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Last night Liz and I went along to an Italian cooking class, it was a gift given by Liz’s aunty and uncle. It was fun and educational and so I though I would share the things I learnt with all of you.
1/ God plays a very big role in Italian cooking. When you make pasta you get 220 grams of flower and immediately remove 20 grams, which is God. Then when you have added the egg and made the dough you may need to take from God to firm up your dough – but only in small quantities because we have to respect God.
Moreover it is impossible to tell people how long they should do things, whether that is to dry the pasta or sauté the garlic. You have to use God! Let me illustrate this with a question someone asked:
Student: How long do you dry it for?
Italian chef/teacher: God!
Student: But just a rough guide…
Italian chef/teacher: God!
Student: so if…
Italian chef/teacher: God!
I didn’t really understand it either. Though I think her understanding of God is very skewed, mainly because she had statues of Mary and Jesus right next to figurines of the red M&M in a wizard’s hat.
2/ Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott should be referred to as ‘Uncle Rudd’ and ‘Uncle Abbott’
3/ Olive oil should be used liberally. Very liberally!
4/ it is a crime in Italy to use stock that you purchased at a store, you simply cannot do it. The police will come and arrest you. You must make your own.
5/ An Italian porn star once became a MP by campaigning topless. Thus if Uncle Abbott would go further than just budgie smugglers he would be PM for sure. Remove the cozzie and he would have the Italian vote in the bag!
6/ Butter should be used liberally. Very liberally!
7/ by hitting a chicken you can make it feel like fish as you eat it.
The finished product! The fruit of our labour
8/ Australians use expensive wine and cheap stock, Italians use cheap wine and home made stock. Australians have it wrong.
9/ before you start making pasta you should close all those doors and windows.
10/ the master chef people have it all wrong!
Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. (Joshua 2:1)
The passage begins with Joshua sending out the two spies to survey Jericho and to get an accurate picture of its strategic weaknesses. Joshua sends out the spies because he is a good general, he didn’t know at this point that God was going to miraculously make the walls of Jericho crumble, and so Joshua in his foresight sends out the two spies to formulate his plan of attack.
Saving Rahab, however, was definitely not part of his plan.
So too the spies, they are good soldiers, their mission is simple, to go and get a good look at the city and to report its weaknesses back to the general. When they get into Jericho they plan to go to a prostitute’s house – the one place where they wouldn’t be asked embarrassing questions, and where they could go as quickly as they came. It makes sense for the spies to plan to stay in a prostitute’s house, where do you disappear in a city but the red light district?
Saving Rahab, however, was definitely not part of their plan.
Rahab was not in Joshua’s plan, Rahab was not in the spies plan, but Rahab was in God’s plan.
Rahab was one of God’s children, even if she didn’t know it yet, she had been elected by God and loved by him like a daughter since the creation of the world. God had been working in Rahab’s heart and now God was using his people, even though they didn’t know it, to lead her to faith and physically save her. Friends, God always enacts his sovereign will to bring his lost sheep back into the flock.
He did this for you just as he did it for Rahab! If you were born into a Christian family and were raised in a church community, then that was God’s plan that you would come to have faith. If you came to Christ through the witness of a friend at high school, then that friendship was in God’s plan for you to be saved! If you came to Christ because you found a gospel tract flapping in the wind down at the train station, then it was in God’s plan to lead you there! Just as Rahab was in God’s plan so too are you!
And knowing this gives us renewed purpose to live as Godly and visible Christians wherever God has placed us. Why are you at your workplace? Why are you at your University? Chances are God is using you for a purpose, and so live as a Godly and visible Christian, shining like a star in a dark place, even though you may not know how God is using you. The next time an opportunity to talk about Jesus comes up with someone at work, at uni or on the bus remember that God directed the feet of the spies to Rahab’s door and he still directs people’s feet today.
I like to know what the plan is. I hate not knowing what is happening. If I am doing something I don’t want to be blind about it, I want to know the plan of attack, the next step! My bet is you are probably the same. And I bet Joshua son of Nun was exactly the same as you and I! he had just become the leader of the nation and was preparing to move into the land. I reckon his mind would be buzzing about how he was going to do it, where he would attack, how he would organise the troops. I know I would be!
See we like to be in control of our destiny, as a society we’re obsessed with planning our fate. We don’t like handing over control to someone else. We hate it! Don’t believe me? Go buy a hallmark card, read your horoscopes or even better, go plan a wedding!
Well often in the Christian life we are called to give up control of what happens next. Rather we are not told how things are going to happen, we are just told what the outcome will be!
This happened to Joshua and it also happens to us!
“Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west.” Joshua 1:2-4
So Moses has just died, Moses who had been leading God’s people for generations. Moses who parted the Red Sea, who received the law, who won countless battles, who met with God, whose face literally shone with the glory of God!! Moses was now dead. Joshua is standing on the edge of the Jordan, his mentor and leader has just died and in front of him are 7 warrior tribes who are well established in the land with high walls and who I would bet were not going to give up their homes without a fight!
After: The twelve tribes of Israel
God has just promised to give Joshua the whole land of Canaan (see them maps) Unfortunately God doesn’t really go in details on how it is going to happen. He just tells Joshua what the outcome will be. As I am writing this I am on a train to Katoomba, now if you came to me this afternoon and told me you would take me to Katoomba, the first thing I would ask is ‘how?’ So too Joshua must have had this question running through his mind. How are we meant to take this land? How is it going to happen? Where is the step by step plan?
I would want to know what the plan is because it seems an almost impossible task doesn’t it! The nation of Israel against 7 other nations! The Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites were all standing in between where Joshua is now and what God has just promised.
We, like Joshua, also know the outcome of God’s promises but not the plan. We know that Jesus is the alpha AND the omega, that a date has been set for the conclusion of this age and the beginning of the next. We know that God will resurrect all things and bring his people to be with him physically in the new Eden. We know that thousands upon thousands of people from every language, tribe, nation and people will surround his throne to worship him and call him Lord. We know that death will be done away with and there will be an end to war and huger and poverty. We know this seemingly impossible task will happen!
We just don’t know how.
But we can rest and be assured that all of God’s promises are faithfully and completely fulfilled, we can be assured that even though we may not know how, Jesus is still building his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And so we, like Joshua, follow God to a destination that we know, while on a path we do not. But we trust that he is faithful and will bring about what he has promised.
It reminds me of these words from one of my favourite hymns by William Fullerton that I will finish this post with:
- I cannot tell how He will win the nations,
- How He will claim His earthly heritage,
- How satisfy the needs and aspirations
- Of East and West, of sinner and of sage.
- But this I know, all flesh shall see His glory,
- And He shall reap the harvest He has sown,
- And some glad day His sun shall shine in splendour
- When He the Saviour, Saviour of the world is known.
- I cannot tell how all the lands shall worship,
- When, at His bidding, every storm is stilled,
- Or who can say how great the jubilation
- When all the hearts of men with love are filled.
- But this I know, the skies will thrill with rapture,
- And myriad, myriad human voices sing,
- And earth to Heaven, and Heaven to earth, will answer:
- At last the Saviour, Saviour of the world is King
At the church I go to my minister has been preaching a series on 1 John. 1 John is a lot about love, in fact, John just keeps repeating his point over and over again. But is it really possible to love everyone? What about those people who you just don’t like! You know who they are… they get on your nerves, it might not be their fault (though it probably is) but you just dislike them!
Well as Peter was preaching on Sunday night he hi-lighted for me a very important distinction to keep in mind when reading books like 1 John:
LIKE does not equal LOVE
There will always be people that for whatever reason you don’t really like them, maybe your personalities don’t click, maybe they hold views that bug you, maybe they’re just too goofy for your tastes. Whatever it is, it is fine. The bible never says you need to like people. Instead it says you need to LOVE people.
Loving people is about looking past the things that annoy you, looking past their views/goofyness/faults and seeing that they are made in the image of God and are dearly loved by him. Liking someone depends on how you’re feeling and what they are currently doing. Loving someone is based in God’s love, it is not a slave of moods or personalities, rather it is steady and immovable as it rises above all these things.
Just think about it… Do you think God liked you when he sent his son to atone for your sins?
I don’t know the answer to that (I’m not God) but my guess is that he didn’t like my rebellion, pride, sin, gossiping, lying etc etc.
God instead looked past these things and loved us by action (not in words or tongues): “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” 3:16.
Thus we can indeed love people, even if we don’t like them. What renewed vision this gives us to follow the instructions of John:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12)
This past weekend our church went down to the Royal National Park to do the Curramoors bush walking track. It is about 11km all up and takes you out to some cliffs that overlook a beautiful view of the horizon. Please enjoy the pictures as I retell the trip to you
We walked along the walking track down to the water…
Hannah and Wei Li setting a cracking pace!
We then stopped to have lunch by a lovely stream and waterfall!
This is the beautiful Spot where we stopped to have lunch
We relaxed with our legs in the cool water, look how clear it is!
Eaglehead Rock
We also had a bible study after lunch led by Tim on creation – how it reveals God’s glory and his majesty from a Psalm (137 possibly)…
There you go. It was awesome fun and I highly recommend it! We even did it in less than the advertised 3 hours!
Its now time for our weekly segment here at Micaiah Sells Out called:
“4 quick questions and 1 strange one with…”
Our next ”4 Quick Questions and 1 Strange one with…” is with Laura Southam. Laura is currently doing her honours year in classical Hebrew at Sydney University, specifically looking at the book of Lamentations and Lament Psalms generally. Laura is also very involved with the EU, she has previously served as Equip Senior Student, Arts Faculty Leader and is currently just about to finish up a year serving as the Female Vice President. Laura is the author of a blog where she shares some insights into Lamentations and Lament Psalms as she continues to work on her thesis. Laura lives and goes to church in Campbelltown and is full of ‘C-town Pride’, she also somehow manages to finds time in her very busy life to be a keen watcher of good TV shows like the West Wing and Arrested Development!
Laura Southam
1. Laura, you have been a keen student of Classical Hebrew for a few years and you are now doing an honours thesis in Classical Hebrew! How did you come to arrive at where you are now? Was it always your plan to be a classical Hebrew buff?
Well I started my time at Uni doing a Primary Ed degree, but after about two and a half years I realised I didn’t want to keep on with that, either in the present or for the future, but rather was very keen on being able to do more Arts subjects. I had already done some Modern History units, so when I changed to do a B.A. I took on more of them with the intention of my major. The Hebrew just came into the picture as a fluke really, as I decided if I was going to do an Arts degree I might as well do what I was interested in, and I was deciding whether to take up Greek or Hebrew and I just had a friend who’d done Classical Hebrew and strongly recommended it to me so I gave it a go!
Hebrew has been amazing to study, I think in large part that is due to the way in which USyd runs its courses – over eight semesters of studying Classical Hebrew the biggest class I was ever a part of had seven people in it! Of course, the uni itself couldn’t let classes that small run, so the department is funded externally to a very large degree by individuals and groups in the community who are concerned to see this knowledge passed on, who want to support research etc. But the department is really friendly, the teachers are all great, and come from really diverse backgrounds, and everyone is very supportive and encouraging.
So I had really positive experiences in my first couple of years of study, my teachers were great, and I learnt so much studying the Bible, I just couldn’t stop myself. I kept going with a major in Modern History (which by the end I was hating so much! ha ha. I really wished by the end that I had done Ancient History), but then took up Classical Hebrew for a second major as well. That meant also doing some Biblical Studies subjects and two years of Aramaic. And now I have the joy of doing Honours!
2. You are doing a thesis on lamentations and lament psalms generally. What have you learnt so far that you think would be helpful or interesting to an average Sydney Christian?
I think the thing that confronts me, and has done through my few years of Hebrew study, is just how awesome God is, and I am shaken from my apathy or forgetfulness to be reminded how He has worked amazingly in the world through history, and in the lives of his people. I think something laments generally do in this context is highlight a conviction of the promises of God and His character seen in his faithfulness to them, because as the psalmists cry out, it is because their framework based on their idea of God is being shaken. That brings them to repentance, they are encouraged to wait and endure, and often it means a return to praise God after reflecting on who He has revealed himself to be. The point being – in order to be able to cope, to understand a situation, to be able to wait and have confidence – it hinges on the relationship with God. The language in laments is often so extreme to our ears I think, but if we come to the words afresh we ought to be struck by the fact that the palmists are overwrought with the desire to know and be assured of who God is, and how he feels about them.
What this teaches me is that it is important for us to have a framework whereby the thing we care about most is to know God, and to know where we stand with him. As people living on this side of the Jesus’ death and resurrection, who have now received God’s Spirit, we have a clear answer to this, but we should keep reflecting on what we know and do and feel in light of this truth. Amidst great joy, real banality, and genuine suffering and despair, this stuff is the thing that matters and gives meaning in life.
3. Is there a tension between the times when you read the Bible as a scholar/critic and the times when you read the bible as a Child of God?
I’ve had to deal with this question a bit throughout my very short time of study. When I first started out I was just so plain surprised at the magnitude of scholarship that existed on the Bible and related texts that had no connection to Judeo-Christian communities or traditions, etc. That makes it hard because often their are scholars who know the Bible so so well (I mean, these people are freaks!), far better than a church pastor or theological student – yet they have no concern for what I personally understand as the main point of the text as a whole. It was very confronting to me to see people be able to know the Bible so well and yet not understand what I see as the whole point of having it!
Also, as I come to the text of the Christian Bible as a whole with the conviction that it is God-breathed, inspired, authoritative, etc., it has implications for the method by which I can read it. For scholars who do not hold regard for a concept of canon, or even for progressive revelation, it can be more difficult to make sense of some ideas that come out in just one particular section of a book. Without wider Biblical context, it is certainly harder to understand just what some Biblical passages are talking about!
You also come into contact with a wide array of approaches for dealing with the text, as by no means is the department at a secular uni intending to study these texts within a Christian framework. It means not being afraid to engage with what others say, in order to decide what is good and insightful, and what is nonsense altogether (and how to say so politely).
Whilst mentioning those difficulties though, I have found my studies in Classical Hebrew immensely helpful as a Christian! Partly I just wasn’t very literate in the Old Testament prior to my uni studies (to my shame), and a large part of the curriculum is centered around reading the Hebrew of the Biblical text. I think it can be easy for Christian communities to feel not very ‘at home’ in the Old Testament, as though you need some secret key to crack its code. And whilst it is set in a context very foreign from ours, just reading it helps you understand it! There is a lot of it there, but it is fantastic to read and I have come to enjoy that a lot. Also within the Old Testament there is an amazingly rich diversity of text types, and so it’s been very useful for me in my studies to learn how to read those literary genres well. Sometimes people think it sounds like very dry stuff when I tell them about it, but in truth it has only made the text seem more alive and vibrant and intense. So good!
Also in terms of getting to understand the Old Testament more, I think I have been been humbled to grow in appreciation of Jesus Christ. That He came as a human to dwell amongst us, and just to deal with the mess we were in. After persistent failure of humanity to live rightly before, and especially to love God, He gave himself in such a breathtaking way. And also outrageously. The more I study some of the history surrounding the Old Testament texts as well (another great thing about the units at USyd), I come to see how outrageous Jesus’ claims really were when he was on earth, and how he upset so many people because he just completely exploded their framework of what it meant to know and be in relationship with the true God. Yet the great grace and mercy of God is seen so ultimately in Christ. So yes, I am humbled in my own attitude towards Jesus constantly, to remember how helpless I am without him, and how world-changing is the thing He did.
Finally, I am really convinced that there is great benefit to have Christian scholars in the field (and by field I really mean fields – some of this stuff gets incredibly specific but you could spend your whole life time dealing with it!) of Hebrew and Biblical Studies, where people are grappling with the Scriptures, and some even to the point of deducing an understanding of God. Christians should most certainly be in this conversation! It definitely requires some serious critical thinking to measure what of the scholarship is useful for understanding God’s word and letting it change us, and what is unhelpful and not faithful to the texts themselves. But, let us not be put off by the hard work of it, especially since by it we may encourage people as they read God’s word, and help them enjoy that more, as well as being able to engage with non-Christian scholars about the scriptures. Otherwise there is a serious risk that the wider scholarly community will come to see Christians as claiming belief in a text they will not allowed questioned or explored. So, for any budding Biblical or linguistic scholars out there – go for it! (It is not for all though, and let me assure you the community is pretty darn nerdy 
).
4. The Old Testament is full of strange stories that seem unnecessarily violent or just plain strange! Lamentations is a good example of this. Do you have any thoughts about how to understand passages that are unnecessarily violent or just plain strange?
Hmmm. Well I think firstly, they are always there to make a point, and so should not be glossed over. When we come to read something and think “that doesn’t seem normal” – it probably isn’t!
I don’t really have a good answer in terms of a framework for how to understand every passage that might fall under this banner, but perhaps a few reflections…
- Sometimes the Old Testament texts, whether in narrative form or not, use pinnacle moments in history to demonstrate outworking of God’s covenant, etc – those pinnacle moments can take place in the context of warfare.
- Often references that seem strange or foreign to us indicate that we lack some contextual knowledge. My favourite example of this of late: Lam 3:10 ‘Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding…’ – in Ancient Near Eastern Warfare, settlements would be in large part evacuated, and bear and lions who usually dwelt in the surrounding countryside and wilderness would enter the empty settlement and take up residence in the houses which were just like caves or dens pretty much. And so when people were able to return, they could well meet a lion waiting for them in their house. That amazed me when I found out.
- Violence is bad, but the Old Testament also severely condemns oppression on the vulnerable and the ‘alien’ or outsider and corruption of the powers-that-be (ie the monarch or leaders at the temple). I take the overall message to be that all these forms of non-love towards one another are problems that just won’t go away and are greatly displeasing and heart-aching to God.
Hmmm… didn’t really answer the question.
5. “Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert”
Lamentations 4:3 is a great verse. As a Lamentations expert could you please shed some light on the meaning of the verse for us?
It is a great verse! Well spotted Jeremy. The obvious meaning is that ostriches are slack, especially in the desert.
If you were interested in a slightly more thoughtful consideration, I think the laments in Lamentations are really summed up in the opening word of the book, which means (in a despairing kind of way) ‘how??’ The question is out there – if we are God’s people, how can He have let this happen? How can things ever be restored? How have we managed to fall this far? How can we have turned from the destiny we thought was ours? It’s pretty severe stuff, and the psalmist uses lots of very graphic images throughout the book as a whole, including warfare and survival images. One image that recurs is about breasts (purely in the sense of a source of nourishment for the vulnerable and weak – ie babies) as a symbol of the means and the desire to care and provide for. Women who do not or cannot suckle their babies; and babies pouring out their lives into their mothers’ breast, when really it is there they should be getting nourishment for life from, etc. It’s a small picture of a big problem – things are so desolate the future generations are dying as children. How can God’s covenant be fulfilled if the Israelites are dying? It’s heavy stuff.
On the weekend I attended the NSW Young Adults TEAR group of which I am a part, we meet once a month to read the bible together, think through what the bible has to say about justice, oppression, poverty, money etc, then we usually have a book review, a time of encouraging each other and some prayer. Every now and then however we have a guest come and share their experiences of poverty overseas.
Last weekend we had a couple who had just spent a year in Malwai doing malaria research and working with the UN World Food Program. During the meeting they raised a specific question to us, a question which I believe is extremely difficult to answer:
What makes Christians working amongst the world’s poorest communities different to secular organisations also working in these communities. What makes a church program different to a UN program? Is there even a difference at all?
It is a question that I have never had a clear answer for; I know that Christians are to live a life that is so full of generosity and love that without even having to try it makes the gospel attractive. But as I worked at Red Cross or Mission Ausralia or even at DoCS I have found that some of the most generous and love filled people are at core humanist secularists.
What makes Christians working amongst the world’s poorest communities different to secular organisations also working in these communities?
In answering this question they showed us this article: “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God” first published December 2008 in the Times by Matthew Parris – a strong atheist. It caused a bit of a riot in the humanitarian community and became quite a controversial point of discussion. I have decided to put the full article here, it is long, but well worth the read:
Matthew Parris
Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.
It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.
We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.
There’s long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.
I don’t follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.
Anxiety – fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things – strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won’t take the initiative, won’t take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.
How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds – at the very moment of passing into the new – that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it’s there,” he said.
To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It’s… well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary’s further explanation – that nobody else had climbed it – would stand as a second reason for passivity.
Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I’ve just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.
Something very interesting to think about!
Just a quick plug: Our TEAR young adults group meets once a month on a Sunday arvo 2-4pm. We love having new people who want to think through tough issues like this and sit under God’s word as he teaches us about a biblically shaped response to poverty. Get in touch with me at jeremy_s@hotmail.com for more information!
