Coming….

from the Urbana tradition, I laud the increasingly central place human sexuality and related health issues will e taking at next month’s edition of the triennial event.  Already Christianity Today is doing a good job of telling stories along this line (pardon the Kware in the mentioned story…I rather think the writer had hoped to say “Kawangware” or something like it).

I won’t attend this year’s Urbana, but will certainly keep a close tabs on events there via the web and first-hand accounts from buddies attending.

Hapa na pale…

a).  A staff writer with a magazine I blogged about mid this year informs me that it is now online.

b).  The August 7th Memorial Park is now online too.  And they have some interesting services and products to provide in the context of conferencing, – I loved that to bits.  Uhhmn..and apparently my world is getting even smaller by the day…the person in charge of the place knows me, the university I attended, etc etc (something I didn’t know was in this person’s domain).  Well, it got me some preferential treatment in my latest tour of the place, but I also couldn’t help thinking I really can’t hide anywhere in Kenya 🙂

President Mudavadi?

Journalism can’t get any worse than this.

What was your response?

That’s the question leading South African theologian Caesar Molebatsi said God will some day ask of us when all known and unknown history culminates before him.

Molebatsi was addressing an audience of which I was part, seeking to explore a meaningful and relevant Christian engagement with the challenge of poverty in the African and global contexts as we know them today.

Molebatsi then flashed back to his country’s apartheid years and how some Afrikaner believers had used the Scriptures to excuse the oppresive system, much in the same way as their German counterparts had glossed over Hitler‘s excesses in the name of God.

Molebatsi, for the record, was the young man who wept at a past Laussane conference over the manner in which the Body of Christ was responding to the South African question as it was at the time.

David Bosch, on the other hand, was the Afrikaner Christian who underwent a major transformation enough to make him challenge the status quo in some fundamental ways; he reminded me of his German prototype, – Dietrich Boenhoeffer (one of my heroes in the faith).

I mention both Molebatsi and Bosch because they remind me of a response I wish had existed extensively and over a long period of time in South Africa in its dark days.

True, there was an enduring Christian witness penetrating the political culture of those days with the credibility of the Gospel of Christ across the political divide, but the isolated nature of the same some times left much to be desired.

Naturally – for the African nationalists – help to their cause (very much in line with the Christian understanding of the Imago Dei) would then come from the hard-nosed liberals and “Islamofascists” of the day.

I could understand it when Nelson Mandela, during his presidency, would unashamedly dance with Tripoli, Tehran and such other unpopular state and non-state actors that had stood  by the African nationalists at their hour of need.

I still understand it when the “extreme” secular / liberal agenda appears to hold sway over South Africa these days, as was the case with the recent gay mariage bill in which “moralist” (read Christian) protests were as subdued as was their response to the apartheid question in days gone by.

Even Nobel laurate Archbishop Desmond Tutu appears to have felt the nation’s moral pulse, albeit with less – if any – detailed treatment of how the Church’s checkered past may have informed the current state of affairs.

The enduring lesson to pick from much of Church history, I suggest, is – like the Biblical sons of Issachar – the need to understand the times and know what God would have believers do at any given moment in time, lest they be found wanting in the way of a response; a response to the whole question of God’s call on their lives in their generation.

Only them might we, as Theodore of Beza once told a king, also say:  “The Church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”

Learning from Jesus – stumbling over treasure

Via the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Matthew 8:19,20

We never hear of Jesus going to his own house; he stays with friends; he borrows a room in someone’s house for his last meal; he tells a would-be disciple that he doesn’t have a bed of his own. There are other things he lacked. He never married. He never reached middle age. He seems not to have had any money, but a common purse, provided with funds by followers, for his and his disciples’ needs. He had little privacy unless he went out at night into the hills. He lived a full, perfect, wholly holy life without most of the things we take for granted.

‘Desperate’ for marriage and children; ‘wasted’ in the wrong job; ‘bitter’ about physical handicap: we all live with some level of longing, that cannot or might not be fulfilled, but which can destroy our happiness and our peace with God. Jesus showed us that a full and purposeful life, with rich friendships and a close relationship with God is not dependent on material and personal circumstances.

The way we respond to handicaps and limitations is much more important for a full life, than the ‘handicaps’ themselves. If we seek and long for the material things we don’t and can’t have, then we are bound for disappointment and regret, and likely to lose our God-given opportunities for purpose and enrichment.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

There is another side, however, to the longing for treasures we cannot have. Many of us do have this world’s material treasures in abundance and may find much of our happiness and self-fulfilment in their acquisition and up-keep. Health, wealth and good fortune can be just as powerful barriers to true heart happiness and fulfilment than the lack of them. Storing up treasures on earth or regretting that we haven’t any to store, either way we are losing out.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance through all my days;

Thou, and thou only, the first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure thou art!

Margaret Killingray

Maikarite Thi Utuku (“While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night”) Luke 2

1.  Maikarite thi utuku
Ariithi a mburi,
Muraika wa Ngai niokire
Na utheri munene.

2.  “Tiga guoya,” nioigire,
Maamba kumaka ma,
“Ndi na uhoro munene,
Naguo ni mwega atia.

3.  “Niaciariruo umuthi
Mukuuri wa andu;
Ituura-ini ria Daudi,
Nake niwe Kristo.

4.  “Thiini kuo mukone
Kaana haria kari:
Nigathaitwo na tama,
Na ke muharati.”

5.  Muraika aarikia kwaria
Makiona Iguru
Araika a Ngai gitutu
Makiina ruru –

6.  “Kugoocwo kurogia kwa Ngai,
Na wega guothe thi;
Ngai arorathima andu,
Riu na hingo ciothe.”

*pp. 44 & 45 (last stanza appears on pp. 45).  The song number is 67.

Further bibliographical information:
First published in 1915.
Fourth edition published by the S.P.C.K in 1935.
Reprinted many times since 1935-and supplements included
This edition completely revised, and enlarged, 1974
Reprinted 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997.
(c) Uzima Press

Gikuyu Hymn Book (source of the songs)

Published by Uzima Press, Imani Hse, 2nd Floor, St. John’s Gate, off Parliament Road, P.o Box 48127, Nairobi.

Printed by Act Print Ltd, Lunga Lunga Road, P.o Box 48127, Nairobi.  

Uhoro wa Gukena (Luke 19:9,10)

1. Uhoro wa gukena
Niuukite guku gwitu:
Uhoro mwega ni uyu
Wa Muhonokia witu.

2.  Uhoro niuukite
Gutwira ithuothe
Uria ohanagira
Na uria twendetwo niwe.

3.  Na wendo ni munene
Wa Jesu Muteithania:
Nioimire Iguru
Ni gutuiguira tha.

4.  Niaatukuiriire tene
Atuike igongona,
Na mehia maitu mothe
Hindi io agitwara.

5.  Nituhunjie thi yothe
Uhoro wa Mwathani.
Tukonie andu othe
Wendani wa Mukuuri.

6.  Kinya kugathwo gwake
Gukainwo o ku na ku,
Na mithiriga yothe
Ni igatiga waganu.

*pp. 186 & 187 (last stanza appears on pp. 187).  The song number is 269.

Further bibliographical information:
First published in 1915.
Fourth edition published by the S.P.C.K in 1935.
Reprinted many times since 1935-and supplements included
This edition completely revised, and enlarged, 1974
Reprinted 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997.
(c) Uzima Press

Gikuyu Hymn Book (source of the songs)

Published by Uzima Press, Imani Hse, 2nd Floor, St. John’s Gate, off Parliament Road, P.o Box 48127, Nairobi.

Printed by Act Print Ltd, Lunga Lunga Road, P.o Box 48127, Nairobi. 

Unexpected Blows to Fatalistic Thinking

Via Dr. John Piper

Read this resource on our website.

Christians should entertain thoughts of the impossible when it comes to penetration into the most unlikely places and peoples in the world with the message and people of Christ. Fatalism based on a mere human trajectory of two thousand years is impious. Ultimately, fatalistic thinking is unbelief in the promise of Jesus, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27). The main help in breaking the habit of fatalism is the book about God’s superhuman feats, the Bible. But God ordains others too.

One of the values of being aware of the sorts of things Philip Jenkins, of the University of Pennsylvania, writes about in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity is that it helps explode fatalistic thinking. Just when you thought you knew how the Christian mission and the world would end, and were yawning toward Armageddon, along comes Jenkins with a story of the last one hundred years that makes you realize you must have already fallen asleep.

The book is mainly about the shift of visible Christianity (Christendom) from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern—from Europe and America to Africa, Asia, and South America.

Over the past century . . . the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America. If we want to visualize a “typical” contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela. As Kenyan scholar John Mbiti has observed, “the centers of the church’s universality [are] no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila.” (p. 2)

Who would have thought that the most powerful influences for sane doctrinal faithfulness in the global Anglican Communion would come not from the evangelical resurgence of British evangelicals (as wonderful as that is), but from African bishops who regard so-called gay marriage (for example) as the oxymoron that it is?

Who would have thought that thirty or so conservative Episcopalian congregations physically located in North America would now technically be part of the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Rwanda?

Who would have though that there would be twice as many Presbyterians today in South Korea as there are in the United States?

Who would have thought that China would be one of the largest “Christian” nations. In 1949, China had only four million Christians. Today the number stands at about eighty-two million. That’s over a twenty-fold increase. Former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine David Aikman projects that within a few decades one-in-three Chinese could be Christian (Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power).

Who would have thought that, as Mark Noll says in Books and Culture (March/April 2002), “While European Christianity has become archaeology and North American Christianity hangs on as sociology, Christianity in ever-expanding sections of Africa, Latin America, and Asia is dynamic, life-transforming, and revolutionary—if often also wild, ill-informed, and undisciplined”?

And what utterly unforeseen things might the future hold? Lots of danger and lots more than danger. Here is one of Jenkins’ speculations:

The next 20 years or so could well be the worst and the most dangerous period. [But] all around the world, there’s a major demographic change. Surprising areas are now experiencing the kind of demographic transition that Europe experienced 30 years ago, and fertility rates are declining very dramatically. For instance, just in the last 20 or 30 years, Iran has gone from six children per woman to two. In other words, the U. S. now has a higher fertility rate than Iran. Now that’s of interest in its own right, but it also means that in 15 or 20 years, you’re going to have far fewer young men of the sort who represent the violent, active militant groups. It’s quite likely that there will be a decline of religious conflict. But in the intermediate time, it’s a very dangerous situation indeed. (Christianity Today, Nov. 2006 50/11, p. 103)

How can we not get on our knees with a fresh sense of trembling expectation and ask our prayer-hearing God for Christ-exalting, global impossibilities beyond anything the last one hundred years have seen?

From Ghana, with some great stuff (part VI)

Click here….bonyeza hapa….

“Adam, where are you?”

“Life oozes out even before the best physician is aware.” – Charles H. Spurgeon, British evangelist.

That question in Genesis 3:9 was among the earliest that got me thinking about my God as a communicator.

Today, though, that question rang in my mind with a fresh urgency after I got some news from a friend.

“Hey, how r u? Just wanted 2 let u know that Adam, my bro, died jana after a serious car accident.”

It was 1:04 p.m; I couldn’t bring myself to stay faithful to my schedules for the rest of the day.

Too shocked, I couldn’t call or text back either.

What to do?

Much later in the night, I buzzed Adam’s family for a little more on what had actually happened.

“He was drunk, trying to cross a road in town last night. A car hit him. He sustained some serious head injuries. He passed on.”

I often write faster than I can talk; my silence on this one was getting much longer.

I offered to visit with the family a little later, for Adam was my friend.

I first met him in mid 2004; I was at their place on invitation by his younger sibling with whom I had become friends at a university we both attended.

Politics ranks among my most favourite of interests, so we hit off immediately on that note.

He had an intimate knowledge of the Kenyan political landscape.

But something else bound us together: Battling against the bottle and some substance abuse, he was looking for faith and some support structure in the community.

His family had done so much already in both respects; I was now offering to help him process his thoughts on faith in Christ if He would be willing.

“You are a good man,” he told me once as he grilled me on why I had ever chosen to be a follower of Christ.

I refused the designation, as I detailed my own struggles with God in this life; he listened patiently.

Once, after similar chats, he told me that he had committed his life to Christ and that his father (also a Christian) was now walking with him in that.

I didn’t touch base with him much afterwards – to my shame – till I got the news today, nearly 10 months down the road.

Adam’s family isn’t really sure whether or not he had made that all-important decision about Christ….I hope to give my perspective of things when I touch base with them some time.

I am also informed that some of my contemporaries (folks I schooled with in primary and high school, a few at the campus level) have passed on in the past few days; a good number of them for involvement in violent crime.

One of my low-points in this is that most of these folks were extremely promising (academically) but never proceeded further for lack of school fees; and there seems to be another generation of similarly deprived young people following in their footsteps.