Emerging Africa

Hey everyone,

Ok, this may seem like a shameless plug for my story published at The Times titled "The African Way" (in a way, it is), but the story was written out of the Amaharo conference and the discussions there on post-colonialism etc., so I thought it may be of interest to you guys.

Read it at The Times Live.

Having given some praise in my last post about the recent Amaharo conference (okay, I know it's not THAT recent but I'm a bit slow) I felt that in line with the whole honesty thing that I also ought to do some criticism (constructive, of course; edifying, I hope).

This time I listened to the following talks:

Transfiguration - Claude Nikondeha
The Church and Apartheid - Moss Nthla
The Reformation of the Church - Paul Verryn

I've pasted this from my blog as I thought it could create some interesting conversation here.

I've started (at last) listening to the audio of the Amaharo conference.

Roger Saner has very kindly put up the recordings of the event here

The talks I've listened to so far are:

Edward Simiyu - The ministry of presence
Kelly Nikondeha - The Amahoro story
Postcolonialism and why it matters - Dr Kenzo Mabiala
The African Reformation - Brian McLaren

Once I get some more bandwidth I'll download and listen to some more.

Hey guys,

I don't mean to post this to take any conversation away from the Amaharo chats. I still want to listen to the talks before I add anything, as that week I was unfortunately too swamped with work to make it away (serious bummer). Was bummed I didn't get to see many of you again.

Nevertheless, I'm posting this as I know that this is an emotionally charged topic for some and want to see what people say about it. I might get no responses at all, I might get a ton of responses - I don't know. I'm just throwing it out to see what happens.

I originally posted this on my blog, hence the tone.

Separating judgement from the Gospel

After Steve's recent post entitled Emerging African Church I got a little bee in my bonnet.

All across Africa there are churches. While there may be unreached parts, one cannot deny that Africa has churches practically everywhere. The Gospel is being preached in Africa, week after week, and millions are coming to the Lord.

Yet, this map of the world here (I would paste it in if I could, but can't figure out how) shows something astounding, something that should make us ask: Is this Gospel being preached across Africa effective? Or is there something missing from it? Is it really the FULL Gospel being preached?

In response to Nic's great idea on posting what we've been up to, here's my contribution.

1) I got married! Woohoo! Times a billion. Married life is awesome, and I'm loving every second of it (eight weeks now, woot woot)!

2) I revised my book on singleness (how ironic). Well, I revised it in December so that I wouldn't revise anything when I got married, which I thought would be largely unfair to the spirit of the book.

Then I decided to try some new forms of self-publishing, which I am still in the process of finishing.

I'm going to be going to this on Fri and Sat morning, and thought many of you guys up in JHB would be interested in it.

Nation Building Forum, Gauteng

Nation Building is a forum of men and women from all sectors of society who have begun to work together with a common vision of transforming our cities and our nation.

Strategic alliances have been formed by churchs, government bodies, the private sector, NGO's and the social sector with a focus on orphans, widows, the poor, AIDS, education, government, health care, arts and business. Many of these groups have been hard at work with initiatives which are resulting in transformation and represent models that can easily be multiplied across the country.

In my own life I'm going through a new phase, a new era... I'm getting married. Next week Friday, to be exact, and in this process leading up to the marriage I've been reminded again that God is not the God if the ideal. In fact, God isn't interested in the ideal-- he seems interested in something else, entirely.

I've been watching Todd Bentley from the USA with some interest in the last few days. For those of you who don't know him, you can see his website : www.freshfire.ca

Todd has, of course, caused some stir amongst Christian circles with the usual rumblings : he's a heretic this, and a heretic that; OR, he's the best thing to come since Christ Jesus.

I'd be interested in seeing the post-modernists view in justifying social justice within the post-modern type of philosophy.

"Post-Modern" is a pretty broad definition, I know. By (very) basic definition, it would be defined as 'relative' in terms of truth. Although, I know this may not do it justice, when someone calls themselves 'post-modern' in thinking, they basically are saying this. We can discuss if this definition does it any justice.

But, with that in mind, can a true post-modern thinker (ie, someone who lives according to post-modern thought or relativity) justify social justice at all? My own thinking tells me that it is rather ridiculous to assert social justice must happen, when justice itself as a concept has no absolutes.