Emerging Africa

Last month (July 2008), evangelical Christian magazine Joy featured an article on the Emergent Church.

Graeme Codrington responded on his blog post called "Lies about truth", which I recommend, but I wanted to add my voice to his, because I think the general view as put out by publishers such as these are distinctly one sided. I feel full of hope and excitement at what the EC movement is bringing to us, and I can't watch those with the media say-so simply dominate the "debate".

Modernism: The predominant worldview of the 20th Century, comprising of:

1. The culmination of the Individual as Ideal, at the expense of Community.
   
2. A belief in "Progress": Man's indominitability and superiority in the Order of Things, as represented in his unsustainable exploitation of the Earth.
   
3. A faith in technology - abstraction from nature - to provide man's needs.
   
4. A hope in a final, universal, and therefore static, solution to mans problems.
   
5. A denial that the creative process is ongoing, and that we will forever be faced with the unknown.
   
6. An epistemology (theory of knowledge) based in rationality at the expense of emotional intelligence and intuition.

It seems that we have the unique opportunity of working within the creative and vibrant arena of Africa, with its mash of history and its full of beauty. It is within this context that I'm exploring the enormous challenge of bridge building between what we have always done as church and what will take us into the future world. What will bridge that gap is the question and what does that gap look like ? We have so many interesting recourses at our disposal and I would enjoy some conversation on the topic if anyone is interested in this ?

I am becoming aware of a tension between 2 strands of Emergence - the postcolonial and the postmodern.

This tension provides us not with a problem to be solved via a bosvergadering or an ecumenical council, as in politics, but rather an opportunity. I have been noting various grumbles from either "camp" towards the other; the postcolonials suggesting the postmoderns are theorists, out of touch with African issues, and the postmoderns suggesting that there is a good reason to theorise, deconstruct and analyse, as well as to take the lead of European philosophical and church movements.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some discussion on the fact that the "emerging conversation" in South Africa has been predominantly white.

Cobus van Wyngaard has blogged about this. Reggie Nel has responded. I have commented on this in my Khanya blog.

As many of you know, I’ve been writing a book on gender and Christianity for the last few years. Having read too many academic books written by foreigners, I’d really love it if some of you could take the time to answer some questions on my new blog to give me more of a first-hand perspective.

I'm looking for comments on:
1. When did you become aware that men and women were treated differently within society? What was your response?
2. When did you become aware that men and women were treated differently within the church? What was your response?
3. Has your view on gender changed over the years? Why and how?

We had a rather (to use a new phrase of Matt Stone's) "pluriform" representation amongst the contributors, which is what was wanted. From measured Reformed exposition, to unbridled Gnosticism, from Emergent Chaos mongering to Evangelical Order management, from Explicit Patriarchy to The New Feminine Divine, a fairly wide range of views has come into view.

And although there were as few tentatively "guilty of heresy" charges, and gratuitous use of the newly in focus "H" and "O" words, the overall tenor was conversational, not judgemental. No-one resorted to mudslinging, and everyone was at pains to "express the hope that they hold". I salute all, those posting and those commenting!

OK that’s the feel good stuff out of the way: what were the criticisms?

In the last while we have enjoyed, thanks to Stray, a virulent discussion around post modernism. As in all good discussions, it began to veer into other territory, and I felt it was time for a new post.

Aratus pointed out that the famous scripture from Acts "In him we live and move and have our being" was a quote from 2 Greek poets, (including his namesake). This is blindingly obvious, because Paul starts by saying "As your own poets have said...". But this is my point, I have thought about and celebrated this phrase as being exclusive to an incarnational faith through Christ, for many years.

Okay, I don't mean to harp on the homosexual issue, but the real issue that I've been discussing (to myself, probably... but anyway :) ) at my own blog is one of original sin. I'm applying my thoughts to sexuality and homosexuality to drive my point home. This is a doctrinal issue, and one that I think if understood correctly can help us understand how we can truly see ourselves, and understand our relationship with God much better.

You may find my wrestling with this issue of original sin and the sinful nature interesting by visiting my blog.

The below is part 3 of my series, you can see part one directly through these links :

This is a slight continuation of some of the conversation happening at Nic's “lame lame lame” post.

The question here is : what does Africa need? And, is there space for healing within an emergent framework?

What do I mean by that?

As Emergent Africa, we ought to be considering what Africa needs and how we, as the Church, are to be a light to Africa and satisfy it's thirst with the Water of Life that is Jesus Christ.

Let's face it – Africa is indeed thirsty.

What is Africa's thirst? I'm not too clued up on the post-colonial issue, which is what Emergent Africa is about discussing, but by using my own eyes, ears and experience with Africa (here in South Africa and throughout Africa) it's obvious to me that the main issues are :

1)Education
2)Disease
3)Poverty