Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective by J.P Greenman and G.K. Green

In four week installments:

The Book Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective, edited by J.P. Greenman and G.K. Green, IVP, 2012 is full of challenging insights from Majority World thinkers. In order to not short-change the important highlights from the book, the review will be in installments – spaced over the next 4 weeks.  The book is so important for understanding the global church that the reviews each week will only highlight major ideas of the contributors.
This week Arthur Walls’s chapter on “The Rise of Global Theologies,” sets the stage historically for the Majority World Theologies that follow.  Week two will be Latin American theologies, including North American Latino Protestant Theology. Week three will be Asian theologies, including Asian American Theology, and week four will be African Theologies, including African American Theology.  There will be a soundbite of the week from the global theology being represented

Soundbite for setting the stage in “The Rise of Global Theologies,” by Arthur Walls from Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective.

 “Our present theological situation is the product of one of the most extraordinary centuries of Christian history…with the fastest recession from the Christian faith (in Europe), coinciding with the most considerable ascension to the Christian faith in its history (concentrated in Africa and some parts of Asia)…

The result of these developments has been the cultural and demographic transformation of the

Christian faith, raising the possibility of a theological explosion for which the nearest analogy we have is the theological explosion that took place in the early centuries of the Christian faith brought about by the interaction of the Christian faith with Greek and then Latin thought…

The 21^st century will face new theological issues that have little to do with Greek or Latin and still less to do with the later developments of European and American thought. The issues will arise from the Christian interaction with the cultures and realities of life in Africa and Asia and Latin America.” (pp. 26-27).

Summary of salient points in Wall’s chapter:

            “Theology in the early church was bounded by the history of Israel...In an entirely Jewish church the key category in Christology is messiahship…The theological high road…was opened in Antioch when some Jerusalem believers from Cyprus and Cyrene…deliberately introduced Greek-speaking pagans to Jesus…The term messiah, even when translated into Greek, would mean little to Gentiles used to the religious cults of the Hellenistic East Mediterranean.  The evangelists in Antioch presented Jesus as Lord” (p.21).

“Crossing the cultural frontier into the Greek world of thought opened theological issues undreamed of in the Messianic Judaism of the Jerusalem church…A new Christian lifestyle had to be devised under the guidance of the Holy Spirit now poured out on Gentiles: a Hellenistic way of following Jesus and a converted pattern of Hellenistic social and family life…Crossing the cultural frontier created new theological issues that arise from the need for a new sort of Christian life” (pp.22,24). 

“Commonly, the first theological issues arise from the question, “What should I do? How should I act as a Christian in this situations?”...But the ‘What should I think?” category of question inexorably follows as Christians seek to understand Christ in terms of the ways of thought and traditions of their culture” (p. 25).

“When Western Christians talk of the early church…they are usually thinking of the church in the Roman Empire, since that story is formative for Western Christianity. But much of the early church lay outside the Romans Empire…Much of Asia had a millennium and a half of Christian history before the first Western missionaries reached there…Its theology faced issues arising from Chinese, Indian and Buddhist language, culture and religion and it had to reckon with Islam…[Similarly,] some parts of Africa have a continuous Christian history far longer than Scotland’s…In the Christian kingdom of Axum and on the Ethiopian high plateau, the Christian gospel was making its impact on African life and engaging with the traditional powers of Africa…

One of the best ways of preparing for the new age of global theology may be to develop the story of the history and literature of the former age of global Christianity.  It is the joint inheritance of Western, African and Asian Christians alike” (pp.27, 29-30).

Living Your Strengths, discover your God-given talents and inspire your community by Albert L. Winseman, Donald, Clifton, and Curt Liesveld

Living Your Strengths focuses specifically on Christian church-goers’ natural talents and strengths.  The authors define strengths “as a powerful productive combination of talent, skill and knowledge.  Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. They are inborn predispositions…Unlike skills and knowledge, they cannot be acquired” (p.7). The authors recognize that these “inborn dispositions” come from God: “you are uniquely created by God and endowed with talents and gifts that are yours and yours alone”(p. xi). They dovetail this emphasis with spiritual gifts by saying “spiritual gifts are areas of calling…to be used for the betterment and advancement of the church…Your spiritual gifts help you find what the ministry is that God wants to see you accomplish; your talents are God’s way of showing you how you will accomplish it…Identifying spiritual gifts defines the outcomes; discovering talents defines the steps” (p. 31).

The premise of the authors is that believers should work from their strengths, rather than focus primarily on trying to overcome their weaknesses.  When believers understand their strengths, then they can work more productively in whatever calling God has for them: “God places within you a calling – a calling to serve others and advance the cause of Christ and the church, a calling to ministry”(p. 2).  There is a section explaining each of the 34 significant talents the authors have identified, another section on how those talents can be applied in a church setting and various stories from individuals on how living their strengths has helped their ministry.

The book is part of an on-going Gallup research project. Each person who buys the book is given a unique tracking number that enables s/he to take the Clinton StrengthsFinder test. When one’s answers are processed, the taker is given a printout of his or her signature themes, one’s top five strengths that can then be honed and maximized as one uses these in conjunction with skills and knowledge and spiritual gifts.   It is interesting to be part of such a vast research project. (As of the 2008 printing “more than 3 million individuals have taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment…More than 400 have gone through Gallup training and become Faith Strengths Performance Coaches”(pp. xi-xii)).

There are two downsides to the book’s approach, however:

1.      First, there is a surprising lack of emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the book.  There are, in fact, only two places where spiritual gifts are cited.  The emphasis instead is on the individual who needs to understand and utilize one’s strengths on one’s own.  There is not an emphasis on anointing and Spirit-direction that is a necessary understanding for the use of one’s talents and spiritual gifts and the resultant fruitfulness in one’s ministry under obedience to the Holy Spirit.

2.      Secondly, if one wants to apply the authors’ findings personally, one has to buy the book in order to have access to a personal number. That pin number becomes part of the Gallup research findings and is what you activate on line to complete a personal strengthsfinder questionnaire. But purchasing the book is a barrier for all those with limited resources. 

Still, the strengthsfinder questionnaire and the research is valuable.  The insights provided in the 34 strengths Clinton identified are very interesting and not often discussed, nor are they easily discernible if one looks at the list of 34 strengths and tries to identify one’s top five signature themes, without taking the questionnaire.  When the reviewer took the questionnaire, several of the signature themes were different than expected.  But they were on target and explained behavior and choices from the past.  Therefore, Living One’s Strengths can be an important tool for believers’ individual and corporate self-understanding.  In fact, some mission organizations do have each member take the questionnaire so the members can be best used within the organization.  

On balance, therefore, for those who can afford it, the book and the ability to complete the strengthsfinder questionnaire are worth the price.

                        Mary Lou Codman-Wilson, Ph.D.      3/15/12

African Christian Ethics by Samuel Waje Kunhiyop

Book Review African Christian Ethics, Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, Hippo Books, 2008.

Kunhiyop has written a resource compendium on ethical issues in contemporary Africa.  His purpose is “to offer an evangelical and biblical framework that African Christians can use to help them when dealing with ethical problems” (p.xv).  The book is basically an invaluable African textbook on African ethics.

Kunhiyop has breadth as well as depth as he deals with a multitude of issues.  In each area he presents the traditional African ethical perspective, then the Western ethical perspective and finally the biblical perspective, making clear distinctives among these three approaches.  Within this framework he covers the gamut from political issues (church and state, war and violence, strikes) to financial issues (poverty, corruption, fundraising), to marriage and family issues (including procreation and infertility, contraception, polygamy, domestic violence, rape, incest, prostitute and sex trafficking, female circumcision, homosexuality), to medical issues (HIV/AIDS, abortion, alcohol and drug abuse, euthanasia and infanticide) to religious issues (specifically witchcraft).  Although his range of topics is extensive, his bottom line is consistent: “Scripture properly read and interpreted is normative – binding on all peoples at all times and in every place” (p. xii).

This is an invaluable resource for all African Christians and all those relating to Africans in diaspora throughout the world.  Western Christians can profit greatly from reflecting on his principles for African Christian community, as summarized in the “soundbite.” which can be found under the newly added 'soundbite of the week tab'.

                                                                                                M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 3/14/12

Little Princes, One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan

Book Review: Little Princes, One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal. Conor Grennan.  William Morrow Publishers. 2010.

Global Issue: Child Trafficking in Asia

Child trafficking is an issue of critical global concern among the world’s chronically poor.  Though some situations differ from country to country, the damaging effects are similar.  Conor Grennan’s book explains the current situation in Nepal:

“The decade long civil war in Nepal (1996-2006) claimed more than 13,000 lives.  The devastating economic consequences destroyed hundreds of thousands more lives in one of the poorest countries in the world.  In the remote regions of Nepal, the Maoist rebels, who had taken up arms against the king, used intimidation and murder to control villages.  They abducted children, forcing them to join the rebel army in the fight against the royal government.  Child traffickers, preying on villagers’ fears of Maoist abductions, deceived families by promising to take their children to the safety of the Kathmandu Valley, one of the few regions left in Nepal that was still free from Maoist control.  For this ‘service’ they collected vast sums from impoverished families.  The traffickers then abandoned the children in Kathmandu, hundreds of miles from their mountain villages.  These children, who could be as young as three years old, effectively became orphans.  There are tens of thousands of children still missing in Nepal.” (p. ix)

Grennan describes what abandonment means practically – the children are often dumped at houses of people associated with traffickers among the teeming millions in Kathmandu. There is usually no sanitation, almost no food, no clothing, no education and little hope of survival. Many children are sold as child slaves.  Some international and government Not For Profit (NFP) organizations are committed to the rescue and care of these children.  But the need far outweighs the safe houses. The political and economic situation fuels the on-going evil of the traffickers as does the desperate poverty and illiteracy of the families. As a result the traffickers continue to operate with impunity.

Nepal’s scenario mirrors so many similar situations in other countries.  But Grennan documents the problem from his own personal perspective, describing his own experience.  Although the subject of the book is heart breaking, Grennan’s description of his odyssey in mission is written in superb narrative style. He intersperses humor with pathos and intimate glimpses into the children and their families coupled with sensitivities to the cultural and political nuances of Nepalese life and tales of the costly sacrifices involved in rescuing children and locating their families in the remote mountain villages of northern Nepal.

Grennan’s odyssey began when he went to volunteer in Nepal for three months at a NFP orphanage called Little Princes in 2004. There he became exposed to the tragedy of these “lost children of Nepal.”    At the end of his second three month stay at the orphanage, the disappearance of seven additional children he and his colleague had tried unsuccessfully to rescue became Grennan’s catalyst to make the rescue of trafficked children his life goal.  He returned to Nepal and established his own orphanage and a NFP called Next Generation Nepal.  Its goal is to reconnect trafficked children with their families.   The book is his story of all that was involved in his and collegial team members’ efforts from 2004 to 2009 to deal with Nepal’s child trafficking tragedy.   

For all those committed to justice in the global fight against trafficking the book is inspirational as well as sobering.  The odds seem stacked in favor of evil but each example of a child rescued and given safe haven or restored to his or her family brings hope.  That hope is rekindled with the “miracles” Grennan recounts in the search and rescue attempts.  His book is a compelling read. 

                                                                                                Dr. M.L. Codman-Wilson       3/6/12