Christopher J. H. Wright: The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative
Vinoth Ramachandra: The Recovery of Mission: Beyond the Pluralist Paradigm
Charles E. Van Engen: Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology
C. Rene Padilla: Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom
Lesslie Newbigin: The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission
Kwame Bediako: Jesus And The Gospel In Africa: History And Experience (Theology in Africa Series)
« October 2007 | Main | December 2007 »
A 40th birthday should be celebrated all year long. This is a picture from the first party, the avant première, with 30+ friends and 3 turkeys (not pictured). I shared birthday honors with Isabelle (age 8) to my right and Samuel (age 7) to my left. Michael's birthday isn't until 10 Dec, just a week after mine. He wanted a front row seat for the extinguishing of the candles. Samuel and I got a bit ahead of ourselves. Isabelle graciously waited until after the Happy Birthday singing had finished to put out her eight little lights. It was a very fun afternoon, reminding me of the many Thanksgiving celebrations through the years that have also served to wish me a happy birthday. And it is a happy one. Every breath of forty years of life is worth celebrating for a whole year! I have so much to be thankful for...even if the silly look on my face in this picture is not one of them. :-)
Europe and Africa share history: Europe in Africa and Africa in Europe. Today, reciprocal Euro-African influences, both negative and positive, are ever apparent. Sadly, even as I write these words, it is the negative aspects of this historical relationship that are of visible actuality.
Six members of a French charity, Zoé’s Ark, are currently being held in Chad on charges of child abduction for attempting to extract 103 children from Chad to France. Among the more juicy details, ZA members fitted the children with fake bandages, disguising them as Darfur victims. They lied about where they were taking the children, claiming to escort them to a hospital in Chad. In fact, their intentions were to deliver perfectly healthy children to French families who had paid as much as 7000€ each to the charity. Historical wounds and blind Western arrogance underlie these complicated international tensions.
Leopold II was not French. He was King of what is one of Western Europe’s smallest nations, Belgium. He also personally controlled a territory in central Africa larger than all of Western Europe, the Congo. Leopold referred to his possession as “a magnificent cake.” The subtleties of African identity were lost on the members of Zoé’s Ark, who claimed to be saving Sudanese orphans from the Darfur crisis when in fact the children were mostly Chadians cared for by their extended families. The details of Leopold’s identity are likewise lost on most Africans. He was a white European monster who helped himself to Africa’s children under the guise of Christian benevolence. If Leopold had committed his atrocities in Europe, Europeans would remember him alongside Stalin and Hitler. Africans however haven’t forgotten Leopold’s “orphanages.”
According to historian Adam Hochschild, Leopold began establishing “orphanages” in 1890. “Orphans” were rounded-up forcibly and then trained as soldiers for Leopold’s vast native army used to protect Belgian economic interests in Congo, primarily rubber and ivory exportation.
It is against this historical backdrop that African skepticism to Zoé’s Ark’s self-proclaimed good intentions must be understood. Righteous anger seems to be the appropriate response—even if we do give the good intentions of Zoé’s Ark the benefit of the doubt—to what is certainly ethnocentric arrogance. A Ugandan observer calls their actions “modern day slavery,” digging ever deeper the breach in trust between Africa and the West.
Now switch roles, what if Chadians, lying about their intentions in official legal documents as did Zoé’s Ark, tried to extract French children from their families in France in order to give them up for adoption in Africa? Who would be angry then? What would the consequences be?
Let’s call Zoé’s Ark’s kind of benevolence what it is: The White man’s burden revisited. Their actions are fundamentally based in the arrogance of imagined Western superiority. It makes me angry too and, as a Westerner, ashamed.
APU Men's soccer team is national champion. That's right, I'm feelin' some school pride!
I played for this team in the 80s, but we weren't this good: they are the No 1 ranked team and will play today in the national championship match vs Concordia. GO APU!
Perspective: Senior Steven Lenhart who scored the Cougar's winning goal in their semi-final match was born in 1986, the first year I played for APU. Seems like yesterday.
I do not remember when the photo was taken, Christmas maybe. Now, it sits in my study on a bookshelf filled with the chef d’œuvres of missiology, sophisticated life accomplishments like Glasser’s Announcing the Kingdom and Bosch’s Transforming Mission. My mother gave it to me, the photo, when I went away to college. Pewter framed, pudgy fingers hold up a gift for the camera lens, a Rand McNally Junior Elf book. Baby teeth press gently into my lower lip turned upward in a smile. Roundish cheeks, I look to be about four years old. Black and white photography was in fashion, early 70s Berkeley street art. The kind you might see for sale on a Telegraph Avenue sidewalk table next to macramé plant holders and beaded jewelry. My hair, cut in a shaggy bowl, frames deep pool eyes that overwhelm the observer’s attention. I was learning to read, all my senses roused to an undiscovered world and to the God who created it all. Wonder and innocence pull you into that regard.
The Kingdom of God belongs to eyes such as these.
We had a tire swing then that hung from a lazy tree on the side of the house. My dad would sit in the tire and I in his arms, leaning against his solid chest. His day-old beard was rough against my cheek. He taught me promises that he couldn't make: I will never leave you. I will never forsake you, God has said.
“We can trust him,” Dad depended on these promises too. His greatest gift to me was to point beyond the strength of his own character to God’s Reign. The Kingdom of God belongs to eyes such as these.
I placed that photo on my missiology bookshelf the day I applied to Fuller’s PhD program in Intercultural Studies. I want to remember that the Kingdom of God is best perceived in wide-eyed wonder and in weakness. I want to remember child-like dependence on the God who has always kept his promise to me. I know that nothing can be added to the gift I received sitting in that tire swing. “For everything belongs to you…and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” It is in this freedom that I take the risks of doctoral studies in missiology. Everything already belongs to me. The Kingdom of God belongs to eyes such as these.
This coming year, 2008, I will be preparing for Fuller's Intercultural Studies Qualifying Exam. The books I've listed below are the one's I've selected from the Reading List of Works Central to Missiology in five out of the twelve sub-disciplines: General Missiology, Theology of Mission, Mission History, Globalization, and Contemporary Western Culture. Although I am not expected to master these books before the exam, it is my personal goal to go beyond what is required. My aim is not so much to achieve a PhD degree as it is to become a fully qualified missiologist. The exam provides a useful goal to help me lay a broad and deep missiological foundation before I attack the specific research for my dissertation.
I have already written my dissertation proposal, titled: Migration, Metropolitan Paris and Mission. It was well received by Fuller's faculty who are encouraging me to take the PhD plunge. Though I'm tempted to post my proposal here, I think it's wise to protect my ideas a little while longer. I'll reveal them as necessary.
I will however post book reviews here as I work my way through the reading list for the qualifying exam. Right now, I am studying Charles Van Engen's two major influences: Arthur Glasser and Johannes Verkuyl. These names along with others like Bosch and Newbigin may not mean anything to you now, but they will if you keep reading this blog :-) Don't worry, I'll keep blogging about everyday life too!
Soooo.... Just in time, I've decided what I want to be when I grow up: a missiologist. Even as I state this vocational goal, let me qualify it with these oft quoted words by J Verkuyl:
Missiology may never become a substitute for action and participation. God calls for participants and volunteers in his mission. In part, missiology's goal is to become a "service station" along the way. If study does not lead to participation, whether at home or abroad, missiology has lost her humble calling. (Verkuyl 1978:6)
For those of you who pray, I would appreciate it very much if you would pray for me as I pursue this "humble calling." Pray that I would have Kingdom eyes.
Did I mention that it's almost my 40th birthday? ;-)
