Not so long ago I failed an online Intercultural Competency quiz.
Yikes. That does not sound so good for someone in my line of work. It is embarassing. I resolved to broaden my reading and have set a summer goal of reading books originating from different continents. This past summer it was Africa. I made my way to the buffet, otherwise known as the Langham Publishing catalogue (link here), and loaded up my plate…
It is now April — the summer has past, the air is autumnal — but I got there in the end.
One of my enduring questions is “What does exposition sound like among oral preference learners?” In Expository Preaching in Africa (link here), Ezekiel A. Ajibade argues that ‘an understanding and utilization of oral elements from African tradition and culture will entrench and enrich expository preaching’ (195). He devotes an entire chapter to those ‘oral elements’ (125-156: songs, drama, poetry, proverbs, folklore, stories) and includes sample sermons (171-187) to demonstrate how it can work in practice. These pages demonstrate how the title and sub-title of the book need not be seen as contradictory.
With Samuel Waje Kunhiyop’s African Christian Theology (link here), it is the combination of simplicity and sanity that impacts me. It is still every bit a systematic theology, but along the way he lingers with issues from his African context.
Tim Hartman’s Kwame Bediako (link here) was the shortest of the books, but the slowest to read. It was worth it. Maybe I was seduced, initially, by the exquisitely articulated chapter titles! In what is ‘a theological introduction rather than a biography’ (xvi), the author takes us into the mind of one of Africa’s seminal theologians, with plenty of ‘ouch’ in its pages for Western readers.
A bit like Abijade’s book on preaching, I was keen to discover what might be distinctively African in Elizabeth Mburu’s African Hermeneutics (link here). Remembering that ‘what is behind the eyes (ie our worldview) can be more significant than what is before the eyes’, the opening discussion on features of the “African Worldview” (21-64) provokes readers from other cultures to do something similar as they commence.
Samuel Waje Kunhiyop’s African Christian Ethics (link here) was first published in 2008 and can be seen as a companion volume to John Stott’s Issues Facing Christians Today (2006 edition). Stott’s headings are Global, Social and Personal — while Kunhiyop’s are Political, Financial, Sexual, Medical and Religious. It is interesting to observe the issues which Kunhiyop includes, but which Stott excludes (in targeting a more Western readership): like Church and State, Corruption, Fund-raising, Polygamy, Widows and Orphans, Sex-Trafficking, Female Circumcision, Drugs and Alcohol Abuse, Witchcraft…
A sixth book from Africa arrived just this past week…
It is the latest translation of the Africa Bible Commentary (link here), into Amharic. I can’t read a word — but don’t the words look intriguing?! Like many, I guess the interest in the church in Ethiopia all started with the Acts 8 story — but there has been so much more to it along the way. Like the way J. Daniel Hays, in From Every People and Nation: a biblical theology of race, takes time to linger with every single biblical reference to Cush, Ethiopia and Nubia (there is more than you think, see here) — all the words refer to ‘the same continuous civilization; a civilization that stood as one of the major powers in the Ancient Near East for over 2000 years’ (36). Then, what about Philip Jenkins’ reminders of the presence of an (almost) continuous church in Ethiopia (almost) since biblical times — and so for (almost) another 2000 years. It is staggering. ‘By the time the first Anglo-Saxons were converted, Ethiopian Christianity was already in its tenth generation’ (Next Christendom, 19) — or, consider the observation of the wandering Father Jeronimo Lobo, in the 1600s long before any modern missionary movement: ‘it is not possible to sing in one church without being heard in another’ (as quoted in Jenkins’ Lost History of Christianity, 55-56).
It is so humbling, isn’t it? Welling up inside is such a desire to honour such perseverance, such witness — made all the more poignant by the difficulties which the country faces at the moment.
Anyhow, I ordered the book as a gift from Langham for the pastor of an Ethiopian church here in Auckland and am hoping to hand it over to him some time this week in the build-up to Easter.
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
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I’m working on a similar project – I have novels from 105 countries to read (and because chronological snobbery bothers me a lot I also am reading my way through a range of texts across history – I’m still in Ancient Egypt)
Your books are obviously very different to novels, but I’m sure you’d agree there is a place for both.
Goodness me, that is seriously impressive, Rachael
Novels have a way of living on in the imagination and so they will serve you well, I'm sure.
Enjoy the dispersal on from Ancient Egypt.
Best wishes — Paul