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!
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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
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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In my last post on Doug Pagitt’s new book A Christianity Worth Believing I posed a number of questions in response to a paragraph from the first page of the book. In that paragraph, Doug basically said he no longer believes in the “versions of Christianity that have prevailed for the last fifteen hundred years, the ones that were suitable in their time and place but have little connection with this time and place.” This post will begin to unpackage what Doug means by this statement, beginning with what I believe to be his thesis:
[This book] is an expression of my desire for a Christianity that makes sense in the world in which we live, a Christianity that is not afraid of questions and will not resist answers, regardless of where they lead. It is my attempt to embrace a faith that is expansive, growing, and beautiful, one in which God is active and alive, involved in all of life. Because I believe in a Christianity where nothing is left out and no is left behind, where humanity participates with God in the redemption of the world; where sin is more than a legal problem to be judged but a relational problem that can be healed; where we pursue harmony, centered on Jesus the Messiah, the Jew, whose life, death, and resurrection allow us to live well with God; where the Bible draws us into a story of life and healing; where we find hope for this life and life ever after; where love is alive, where love drives out fear, where love propels us toward lives lived for the betterment of all the world. (pg 9-10)
At beginning, I just want to point out that Doug BELIEVES IN THE RESURRECTION! That isn’t a statement of utter surprise on my part, but a statement that, I hope, puts to rest all of the silly, stupid gossip and slander that is floating around the internet. No, Doug is not a heretic that denies the deity of Christ, resurrection, or sin. I would probably categorize him and this book as somewhat heterodox. Doug isn’t a heretic, but is simply a dissident who thinks differently about what exactly is orthodox.
With that said, here are a few things I noticed in this thesis and beginning of the book, chapters 1, 2, and 3.
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Because I am suppose to be on summer break from school, though still in (and rather bored with) summer classes, I picked up Doug Pagitt’s freshly released book “A Christianity Worth Believing” last evening. I’ve ‘followed’ Doug and his ministry at Solomon’s Porch and writings since my own ’shift’ three and a half years ago. I’ve always appreciated his perspective and spin on God’s Story and I’ve been waiting to get my hands on this book ever since he announced last summer that he was writing a new one.
Here’s how the book describes itself:
Pagitt, a leader in the Emergent church movement, came to faith as a teenager at a Passion play, but Christian theology often didn’t cohere with his own raw, powerful and inclusive experiences of and intuition about God. Here Pagitt tells his own story and weaves together a new theology for the Emergent movement, viewing Christian doctrine from a slightly different perspective and trying to break it out of the firm grasp of Greek thinking by returning it to its Jewish context, the way it would have been understood by first-century readers. To Pagitt, humanity’s fallen state as a result of sin should not be emphasized so much as God’s desire to partner with people to do good work in the world. The Bible is not so much about truth and error as it is a picture of God attempting to reconnect, while Jesus represents our potential to live in love and establish the kingdom of God now. Pagitt clearly articulates both the heart and theology of the Emergent movement. Conservative critics will no doubt consider this Christianity subtly twisted out of recognition, but postmodern readers struggling with current expressions of faith will see love and hope.
I’m going to try to blog/converse my way through the book as a way to digest it and sharpen my book interactive skills, though since my current rate of return on verbal blogging promises is hovering at near 1% we all might be a bit optimistic 
I’ve already read through 35 pages, so check back tomorrow for some initial thoughts.
To get the ball rolling, here is a line from the first page:
I am a Christian, but I don’t believe in Christianity.
At least I don’t believe in the versions of Christianity that have prevailed for the last fifteen hundred years, the ones that were perfectly suitable in their time and place but have little connection with this time and place. The ones that answer questions we no longer ask and fail to consider questions we can no longer ignore. The ones that don’t mesh with what we know about God and the world and our place in it. I want to be very clear: I am not conflicted because I struggle to believe. I am conflicted because I want to believe differently.
Initially after reading that paragraph, here’s what I am looking for in the book:
- What are those versions of Christianity? Who’s are they and what are those versions’ ‘content’?
- Why don’t those versions throughout Christian history connect to this time and place? What exactly doesn’t connect? Is there anything that still does? Anything that we should still stay connected to in those historic versions?
- What questions did those versions answer and what were their answers?
- What are the questions our placement in history (particularly the postmodern placement) are asking? Why don’t those versions in Christianity’s history connect to our postmodern context?
- What answers no longer “mesh with what we know about God and the world and our place in it?” What DO we know about God and our world and our place in it?
- How do you want to believe differently? How does that “different” look and feel?
- What do you believe that is different or similar or the same than those versions of Christianity that no longer mesh with what we know about God and the world and our place in it?
Believe me when I say I’m not bone picking here nor witch hunting. I thoroughly agree with the “versions of Christianity” description, because as a budding historical theologian (yeah right!) I can see how all theology is contextual and historically rooted. That I get. And I think the talks of Pagittian heresy are over blown and nonsensical. But these are the questions I have after reading page 1, questions I really hope he answers, not because I want to nail him to the wall, but because I think they really deserve answering if paragraph 3 of the first page is where Doug is at.
And if the current gestation of historical theology in our postmodern context is forcing us to reconsider the “versions of Christianity” we’ve been handed by History, then we need to know what from History do we keep and what do we discard; what are the non-negotiables that History has preserved for us that mesh with what is real about God and the world and our place in it (in essence what are we to believe is real about God and His Story), and what is the chaff of History to discard as cultural nonsense.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m off to read…come back soon
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