needs to become an innovator rather than a consumer of Western culture. Usually, women adopt Western culture much faster than men. We have become consumers of Western culture, and this has really messed up families. We have lost our identity. We should not adopt the Western culture so blindly. We cannot raise our daughters when we have lost our identity,” says Njuguna.

Read the whole story here. We’ve had our kids in both places, and I’m happy mine are growing up here.  Let me add a few observations based on a couple things she says—almost in passing. 1.) One of the things I appreciate about Western culture is the increased equality for women; there’s a good reason African “women adopt Western culture faster than men.” 2.) Kids can be just as neglected here, but the community infrastructure compensates for it. My kids can run out our front door at any time of day, have tons of friends to play with, and have enough adults around who can intervene if anyone gets hurt. The irony is, I probably pay less overall attention to my kids here than I might in the states, but their lives our fuller, and our time together is more focused on them 3.) One of the big things that makes raising kids here easier is the ability to hire relatively inexpensive “house help”—someone who can help cook, clean, and watch your kids. This “luxury” depends on significant economic disparity—a workforce desperate enough to work for 25 cents an hour or less. I would hope that our sense of economic justice is working toward eventually creating more equal opportunity—even if it means having to pay more for help or even having to do without that luxury.

Ideally, we would have a good mix of the best of both worlds. Right now, I can’t tell you how often we thank God for being able to raise our children in this multi-cultural African environment; I’m really happy to have them learning African core values. Even in better Western environments, raising young kids can be a lot more of a stressful, individualistic enterprise where you have to do things like schedule “play dates”. I know first hand, I was an at-home dad for four years in Washington, D.C. and in Paris.

A Goldmine of NT Resources (Powell)

The companion site for Mark Allan Powells Introducing the New Testament has an incredible amount of (free) resources for teaching New Testament – all the sidebars and maps from the book.  See: http://www.introducingnt.com/

all of this material can be used in the classroom—you may print and reproduce it, display it on screen in the classroom, or use the information in PowerPoint slides. Even if you are not using this particular book in your classroom, you will find resources here that are helpful for teaching any New Testament course.

Here are some examples of the hyperlinked resources for Luke:

7.1. Content Summary: Expanded Overview of the Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

7.2. Authorship of Luke’s Gospel – Download as a PDF

7.3. The Community of Luke: Clues from the Gospel and Acts – Download as a PDF

7.4. Distinctive Characteristics of Luke’s Gospel – Download as a PDF

7.5. Passages from Mark Omitted by Luke – Download as a PDF

7.6. The Journey Motif in Luke – Download as a PDF

7.7. Worship in the Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

7.8. The Last Supper and Other Suppers in the Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

7.9. Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Savior – Download as a PDF

7.10. Jesus as the Promised One – Download as a PDF

7.11. Pagan Images for Jesus in the Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

7.12. Luke’s Use of “Today” – Download as a PDF

7.13. The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

7.14. Parallel Stories of Jesus and John the Baptist in Luke – Download as a PDF

7.15. Two Christmas Stories: Similarities and Differences – Download as a PDF

7.16. Jesus as Son and Servant in Luke – Download as a PDF

7.17. Luke in the Revised Common Lectionary – Download as a PDF

7.18. Bibliography: The Gospel of Luke – Download as a PDF

HT: Mark Goodacre, Duke, who is impressed with the book, but not happy about how it presents the Synoptic issue.

Free access to ALL SAGE Journals till 31 Oct

Just a reminder that SAGE is offering FREE online access to over 500 SAGE journals 1999–current, until October 31! Register HERE or you wait and pay $25/per day/per article . (It’s relatively painless; I’ve been registered for years–no obligation.)

Biblical Studies & Theology

• CBR – Currents in Biblical Research
• JSOT – Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
• JSP – Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha
• JSNT – Journal for the Study of the New Testament
• The Expository Times
• Studies in Christian Ethics

Some examples of SAGE journals in other fields that interest me:

Race & Class, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Cross-Cultural Research, Cultural Dynamics, Cultural Geographies, Cultural Sociology, Culture & Psychology, Current Sociology, Discourse Studies,

Diogenes, Ethnicities, Ethnography, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Black Studies, Leadership, Memory Studies, Management in Education, Time & Society, (many, many more)

political opinions, moral psychology, and persuasion(Haidt, TED)

In this TED interview, Jonathan Haidt sheds some light on why people hold the political views they do. It has implications for preachers and apologists of all kinds.

I think there are three basic principles of moral psychology, and I find it helpful to approach any new puzzle by applying them.

The first principle is intuitive primacy: Peoples’ judgments are based primarily on their intuitive reactions — on quick gut feelings, not on reasoning. This is how we make most decisions, and Malcolm Gladwell reviewed this research in Blink…

The second principle of moral psychology is that moral thinking is for social doing: We engage in moral thinking not to find the truth, but to find arguments that support our intuitive judgments, so that we can defend ourselves if challenged. The crucial insight here comes from psychologist Tom Gilovich at Cornell, who says that when we want to believe a proposition, we ask, "Can I believe it?" — and we look only for evidence that the proposition might be true. If we find a single piece of evidence then we’re done. We stop. We have a reason we can trot out to support our belief. But if we don’t want to believe a proposition, we ask, "Must I believe it?" — and we look for an escape hatch, a single reason why maybe, just maybe, the proposition is false…

That brings us to the third principle, which is that morality binds and builds. I said in my TEDTalk that morality and politics are team sports. People aren’t just engaging in post-hoc rationalization to justify their individual feelings. Rather, moral reasoning and rationalizing are done in large part to help your team, and to show that you are a good member of your team. Moral teams tend to form around principles held to be sacred…

…logic plays little role in our moral lives. Moral claims and arguments function like gang signs — they show others what team you are on, and they let you share emotions with other people, which bonds you more closely together.

…Both sides [liberals and conservatives] care about life, but in different ways. Both sides live inside their own moral matrices. And just like in the movie The Matrix, morality is a "consensual hallucination" that is very hard to step out of. But moral psychology can help people to understand that there are moral motivations on all sides. People may not be logical, but few of them are crazy…

While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you. You’ve got to create trust and liking first, and then people will be willing to listen. People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe. You have to get them to the point where they ask themselves "can I believe it?" about your claims, rather than about your opponents’ claims…

My main suggestion is to boil the plan down to a few easy-to-understand ideas, each of which has some intuitive moral content…When it comes to moral persuasion, the way to the head is through the heart.

Jonathan Haidt TED blog, 27 Sept 2009.(With video link to his 2009 talk)

Technorati Tags: persuasion

Do 46% of evangelical scholars support creation by evolution?

Bruce Waltke recently conducted an interesting survey “each president of the Fellowship of Evangelical Seminary Presidents (FESP)” and wrote a 13 page white paper detailing his results: Barriers to Accepting the Possibility of Creation by Means of an Evolutionary Process (PDF).

1. The creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2, when interpreted by the grammatico-historical method [hereafter assumed], cannot be harmonized with creation by the process of evolution. (44%)
2. The genealogies of Genesis do not harmonize with evolution (23%)
3. Evolution does not harmonize with the doctrine that Adam brought death and decay into the world (34%)
4. Evolution calls into question Adam as the father of original sin and of Christ as the Redeemer from the effects of sin (28%)
5. Evolution is bad science in part because it presumes an old earth (19%)
6. Evolution is bad science, even though the Big Bang occurred 13.73 billion years (8%)
7. ID explains the origins of species better than evolution (36%)
8. “Scientists only have the present—they do not have the past,” ruling out the possibility of science to theorize the history of origins (17%).
9. The apparent age of the universe can be explained by reckoning that God created the universe with apparent age (18%).
10. The gap theory explains the fossil record (6%)
11. The framework hypothesis does not harmonize with evolution (7%)
12. None of the above. I can accept the theory of theistic evolution (46%)
    

659 Evangelical professors visited Waltke’s (Zoomerang “radio button”) survey site, but only 264 completed it. (I wonder why the other 60% chose not to participate.) You might find Waltke’s  survey details and conclusions interesting; he notes some definitional problems.

I’d be interested to see more surveys of this kind distinguish the opinions of different types of evangelical scholars. For example, I’m guessing that there might be a significant difference of opinion between Old Testament scholars and systematic theologians. Environment–the  kinds of people they generally interact with–likely makes a big difference too.

Some of you might also be interested in this paper from the BioLogos foundation:

• “Adventist Origins of Young Earth Creationism” by Karl Giberson
  Download full PDF
  Many evangelicals believe that young-earth creationism is the only authentic and Biblical way for Christians to understand origins, and that until the advent of Darwin’s theory of evolution, young-earth creationism was the only view held by Christians. However, in this excerpt from his book, Saving Darwin, Karl Giberson explains that young-earth creationism is a relatively new phenomenon that stemmed from the 20th century fundamentalist movement.

HT: Thanks to Karyn Traphagen via Twitter. Karyn’s Boulders 2 Bits blog has had a lot of fun posts lately including Shewa fight (for you Hebrew scholars) and 21 Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn (for the rest of us).

Evangelical polarization between social action and evangelism—some historical perspective (Ralph Winter)

I was downloading an article for a contextualization of Acts class I will be teaching Friday, when I came across this gem by Ralph Winter: Understanding the Polarization Between Fundamentalist and Modernist Mission. In this article, Winter gives some historical perspective on the tension between social action and evangelism-only thinking among evangelicals. His most interesting insight may be that Evangelical emphasis on evangelism over social action may have been more the result of massive conversions among uneducated working-class—who were powerless to change society—than any theological reason. [All emphasis added.]

They weren’t up for social action or social change. They didn’t have the potential for doing that. And neither did the working-class masses of Evangelicals in the 1920s. As a result they sub-consciously or deliberately chose a theology originating mainly from J. N. Darby, which described the world as getting worse and worse until Christ would return. Darby’s thinking was no recipe for challenging worldly problems in the name of mission. But it fit in with their limited capabilities as workingclass people.

Thus, you can see the cause and effect between social status and choice of theology. Very often philosophers and theologians boast that their thinking changed history, when actually, much more often, turns of history changed their thinking.

Back to the beginning of the article.

We often hear about the “Great Reversal.” The phrase refers to the early 20th century reduction of 19th century broad evangelism (including good deeds in this world) to narrow personal evangelism. In this regard we have talked about the tension between social action and evangelism. [Several more excerpts below.]

African American Theology Reconsidered; a reformed critique (Bacote B&C)

In light of some of my reflections on theologies from different cultural perspectives, my eye caught this review from Vincent Bacote in the latest issue of Books and Culture: African American Theology Reconsidered: A Reformed Critique

Recently a friend told me about an experience he and his wife had as students at a flagship evangelical seminary in the early 1980s. "The black church," one of their professors explained, "is not really a church because it does not have its own theology. Rather it’s a social organization." Presumably he was basing his judgment on the absence of systematic theology articles and books produced by historically African American denominations. My friend didn’t say whether the professor, in a moment of notable self-reflection, went on to add " … and every day when I look in the mirror I ask myself how the tradition of which I am a part effectively guaranteed that this would be the case, especially in evangelicalism," or "of course, since our theological task is to winsomely deliver the faith once delivered across all contexts, I suppose having their ‘own’ theology is not the goal for a genuinely catholic church." I doubt that is how the conversation continued at that moment or in many other places where the same assumption has reigned as "a simple matter of historical fact."

While a search for tomes of Christian dogmatics written by African American theologians may yield little, Thabiti M. Anyabwile discovered that there is a much richer theology in the history of the African American church than one might expect. In The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity, Anyabwile introduces us to figures such as Jupiter Hammon, Lemuel Haynes, and Olaudah Equiano and makes us more aware of the theology of the poet Phyllis Wheatley and the theology which was woven throughout slave narratives. Turning the spotlight on these figures presents the opportunity to write African American theology into the story of Christian theology in the United States. This is important, as it is unlikely that most students of theology at evangelical colleges and seminaries will learn that Hammon and Haynes were contemporaries of figures such as George Whitefield and John Wesley. The theology we discover is neither novel nor distinctively African American—that is not the point…

After a serious critique of the book, Bacote adds,

…Anyabwile argues that we must be careful about how we think of the relationship between Christianity and cultural influences. He charges that the trends he deplores have been "shaped more by historical and cultural practice than by Scripture," yet he seems unaware that he must in turn ask himself if he is accepting certain Western (Reformed) cultural norms as biblical.

Finally, when it comes to the reason for the decline itself, I am curious as to why Anyabwile leaves out the biggest culprit of all: America. In a country that has privileged innovation and elevates the individual and weaves the American dream into every possible situation, is it a surprise that not only the African American church but the U.S. church in general is better acquainted with consumerism than with Scripture?

The afterword briefly offers suggestions for reversing the decline. Recentering the Bible, re-exalting God, recovering the gospel, and revitalizing the church are emphases most would champion. Here, however, one finds indications that Anyabwile desires the African American church to become a kind of "truly Reformed" church if it is to find its way. As a neo-Calvinist myself, I am warm to the legacy of Calvin, but I find it dubious to suggest the use of the "regulative principle of worship." Every tradition has had its debates about how the Bible instructs us to worship God, and I am unconvinced that introducing the regulative principle (a subject of ongoing debate within the Reformed tradition) will be much help, especially to those who are self-consciously in other streams of the faith.

My concerns aside, I am thankful to Anyabwile for helping to initiate a much-needed conversation. This book puts African Americans back into the story of Christian theology, and we must continue bringing to light the contributions of those so long disregarded.

Vincent Bacote, African American Theology Reconsidered: A Reformed Critique, Books and Culture (Sept 2009)

Technorati Tags: African American theology

African population density to surpass Europe’s next year (graph)

A graph from Ryan Briggs (using UN data found here). HT: Aid Thoughts

Briggs also posts this wonderful heat map of population density in Africa that he got from Lee at Roving Bandit (probably the best economics blog in Southern Sudan).

Click the picture to see maps from other decades going back to 1960.

Briggs says, “Charles Kenny has a good  explanation of the African population explosion and how it could happen without large amounts of economic growth.” Kenny summarizes his upcoming book on The Success of Development.

Outline:

1. Introduction: Abandon Hope?
2. The Bad News: Diverging Incomes
3. The Worse News: It’s Hard To Raise Growth Rates
4. The Good News: The End Of The Malthusian Trap
5. The Better News: The Great Convergence In Quality Of Life
6. The Great News: The Best Things In Life Are Cheap
7. Drivers Of The Better Life: Innovation, Ideas And Institutions
8. Policies For The Quality Of Life
9. The Global Agenda
10. Conclusion: Realistic Optimism

…and concludes:

Realistic optimism is the right attitude with which to face the issue of development. This is based on a recognition of the challenges still facing the world –significant progress to be made, limits to the likely speed of that progress, and concerns with sustainability. But we should also acknowledge that the rapid and unprecedented improvement in global quality of life over the past fifty years provides some significant grounds for hope about the future. Understanding the causes of this success, and building on existing progress, is a vital part of ensuring that it is sustained.

Systemic challenges facing African theologians

Following are some of my own observations about some of the systemic challenges my colleagues face in trying to do genuine African theology—dialogue between African cultures and the world of the Bible. (My experience has been largely with evangelical institutions, but many of the principles might apply more broadly.) Please feel free to add some of your own observations.

[no particular order; numbered to facilitate comments]

1. Almost all formal theological training is done in the West or by Western-trained African theologians who have been indoctrinated to Western priorities and methodologies. (All of us are shaped by our mentors, and our mentors are shaped by their environments.)
2. Many theological schools in Africa tend to depend on resources are being doled out by Western institutions with Western interests.
3. African thinkers are forced to write for Western audiences in order to gain academic credibility and get published.
4. Whereas Western theologians have the luxury of being able to be essentially mono-cultural, successful African theologians (who wish to be published) have to have a sophisticated mastery both Western and African thought patterns and ways of communicating.
5. Many of the best and brightest African academic pioneers have been snatched up by western institutions where they are forced to spend most of their time catering to white American audiences and explaining Africa to them (e.g. Sanneh, Tienou, Katongole).
6. In any theological institution there are already strong, established feelings about “how theology should be done.”
7. Evangelicals, especially, are very nervous about any new ways of doing theology.
8. Specific denominational dogmas are so sacrosanct that all we can do is regurgitate acceptable “truth” (from the teaching vessel to the recipient student and hope it doesn’t experience any corruption in the process.)
9. Seminary and Bible school programs and curriculums in Africa are almost exactly the same as their Western counterparts. (Accreditation is a factor, but not the only factor.)
10. Africa is often perceived by and portrayed to outsiders as a dark, poverty-stricken, crisis-ridden continent. (What could it possibly have to offer?)
11. The fear of syncretism—Christo-paganism. (While this might be a genuine concern in a few, rare cases, the fear of this extreme should not prevail.)
12. Many of the most successful African academics are not in touch with their own traditional cultural heritage; they may not even speak their own mother tongues, which could help shape their theological thinking.
13. Creative African theology is not given very much institutional priority in terms of grants and infrastructure support that frees African thinkers with the resources, freedom, and focused time to pursue research and writing African theology.
14. The sheer number and diversity of different African cultures can be overwhelming.
15. Genuine African theology requires cross-disciplinary expertise. In addition to the biblical studies expertise needed to understand the Bible in its original cultural context, ethnographic research along with anthropological and sociological analysis are needed to help immerse the theologian in different African cultural worldviews. (Doubles and triples the fields of academic expertise required.)
16. We don’t have access to that many models of how African theology can be done. In some ways we keep going back to the same few pioneers who laid the groundwork; new creative efforts need to be encouraged.
17. The younger, brilliant African theologians I know here are too busy addressing pressing community needs—pastoring churches, running NGOs, doing administration, working to change political leadership, etc. The ones that do teach in academic institutions tend to be teaching course overloads and are buried in administration—in addition to all the normal community pressures.

I recognize that this portrait risks severe caricature, but perhaps it will stir some of your ideas. Catholics seem to have done a far better job of supporting African scholarship (most of the books on my shelf related to African theology—written by both Protestants and Catholics—are published by Catholic presses), but in practice, they seem to have institutional and hierarchical challenges that many Protestant churches wouldn’t.

Cf. bibliography for African Christianity or (by date) or the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (e.g. Musa Dube, Nyambura Njoroge, Mercy Ouyoye, Isabel Phiri, etc.) for more African theologizing.

Technorati Tags: theology,African theology,African Christianity

Wheaton alumni picnic in Nairobi Saturday

Just a brief public service announcement: We are having a little get-together picnic for Wheaton alumni Saturday afternoon on the NEGST campus. If you are a Wheaton alumnus (or know of one who didn’t get the notice from the alumni office) and are in the area this Saturday, come on over. So far I think about 30 folks are coming; many more were out of town or busy this weekend and sent their regrets.

African theology’s window of opportunity

Like the theology of the early church fathers, genuine African (Christian) theological reflection arises out of the dialog between cultural ways of thinking and the Biblical story. African theologians today have a unique opportunity to enrich Christian theology in many of the same ways that the early church fathers did by authentically engaging and translating the gospel into new cultural frameworks (Kwame Bediako—Theology and Identity: The Impact of Culture upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and in Modern Africa (Regnum, 1992). During the era of independence, there seemed to be an explosion of energy for African theologies, but current efforts seem not to be getting the attention they could be.

Unfortunately, this unique window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

The very old African Christians who understand and appreciate their traditional cultures are dying off. Many of of the youngsters today either don’t know or don’t appreciate their traditional cultures. In some parts of Africa, it is already almost too late. Where we find third and fourth generation Christians, believers tend to be more conservative and Western in their Christianity—they grew up in schools of older missionary thought that condemned almost every component of the traditional cultures. The younger generation, which could be more open to incorporating African cultural values into their theology, has become so thoroughly secularized or westernized that most of them never learned their own traditions—some don’t even speak the mother tongues of their parents. There are still some older Africans who are in touch with their traditional roots and we should take advantage of their presence while we can. Some of these elders have thought deeply about how the Gospel speaks—or could have spoken—in ways that resonated better with the African worldview. (Some of their analysis has been generated by watching Westerners do inculturation of the Gospel badly.)

The sobering conclusion is that we may have a narrow window of opportunity within which to take advantage of some of the rich African cultural heritages to enrich global theology before the chance slips away forever (in some places 20-30 years before this older generation dies with their rich cultural knowledge). African theologians will continue to gain prominence, and the legacy of older traditions will always endure is many respects, but maybe not with the richness with which they are lived, understood, and remembered today.

The realization that certain theological insights from African cultures were slipping away hit me two years ago when I was interviewing a seventy-year-old Christian couple on the shores of Lake Victoria about eschatology. This couple clearly loved Jesus, loved the church, and had some incredibly rich reflections on how the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and power over death could have meaningfully transformed Luo burial rituals (while maintaining some of the core elements). The church of Western modernity had tried to scrap every aspect of the cultural practices wholesale. As this elderly couple talked, their fifty-year-old son entered the room. He was already a generation too late, and wasn’t aware of half of the things they were telling me; these things simply weren’t a part of his world of experience. That day, I left with an fuller understanding of the hope of the resurrection. I also left with a sense of urgency—that our generation might be missing out on an incredibly wonderful ideas.

During a PhD seminar here, a recognized scholar of the Pentateuch was talking about Leviticus and casually asked for some experiences with sacrifice from the various African cultures represented in the room. As the stories started flowing, he had to ask for pen and paper so he could take notes. It was clear to him that these students had a lot more first-hand information about ritual and sacrifice generally than he had been able to uncover in his extensive library research.

When we finally grasp the potential contributions of African cultures to theological reflection, will it be too little too late?

Coming up:  Institutional barriers to doing genuine African theology and quotes from African theologians.

Note: I had been saving this topic for a time when I could give it some extra attention, but some of my friends have urged me to post it “as is” in hopes that others (from my very limited sphere of influence) might help encourage the conversation.

Technorati Tags: African theology,African Christianity,theology

Binyavanga Wainaina on Westerners and Africa

Last month, Binyavanga Wainaina had some interesting thoughts on Westerners ideas of Africa in this interview on Speaking of Faith.

SOF OnDemand: » Download (mp3, 52:34) ¦  » Listen Now (RealAudio, 52:34)

…A lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it’s a blank empty space and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived and colonized us. This power, this power to help, is just about as dangerous as hard power, because very often it arrives with a kind of zeal that is assuming ‘I will do it. I will solve it for you. I will fix it for you,’ and it rides roughshod over your own best efforts.

From How To Write About Africa (Granta 92 2005)

Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country…

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh or struggle to educate their kids or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. Describe in detail dead bodies. Or better, naked dead bodies. And especially, rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as ‘the real Africa,’ and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this. You are trying to help them to get aid from the West.

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well-rounded complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions, and desires. They also have family values. Elephants are caring and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humor (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil)."

…Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

Back to the interview:

…that precisely is the problem. That you need this kind of weird shock appeal so someone is like, ‘I’ve got to do something.’…there will be someone with a child just like that looking at you and telling you, ‘Click here and send a dollar.’ So you pay some guilt money. But then after a while, you’ve paid some guilt money, and next year you’ll need something more horrific to notice, because you get more and more numb the more and more horror you witness. So you have this campaign that’s going, you know. I don’t even know how much our GDP has fallen because of just the ubiquitous photographs of us looking like that. I don’t know for every dollar given in that way how many dollars of somebody wanted to invest in a business in Nairobi have gone away.

…And so the ethics of those pictures to me, I mean, really, I can’t tell you how much they are upsetting, because someone just keeps telling you the urgency of the situation. People in Darfur are dying. I’m like if you have to dehumanize people to that degree, for them to die, if it is that the Western audience is so inattentive to a possible genocide that that is what you have to do, don’t do anything. Leave us alone…

…if you want to talk about grassroots organizations that work and change a country, you go to India, because they pretty much do them themselves. And because they have really no shrift for the usual nonsense. And the thing about Africa is it may be that we are poorer or weaker somehow so people with the craziest ideas, I mean, things that they tell their cousins they want to do they’ll be like, "You’re crazy… you can do it and you can get money.’

Lots of other great stuff in this interview. (Click here for the full transcript.)

I think Utube has a couple of interviews of him too, but I haven’t watched them yet.

Just keeping myself honest.

Technorati Tags: poverty,Africa,aid

Scot McKnight on writing a commentary

In his review of Joel Marcus’ new Anchor Bible commentary on Mark (Vol. 2), Scot McKnight has an interesting take on writing commentaries.

"Commentary" is a unique genre, unique both for users and writers. My own story of commentary writing is spotty. My first contract as a young professor, which arrived with a personal invitation from F.F. Bruce, led to seven years of misery for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that I wanted to reinvent the wheel on interpreting the Gospel of Matthew. Well beyond half of those years, I realized, when I was still working on chapter 1 and thinking that all I had written was rubbish, it would take two volumes to write the commentary. F.F. Bruce had passed on to his eternal reward and Gordon Fee had been appointed as the general editor of the series, and he gave me permission to write two volumes. After another year or so, now into chapter 2 of Matthew and convinced it was still rubbish, I ashamedly asked Gordon to excuse me from the contract, and I promised myself I’d never do that again. I’ve since finished a commentary on James (due in 2010), but I learned some valuable lessons early on.

I could generalize my experience into "don’t ask young professors to write substantive commentaries,"but some, like my friends Ben Witherington and Joel Green and Craig Blomberg, have managed to write commentaries effortlessly for more than two decades. My own conviction about commentary writing is that one can write out what one knows and get the thing done in a year or two or three, or one can work for a long, long time. Joel Marcus, whose second and concluding volume on Mark has just appeared in the ever-evolving Anchor Yale Bible series, belongs to that latter group. Marcus, a professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, confesses that he worked on this commentary on Mark for approximately sixteen years, and it looks like it.

In Marcus you will find the ultimate dream attempted when it comes to commentaries: mastery of the text itself, the historical"background"and contributing influences, the scholarship that continues to grow and shift and accumulate options and alternatives—and Marcus is not afraid to enter into the theological and pastoral significance of his exegesis and his conclusions. This commentary…

Scot McKnight The Cross-Shaped Messiah: Volume 2 of a major commentary on Mark. (Books and Culture Sept. 11, 2009)

PS: I’ve never had any aspirations for writing a commentary; it has never seemed like it would be fun, so thanks to all you who’ve ground them out.

Fewer people should be writing books

According to Jordon Cooper:

Bill [Kinnon] has a wonderful post on writing.  The entire thing is worth reading but this one got me thinking. “In 2004, Nielsen BookScan tracked the sales of 1.2 million books and found that nine hundred and fifty thousand of them sold fewer than ninety-nine copies.”

So we are looking at author royalties of a couple hundred bucks and a couple of conference speaking gigs.  In the end is it worth the effort?

Bill’s prescription to the cure is to write better stories and he is dead on correct (although writing stories is harder than it sounds, check out this editorial review from Amazon.com)…[Jordan laments the poor quality of most of the books he is asked to review.]

…My suggestion for a lot of writers is not to bother writing a book period.  Forget the conferences, forget the interviews on Christian radio, forget the church basement book signings.  Instead throw your efforts into whatever it is that you are good at.  Chances are your ideas are intrinsically linked to your personality and your context and not as transferable as you would think…

…is the time away from doing what you do well or time away from learning something that you don’t do well, worth 1000 book sales and $5,000 in royalties?  Is the mini-book tour worth it?  Is the time spamming your friends worth it? What about moderating message boards on infrequentbooksales.com, and trying to get people to fan you on Facebook worth it?

Thirdly, is giving the copyright of you idea to your publisher worth it?  Especially in the church I don’t know why we don’t see more writers open sourcing their content.  If you believe your idea came from the Holy Spirit, does turning that over to FOX (though Zondervan) seem to be the best course of action?  If you want to publish at least consider negotiating so your book is published under a Creative Commons license.

I have heard Michael Slaughter of Ginghamsburg talk about writing being the best way to influence people and in some ways he is right but as Bill Kinnon pointed out, is less then 100 copies influencing anyone other than your closest friends?..Most of it is regurgitated stuff and doesn’t need to see the light of day again.  Maybe the best use of our time would be coming up with some new ideas, instead of repackaging some old ones.

Read Jordan’s whole post: Bill Kinnon on Writing and follow the links. [HT: Scot McKnight’s Weekly Meanderings. This past week, Scot linked to a similar sentiment CSM]

Technorati Tags: writing

Perspective on Patriarchy

A few weeks ago, I had noticed (filed but not read) the August 23, 2009, issue of The New York Times Magazine: A Women’s Crusade (Kristof), but today, this reflection on the article got my attention.

…I was struck by how these articles were able to document in detail the detrimental effects of patriarchy—not just the psychological but also the physical, economic, and social. Too often in current political and religious debates, the role of women is treated as a matter of taste, a lifestyle choice.  This issue underscores the old maxim that the personal is the political.  Patriarchy starves people.  Aborts people.  Batters and rapes people.  And 100 million human beings are missing because of it.

Julia O’Brien, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary: 100 million missing women.

NPP on Paul and Judaism papers available on Leuven conference site.

The following papers are available (PDF) from the programme site of the upcoming  Leuven Conference on the New Perspectives on Paul and the Jews (Sept. 14-15). (Get them while they are free.)

• Michael Bachmann (Germany): Paul, Israel, and the Gentiles: Hermeneutical and Exegetical Notes
• Michael Bird (UK): Salvation in Paul’s Judaism
• Thomas Blanton IV (USA): Paul’s Covenantal Theology in 2 Cor 2:14–7:4
• William Campbell (UK): Covenant, Creation and Transformation in Paul
• Philip Cunningham (USA): Paul’s Letters and the Relationship between the People of Israel and the Church Today
• James Dunn (UK)  Unfortunately unable to come at the last minute but has offered to contribute an Epilogue to the seminar publication
• Hans Hermann Henrix (Germany): Paul at the Intersection between Continuity and Discontinuity – On Paul’s Place in early Judaism and Christianity as well as in Christian-Jewish Dialogue Today
• Daniel Langton (UK): Some Historical Observations Regarding the Emergence of a Jewish Interest in the Apostle Paul and its Relation to Christian Pauline Scholarship
• Mark Nanos (USA): Paul’s Relationship to Torah in Light of His Strategy “to Become Everything to Everyone” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
• John Pawlikowski (USA): A Christian-Jewish Dialogical Model in light of New Research on Paul’s relationship to Judaism
• Anne-Marie Reijnen (Belgium)
• Hans-Joachim Sander (Austria): Sharing God with Others or Dividing God from Powerlessness

The conference is organised around 8 questions:

1. What nomenclatures best represent the Judaism that Paul was in dialogue with: covenantal nomism, variegated nomism, ethical monotheism, etc.? What are the notions of covenant or works-righteousness that lie behind the use of these terms?
2. Is covenant a central notion in Paul? What are the merits of a semantic domain linkage between diatheke and dikaiosyne? Can one argue for an embedded covenantal framework in Paul’s thought? If so, does this framework supersede the Mosaic covenant (cp. 2 Cor 3:7-18)?
3. What is the relationship between creation and covenant in Paul’s thinking, specifically the motif of kaine diatheke and kaine ktisis (2 Cor 3 and 5 respectively)?
4. Does Paul move away from an Israel kata sarka to a notion of Israel kata pneuma? Is the new reality the ekklesia tou theou? Is this church part of, or distinct from, Israel?
5. Was Paul Torah-observant? Did Paul’s Christ transcend the Law, embody it or something else? Is Paul in continuity or discontinuity with the prophetic reading of the Law? Is Paul an interpreter or manipulator of Israel’s scriptures?
6. What is the relationship between Pauline studies and Jewish-Christian dialogue? Should Pauline studies take into account the post-Shoah context of contemporary ecumenical and interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews?
7. Are the classical interreligious and soteriological models of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism acceptable or useful for Christian/Jewish dialogue? How do they relate to the typical dialogical positions of single and double covenant schemes? What is the best way forward?
8. Are the religious ends of Christianity and Judaism compatible? Is the church in mission with or in mission to the Jews? How should this apparent tension be portrayed in homiletics, liturgy, catechetics, etc?

Bibliobloggers and NT social identity formation-a comparative study?

Social identity formation and boundary identification can be relatively complex affairs. Here in Kenya issues of ethnic identity were the hot topic during the recent census. Should people have to list their ethnic group? For what purposes? Do kids take the ethnic identity of their father or mother? Should everyone here just call themselves Kenyans instead of listing their specific ethnic group?

On a much lighter note, I’ve been enjoying the recent discussion about the essential nature and fuzzy boundary markers of the biblioblogging group.  When it comes to group identity, dialog between necessary essence and fuzzy boundary markers can be fascinating. Two recent posts got me thinking about biblioblogging in terms of social identity. Who’s “in” and who’s “out”! What makes “us” us and “them” them.

• So what is a biblioblog anyway? (Clayboy, who later comments on how much we like to talk about ourselves.)
• Should I apply to become a biblioblogger? (Peter Kirk) — he’s now officially “in.”

It’s not a new discussion; way back in ancient 2005, Mark Goodacre provided this often quoted gem:

…bibliobloggers are largely rebels who do not conform to the norms of the “biblical studies community”. The conversations are not limited to those with tenured academic appointments; the bulk of biblioblogdom is populated by independent scholars and graduate students and one of the joys of the scene is its fundamental democratic impulse. In this respect, it imitates the better e-lists, which have the same democratic ideal in which it is the academic quality of the post that is the guide. So I’d say that far from perpetuating the framework and power structures in the “real” biblical studies community, we are counter-cultural, risky and rebellious. (Cf. among many other posts, Identity, Schmidentity @ Deinde; Death of the Biblioblog?; Stop obsessing about biblioblogging; and a great round-up on Hypotyposeis, Sans-biblioblogue).

As much as I would love to, I can’t prioritize writing a detailed analysis of the current social identity/boundary formation process currently taking place for biblioblogs from a Social Identity Theory perspective. (I’m in purgatory). My goal here is to put the bug in someone else’s mind; it would make a fascinating read. Someone with a bit of wit could have a field day.

Complex social identity and boundary formation happens all the time, but often we aren’t consciously aware of them until some “crisis” brings it to our attention–e.g. a census, a political campaign, or someone asking, “how come there aren’t that many women listed in the biblioblogs top 50. (See Tim Ricchuiti’s comprehensive and updated list of the discussion of women’s marginalization in the biblioblogging world.). I’m not going to enter that discussion (I’m in purgatory, remember? No thoughtful posts for now; just parasitic blogging.) For what it’s worth (cue self-aggrandizing alert), my contribution to “the system” was to split the small-child-raising era with my wife. I went first and was a full-time, stay-at-home dad for four years. Three of those years were in chauvanistic France where the moment I told someone what I was doing, their mouths dropped open in shock–end of conversation. Getting to where I could actually enjoy that exchange made a real man out of me;-).

A couple of other thoughts:

• Consider that the majority of posts from the grand pooba of biblioblogging –the quintessential #1 (now chair of SBL biblbiobloggers)–are about human depravity and cats.
• I consider myself a marginal biblioblogger at best. I do follow and participate in the community conversations (social component), and I have written academic biblical studies posts in the past — and planned future (the essentialist component), but…
• We need to articulate our “myth of origin” … “In the beginning, there was Goodacre, West, Davila, and … (I bet Goodacre has a post about that somewhere.) UPDATE: See McGrath’s (new) ancient GilgaWest Epic. Now all we need is a couple of other versions and a few redactors.
• We could also start reshaping the collective memory–2008: The Wrong Year; 2009: The population explosion; ( and the beginning of the monthly census ritual)…

As for social identity in the New Testament, a great place to start our comparative study is with Brian Tucker’s identity formation blog. (He’s been a bit pre-occupied with Greek lately, but if you look at some of his older posts, he’ll set you straight.) For those of you who will be at SBL this year, my supervisor James C. “Jim” Miller will be giving two related presentations on Social Identity and Paul:

• Paul’s Letters and Early Jewish-Christian Identity Formation – Early Jewish Christian Relations
• Identity Formation in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians – Construction of Christian identities

See also Miller’s Ethnicity and the Hebrew Bible: Problems and Prospectus CBR 6.2 2008 [Abstract]. An article on ethnicity in the NT is forthcoming.

I’ve added short starter bibliographies for Social identity and Social Identity in the Bible to my list of bibliographies (top tab)–see also related bibliographies for Diaspora and Early Christianity and Judaism. (Which reminds me, I really need to update my Luke-Acts references.)

Any takers?

Click “read more” for some bibliographies (100+ entries for social identity in the Bible). Jenkins isn’t a bad place to start. The rest of them are listed here just to give you an idea of the kinds of things people are doing with social identity.

Social Identity:

This is a short “starter” list of some social identity works I have used – by date. (See also ethnicity.)

1. Jenkins, Richard. Social Identity. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004.
2. Capozza, Dora and Rupert Brown eds. Social Identity Processes: Trends in Theory and Research. London: Sage, 2000.
3. Turner, John C. “Some Current Issues in Research on Social Identity and Self-categorization Theories.” Pages 6-34 in Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content. Edited by Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears and Bertjan Doosje. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
4. Ellemers, Naomi, Russell Spears, and Bertjan Doosje, eds. Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
5. Romanucci-Ross, Lola and