Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International
EVANGELISM EXPLOSION: AN OVERVIEW
Evangelism Explosion International (EE) began in 1962 by Dr. D. James Kennedy as a response to his rapidly declining church plant in Fr. Lauderdale, FL, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. It is both an evangelism equipping program and evangelism technique that is similar to Romans Road or Four Spiritual Laws. After launching his evangelism equipping program, attendance soared from 246 to 3,134 in 1974, largely due to the intentional evangelism efforts of EE. During this time, Dr. Kennedy realized he also had the opportunity to train pastors in his techniques, resulting in 582 trained pastors and lay leaders in 6 clinics during this same period. By 1975, EE had gone global, holding clinics in Saskatchewan, England, South Africa, and Australia. On March 17, 1996, Coral Ridge Presbyterian church celebrated a milestone in the the history of this 34 year old ministry: Evangelism Explosion was now in every nation training its people in personal evangelism. In fact, by 2000 the EE material was in every territory and translated into 70 languages. The scope of EE and its global reach makes it an ideal case study for reflecting on a post-colonial worldview of mission. Obviously, God has used the Dr. Kennedy and this ministry for His glory, and He will continue to do so well after his death, so my critique comes after much appreciation.
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Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International
TOWARD A POST-COLONIAL BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW
Abraham Kupyer gave the Church a beautiful model for understanding the biblical worldview: a Creation-Rebellion-Rescue-Recreation paradigm. As the Western Church re-thinks how She should approach global missions in the 21st Century, She should use Kuypers paradigm to construct a post-colonial biblical worldview of global missions.
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Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International
THE POST-COLONIAL ERA AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
While post-modernism is the condition of the West, post-colonialism is the condition of the South and East; the West is grappling with an existence beyond the values and metaphysics of modernism, while Asia, South America and Africa are all dreaming of an existence outside and beyond their collective colonial history and colonizers. Most non-Westerners prefer to use the term post-colonialism to describe their struggle for identity in the aftermath of the colonial experience. Postmodernism deconstructs the dominant narratives as being simply one of many competing reality-defining stories, hence Jean-Fransçois Lyotard is incredulous towards metanarratives. Furthermore, Michael Foucault’s critique birthed the deep hermeneutic of suspicion of institutions that characterizes our postmodern culture. Consequently, any institution that attempts to control belief and behavior is viewed as repressive and domineering. In fact, there is a deep sense that institutions in and of themselves are structures of domination. Thus, postmodernism is an ally of sorts of post-colonialism; those who seek to come to terms with the experience of colonization and its long-term effects see in postmodernism not only the possibility of an alternative discourse that affirms and celebrates Otherness, but also a strategy for the deconstruction of the concept, authority, and assumed primacy of the category of ‘the West.’ In other words, just as postmodern thought disrobes the differing values and authorities within the West as simply one story over another, post-colonialism asserts that the West itself is one narrative among many, a narrative whose authority and primacy is no longer simply so. That the West does not exclusively define reality is a seismic development, indeed!
Popularity: 2% [?]
Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International
In the Fall of 2006, I had the opportunity to work for a national upscale department store after working for over four years on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.. Our store was located in one of the wealthiest and diverse counties in the country, resulting in a mosaic tapestry of tongues, tribes and religions. My department alone included six Muslims, an Orthodox Jew, a Sikh, a Buddhist, a few non-Western Christians and others who were spiritual, but non-religious. Ethiopia, Morocco, Somalia, Gabon, India, Afghanistan, Japan, Columbia and Pakistan were all represented, creating an amazing work environment and cross-cultural learning experience. It was in this context that a clash of national heritages occurred. One afternoon my Gabonian co-worker asked me, “Is your name African?” As a thoroughly white midwestern American (in the strictest WASPian sense of the description) I could not help but laugh out loud at his question! Obviously, my African co-worker got a kick out of it, too. He was curious about my family heritage, because he came from a part of the world where my ancestors were apart of something I could only touch and feel at movie length. You see, my last name, Bouma, is Dutch and the Dutch Empire used its naval and military might to colonize parts of western and southern Africa, including Gabon where my African friend was from. Through such trading companies as the Dutch East Indies Company and Dutch West Indies Company, the Kingdom of The Netherlands used its might to leverage trade in newly discovered lands outside of Europe. And it was through the Dutch West Indies Company that my family name spread from European to African. Thus began my introduction to the realities of colonialism.
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Over the weekend I participated in an online dialogue for my online class Global Impact. For the class we’re required to post two posts each week in response to a forum question. This weeks questions was: What is the role of the Western Church in 21st Century mission? I already posted a fairly extensive paper on my overall view, but in one of my posts I said we the Western Church need to make way for Other voices. Here is what I said:
As the Western Church seeks to “do missions” in our 21st Century context, it must do so post-colonially. To do so, She must start by giving way to other voices, especially theologically. While our version of Christianity is decidedly Western, mainly because the theological discourse has passed through the West and out to other parts of the world, a post-colonial worldview of missions must make way for African Christological categories or Asian undersandings of pneumatology. Are we so threatened and fearful of that these voices might just be better and replace our own understandings that we will try and stifle them with the great ‘H’ word (heresy)? I hope not!
This response generated a fair amount of dialogue on the forum. One of my virtual classmates took some issue with my assertion that we should not be so quick to break out the ‘H’ word when Africans give us different Christological categories, for instance, saying: “However, if we go so far as to say that there is no such thing as heresy (which I am not sure if you are saying or not) than haven’t we just claimed that all roads lead to God? What-ta-ya say?”
What-ta-I-say? Here’s what I said:
but then the question remains: WHO decides what is heresy? Is it the West, the East, the South…all ‘voices’ as one other student said? And please dont tell me the Scriptures decide heresy because that’s pretty lame…when we all know real humans (mostly Western White Men) are the ones who make decisions about what Scriptures say, thus what is orthodox and what is heresy.
So thats the real question: WHO decides what is orthodox and heresy…in addition to probably more important one: HOW do we decide. The question of WHAT is orthodox and heresy simply has lost any credibility as a viable quesiton…for the time being at least.
Given the volatile nature of what is happening within American Evangelicalism right now with the emerging church movement and confusion regarding what theology/doctrine/dogma from History do we keep and toss, I see these two questions being central to contemporary theological and ecclesiological discourse.
Who decides what is orthodox and what is heresy?
How do we decide what is orthodox and what is heresy?
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