Category Archives: reflections

Doubting Thomas?

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We too often dismiss this Apostle as “Doubting Thomas.” But what else do we know about him? When Jesus said “let’s return to Jerusalem,” the other disciples said, “Jesus, that’s crazy talk! The last time we were there, they tried to kill you!” But Thomas? Thomas said, “Guys, be quiet . If Jesus says ‘let’s go,’ then let’s go with him — even if it means we die with him.” That there is faith. That’s allegiance.

One of the key New Testament words for doubt/doubting (διακρίνω / diakrínō) can convey the sense of sitting on a fence in a moment of deliberation or judgment, not yet deciding on which side of the fence you’re going to come down. As such, doubt is not the opposite of faith but can be a function of faith, the exercise of discernment. Eventually we need to come down off the fence, of course. But we should never disparage those who are still on the fence, who are still deciding. Let’s also remember (or learn, if we haven’t known this already), that the New Testament idea of “faith” (the term is πίστις / pístis) is not a matter of mere intellectual assent to a proposition (e.g., “2+2=4” or “God exists”) but includes trust and, perhaps especially, allegiance.

I think Thomas may have been on that fence because he had perhaps been more deeply hurt. If he were more deeply hurt, it would have been because he had been more deeply committed (even if he wasn’t in the inner-inner circle with Peter, James, & John). His heart had been broken as were his dreams and his hope. That’s why he said “I gotta see for myself before I can believe again.” He was sitting on the fence weighing the evidence — he had seen Jesus’s battered and broken and breathless body, and this was a powerful testimony which disagreed with the report which he had received that Jesus had returned to life. But what happened next? When Jesus appeared to Thomas and said “here, place your hand in my wounds,” Thomas didn’t need to do that. Hearing Jesus’s voice was enough. And then he fell at Jesus’s feet and declared, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas caught on to who Jesus is faster than the others did at that point — Thomas’s Confession is just as great, and is arguably more explicit, than Peter’s “Great Confession.”

Now of course, I’m not claiming that Thomas was always only faultless and perfect. He was a fallen human on the path of redemption. Consistently, the biblical texts give fair, rather than glorified, portrayals of their characters, warts and all. For example, to borrow the words of my friend David Valentine,

“Peter is far from a rock in the Gospels: he is the opposite, impetuous and rash. But by the time he gets to his letters and his later ministry, he has become what Christ saw in him, like Michelangelo’s David waiting inside the block of marble. John is also impetuous, ambitious and angry …:  he is frustrated, but he matures and becomes a ‘son of thunder’ at the deeper level of his Gospel.”

Naturally we can assume a similar trajectory for Thomas. We know from Paul’s letter to the Galatians that even well after Pentecost, Peter slipped up and needed to be corrected. Likewise, according to extrabiblical accounts, Thomas really wasn’t interested in going further afield from Jerusalem than Judea and Galilee and initially refused to go as an apostle/missionary/evangelist to other people groups. Though fallen, Thomas, like Peter and John, ultimately will come to vindicate his calling in Christ. It is important to remember that even the Apostles were ordinary humans like us.  But so frequently the memory of Thomas has been subjected to a consistently unfair treatment — “Don’t be a doubter like Thomas!” has been the theme of far too many sermons.

Thomas Didymus — Disciple, Follower, Apostle, Missionary, Evangelist, and Martyr — needs a better moniker than “doubting” or “doubter.” He was off that fence and his allegiance to Jesus was greater than the fear and doubt of the other disciples when Jesus chose to return to Jerusalem. He was on that fence, briefly, when most of us would have jumped down on to the side of unbelief. And he got off that fence fast as soon as he saw Jesus. Peter and Paul travelled from Jerusalem to Rome for the sake of the Gospel, 1434 miles (2308 km) as the crow flies. Thomas? He travelled from Jerusalem to Chennai (Madras) in South India for the sake of the Gospel, 3124 miles (5028 km). Like Peter and Paul, he was executed for his faith in Christ. I’m not going to call Thomas “the Doubter.” I’m going to call him Thomas the Faithful.

discernment

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I (Ruth) haven’t played Wordle, but I do play strict-mode four-suited spider solitaire. Out of the 4561 games I’ve played, I have won 4542, replaying each game until I solve it. (The longest took me over 8 hrs to win.) Out of the 19 games I did not beat, 18 of them I accidentally hit new game instead of replay. Thankfully, the game has been updated so that it now asks if you want to ruin your current streak when you make that mistake. I have only ever quit one game deliberately. That was the first day of August 2018. In July of that year our supervisor asked Joshua and I to resign from our org because they deemed me too “unhealthy” to be in ministry. They later changed it to an offer for us to request an unpaid leave-of-absence (LOA). This would allow our accounts to remain open for continued contributions to our ministry. However, we would not be able to access those funds until we were approved to return to full-time ministry.
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Joshua and I had met with our director in November about serious issues I had observed within the ministry. He was very pastoral and caring and admitted he himself had observed all of those problems. But in January, I was ordered to counseling for imagining my past abuse onto the org, for imagining problems that weren’t there. The request violated policy, but when I reminded them of the specific policies, they informed me that they didn’t need to follow their own policies, so I refused.
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Joshua and I decided we would neither resign nor request an LOA because it was unjust. At the end of July I wrote and appealed to the boss who had told me he had seen all the problems I had been diagnosed as imagining. I appealed to him to intervene, but on the first of August, I received a reply from him. He told me that he was upholding the decision. He informed me, “my assessment is that you are not being fired, but that you truly don’t want to work within the [***] system of accountability and structure.” In other words, because we had asked them to follow their own system of accountability and structure, they decided to sever our employment, but it wasn’t really they who severed us, but we who had somehow severed ourselves. It was 13 years to the day after we had resigned our previous job to join the ministry full-time. That day, I was working on a difficult game, and I felt utterly powerless and hopeless. I quit the game, telling myself that some battles, it is simply impossible to win.
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On March 24, 2020, I wrote to our former director once more. I had planned to write to him at Christmas, but a friend asked me to wait because he had just lost two close family members. The request hurt because when the org had first made their demand which I eventually refused, I had asked them to wait two months because I was dealing with a serious family crisis. They had refused that request and insisted I must leave my family for a week in the midst of the crisis to immediately meet their demand. Yet I honored my friend’s request, waiting three months to send my draft.
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I wrote, “The question I struggled with this Christmas was how you could sign off on something you had acknowledged to me was untrue. I came to you and explained the problems I had seen within [***]. You told me that you had seen those problems yourself. You knew that I was speaking truth. Then [my supervisor] told me that those very same words were a lie. This is a direct quote from [him]: ‘There is no problem. You need to stop saying there is a problem.’ He then proceeded to diagnose me or label me or whatever word you want to call it, with imagining my past abuse onto [***]. All of the problems I had seen and you had acknowledged were, in [his] assessment, projections from my past onto my present within [***]. [He and his assistant] then assigned me to a counselor they had spoken to about my situation and who said he could get my Dad out of my head so I could see the present accurately.
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“Is it any wonder I refused? … .”  I asked him whether he had known when he upheld the decision to sever our employment that at the heart of our severance was that I had been diagnosed with imagining the very problems he had admitted to my husband and I that he had seen.
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He replied the following day,
“I did and continue to agree with [your former supervisor’s] and the Field Team’s decision” — (it is worh noting that a number of the field team had told us privately that they disagreed with the decision) —
“I did and continue to agree with [his] diagnosis”.
He also wrote,
“At that time, I would have only cleared you to continue on with [***] in a Leave of Absence to take the extended time needed to be healthy (which was a concession), but there is no way I would have cleared your family as healthy for return to the field.”
In other words, at the time they offered us the LOA, they had already decided we would never be permitted to return to the field. Once that decision was officially announced, any funds which our supporters had donated to our ministry during the LOA would then be divided between our former field team and the ministry as a whole. The false offer of an LOA with a potential return to ministry within the org would not have benefited us in any way. It would not have helped us have “the extended time needed to be healthy.” We wouldn’t be paid. None of the funds sent to [***] by our support partners for our support would be accessible to us. We wouldn’t have insurance. We would have a false hope which would then fail us. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” However, the offer would have benefited the organization if even a single person donated to our accounts during that time, which was very likely. Who would have donated? The family, friends, and supporters who were closest to us. They would have donated specifically to benefit our ministry because of their connection to us, but the org had already decided that money would never be used for that purpose.
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Multiple people condemned us for not seeking the LOA, but I am so glad I recognized that some battles should be left unfought. Some battles are traps. I did decide not to follow the counsel of multiple people who advised us to request the LOA. I trusted the counsel of others who told me that something was not right, and I trusted my own discernment that the offer was not in good faith. I urged Joshua to refuse the offer. I discerned correctly. Many people assume that the discernment of abuse victims is twisted by abuse, but I would assert that it is the discernment of those who ignore abuse which is twisted by their refusal to see what is actually happening.
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I am proud of myself. I am proud of my ability to solve hard games and to overcome abuse. I like that I am persistent in untangling hard puzzles and in fighting for truth and justice. I am glad I have learned to trust my discernment, to seek and to listen to counsel, and then to make a decision.
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West African Christianity before 1400

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West African Christians in the 1200s and 1300s?
Yes.  Did you not know?

Ibn al-Dawādārī (flourished in the 1300s) was an important Muslim historian/chronicler from Egypt, though ethnically he was a Qïpchaq Turk. (His full name is Abū Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh b. Aybak al-Dawādārī.) In one of his works, Kanz al-durar wa-jāmiʻ al-ghurar (written in Arabic, of course), Ibn al-Dawādārī speaks of the Christian community living in Takrur (ʾāl-Takrwur), an area on the coast of West Africa along the border of what are now Senegal 🇸🇳 and Mauritania 🇲🇷, extending inland along the Senegal River.
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As a state, Takrur was an independent kingdom from c. 800 – c. 1285. Cotton was probably first cultivated in Takrur. Sometime in the 1280s, it was incorporated into the Mali Empire. Thereafter, sometimes Arabic writings use the name Takrur to refer to its original region and sometimes the name came to be used as a synonym for West Africa generally.
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This Christian community was in existence during the reign of the great Mansa Musa (lived c. 1312 – c. 1337; reigned c. 1312 – c. 1337) of the Mali Empire in West Africa, but had certainly been established at an earlier time.
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Here is an excerpt of Ibn al-Dawādārī’s text:
I heard the magistrate Fakhr al-Din, Inspector of the victorious army, say: “I asked the king of the Takrur (ʾāl-Takrwur): ‘What is the source like where the gold grows among them?’ Then he said: ‘It is not in our land which is the property of the Muslims; rather, it is in the land that is the property of the Christians of Takrur (ʾāl-Naṣʾārīy min ʾāl-Takrwur). We send to take from them a collection that is due to us and is required of them. These are special lands that produce gold in this way: they are small pieces of various textures, some are like small rings, some are like carob seeds, and so on.’” The magistrate Fakhr al-Din replied, saying: ‘Why don’t you conquer the land by force?’ He said: ‘If we conquer them and take it, it does not produce anything. We have done this in various ways, but we have not seen anything in it. But when it returns to them, it produces according to its average. This is a fascinating dynamic, and this is perhaps an increase in the dominance (ṭuğīyʾān) of the Christians.’”
— Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar wa-jāmiʻ al-ghurar; translated by Professor Vince Bantu

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I thank both Prof. Bantu for translating this and to my friend Van Harris for making the translation available to me.  Prof. Bantu is currently working on the first-ever English translation of important Arabic language texts about Christianity in West Africa in this time period.

Note that a Muslim historian and contemporary chronicler is speaking of the dominance of the Christian community in this area in this time period, even though the Christians were forced to pay tribute to Muslim rulers.
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Also note that Ibn al-Dawādārī refers to Christians by the exonym ʾāl-Naṣʾārīy (نصارى; sometimes transliterated as Naṣārā); the singular form (نصراني) is often transliterated into English as Naṣrānī or even just Nasrani.
For more, other than waiting for the publication of Prof. Bantu’s next book, see:
Joseph Kenny’s The Catholic Church in Tropical Africa 1445–1850 (Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1983) which mentions various other evidences of Christians in West Africa before 1500.
(That book is admittedly a bit hard to access — though naturally we have a copy).
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Readers may also be interested in these books:
  • Vince L. Bantu, A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity’s Global Identity, Missiological Engagements (IVP Academic, 2020)
  • Vince L. Bantu, ed., Gospel Haymanot: A Constructive Theology and Critical Reflection on African and Diasporic Christianity (UMI, 2020)
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If you are interested in a deep dive in African Christianity, start with this:
  • Shaw, Mark and Wanjiru M. Gitau, The Kingdom of God in Africa:  A History of African Christianity, revised and updated edition (Langham Global Library, 2020).

For more resources, check out my Histories of African Christianity bibliography.  Members of the African Christian Theology group on Facebook can find an html version here; a PDF version is available on my (Joshua’s) academia.edu page here.

Reading the Bible with Maasai Christians

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Back in August, I (Joshua) posted a more academic essay sharing some of the behind-the-scenes linguistic and cross-cultural research that is part of missionary life — Enkiteng Hermeneutics:  Reading the Bible with Maasai Christians.  Further development of that resulted in two different publications.  I’d be pleased if you took a look:

  • “An Enkiteng Hermeneutics—Reading (and Hearing!) the Bible with Maasai Christians:  A review essay and proposal.” Global Missiology 18, no. 4 (October 2021):  2–16.
    read as pdf here
    read as html here 
  • “A Four-in-One Book Review:  A Four-in-One Book Review:  On the Bible and Intercultural Hermeneutics among the Maasai.”  International Review of Mission 110, no. 2 (November 2021):  358–363.
    read as pdf here

Some of my other research had also been published earlier this year.  Take a look, tolle lege (“take and read”):

  • “My God is enkAi:  a reflection of vernacular theology.”  Journal of Language, Culture, and Religion 2, vol. 1 (2021):  1–20.
    a pdf of the entire issue is available here
  • “Conversion or Proselytization?  Being Maasai, Becoming Christian.” Global Missiology 18, vol. 2 (April 2021):  11 pages.
    read as pdf here
    read as html here

These samples of our mission research aren’t as glamorous as sharing pictures of baptisms or of new church building dedications — but without this sort of foundational work, the glamor too often tends be temporary and shorn of lasting glory.

Enkiteng Hermeneutics: Reading the Bible with Maasai Christians

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Here is something a little more academic than what I (Joshua) usually share here.  But to teach in African contexts well, to properly train Maasai and Turkana church leaders (as well as church leaders from other ethno-cultural groups in Africa) to effectively fulfill their role in equipping the Church — making disciples of Africans in African contexts, baptizing them and teaching them to follow the Way of Jesus in all aspects of life — it is absolutely necessary to understand African cultures well.  So here is reflection of some of the hard behind-the-scenes cross-cultural work in which we customarily engage.

(An earlier version of this was presented in an online PhD seminar, “TR 906 African Biblical and Theological Hermeneutics,” VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway, on 4 May 2021.)

Enkiteng Hermeneutics:
Reading the Bible with Maasai Christians

by Joshua Robert Barron
May 2021

Introduction
…..We all read, or listen to, scripture through a hermeneutical lens. All such lenses are necessarily tinged by culture. No reading of Scripture is acultural (Ukpong 1995, 6) and “none of us has a neutral perspective on … the Bible” (Mburu 2019, 22). Some practitioners of historical-critical methods of biblical interpretation are convinced that they are just reading scripture with all culture cut away. They are, of course, gravely mistaken and confused by their own cultural myopia. A healthy hermeneutic will not only explain, insofar as this is possible, what the text meant to the original recipients in their cultural contexts but will also engage with the cultures of contemporary recipients. Just as “a Theologia Africana which will seek to interpret Christ to the African in such a way that he feels at home in the new faith” (Sawyerr 1971, 240) is necessary for a healthy African Church, so healthy African hermeneutics require “African biblical scholars [who are] wary of running away from their African selves or identities and relying heavily on Western paradigms” (Masenya and Ramantswana 2015, 2). Gerald West notes that

Interpreting the biblical text is never, in African biblical hermeneutics, an end in itself. Biblical interpretation is always about changing the African context. This is what links ordinary African biblical interpretation and African biblical scholarship, a common commitment to interpret for contextual transformation. (West 2018, 248)

In the specific context of the Maasai people of East Africa, “while there are certainly areas where Maasai culture can benefit from Christian transformation, a recovery of traditional Maasai cultural values through a theologically robust process of inculturation can strengthen the Maasai churches as well” (Barron 2019, 17). This process will necessarily require a contextual African (Maasai) hermeneutic.

Ordinary Reader Hermeneutics is Vernacular
…..It is increasingly recognized within the discipline of African Biblical Hermeneutics that “both scholarly readers and the ordinary readers [are] capable hermeneuts” (Kĩnyua 2011, 2; see also West 1999, Elness-Hanson 2017, Lyimo-Mbowe 2020, Nkesela 2020). Ordinary readers, of course, are those who are not part of the scholarly guild or who otherwise lack training in interpreting biblical texts. As someone who is a scholarly reader with a commitment to equipping ordinary readers, I must ask myself whether “our biblical scholarship is committed more to our (elitist) peers than to people on the grassroots” (Masenya 2016, 4). It is also apparent that ordinary readers are most at home when approaching the biblical text in their own vernacular. Kwame Bediako saliently reminds us that “Mother tongues and new idioms are crucial for gaining fresh insights into the doctrine of Christ” (Bediako 1998, 111) — this is true not just for Christology but for biblical interpretation generally. As a foreign missionary myself, I remember that access to vernacular bible translations necessarily results in African hermeneutical agency as well as placing foreign missionaries in a subordinate position to the local Christians (Sanneh 2009, 196; West 2018, 245) — I am a partner of ordinary Maasai readers, but I am not in charge.

Enkiteng Hermeneutics?
…..After observing that “the Bible in African languages remains the most influential tool of rooting the Bible in African consciousness,” Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele) and Ramantswana go on to note “the limitations of foregrounding the Bible as written word within aural contexts” (2015, 5) of Africa. These twin realities loomed large for my wife and me when we moved in 2007 to “the bush” of Maasai Land in southern Kenya in order to assist the local churches with curriculum development. Our work must be grounded in the Maa translation of Scripture and must take account of the importance of orality in Maa culture. The first matter at hand, of course, was to learn the Maa language. But eventually we had to begin writing curricula! We had previously taught at a small bible institute in South Africa (2000–2001). We had seen that simply transplanting western ways of thinking and studying simply wasn’t working. Pastors could be trained to preach a good sermon in English, but they weren’t being equipped to exegete Scripture in their own vernacular. (Of course, we’ve also seen American seminary grads who could pontificate doctrine but who couldn’t connect with the ordinary readers in the pews of their churches.) So we were committed to finding a different way. First of all, we knew that Maasai church leaders needed to teach in the Maa language and as Maasai Christians instead of just reproducing a British style lecture. What would that look like?

…..We learned that traditionally, the Maasai teach and engage in character formation through storytelling, parables, drama, and proverbs — and never through a western style lecture! This, of course, is common across much of Africa. Kĩnyua, an Agĩkũyũ biblical scholar from Kenya, proposes that scholarly readers and ordinary readers alike should “engage the Bible through the language of the African theatre and storytelling” (2011, 322). Why, we wondered, weren’t we seeing that in the local Maasai congregations? Why were Maasai Christians instead trying to imitate foreign models? We set out at once to learn as many traditional Maasai stories and proverbs as we could and to learn traditional Maasai modes of communication. Effective communication had to be appropriately contextual for the culture. This brings us to enkiteng.

…..Enkiteng is the Maa word for “cow.” Traditionally, the Maasai are semi-nomadic herdsfolk, raising cows, sheep, and goats. Culturally, cows are the most important animal. To be wealthy means to have cows and children. The Maasai will see the wealthiest world leader who has neither cows nor children as impoverished. The plural of enkiteng is inkishu. Interestingly, the Maa word for “life” is enkishui. This points to the integral and intimate connection in the worldview of the Maasai between cows and flourishing human life.

…..So when we were asked to teach an “inductive bible study” course at a local Discipleship Training School (in 2008), we started with a parable about cows. Cows, of course, are ruminants — they chew the cud. They don’t just swallow chunks of food down without chewing. They chew it thoroughly before swallowing. Later, they regurgitate the grasses they have eaten and chew the cud a second time. In that way they can extract all the goodness out of the grass — this is something elephants, for example, cannot do, as even a casual comparison of cow and elephant dung will reveal. Likewise, a good shepherd — the most common Maasai word is olchekut (for men) or enchekut (for women); it refers to a shepherd of livestock generally, not just of sheep — knows the importance of pasture rotation. Only grazing in one spot is bad for the pasture and eventually bad for the cows as well. Instead, it is necessary to migrate to new pastures to allow the grass to recover at the former one. In the same way, Christians should intake Scripture as the cow intakes grass, taking time to “chew the cud.” Similarly, Christians should “graze” throughout the whole of Scripture, not just from their favorite Gospel or Epistle. I should mention that “eating” or “chewing” is a common idiom in Maa. Where Hebrew speaks of “cutting a covenant,” Maa speaks of “eating an oath.” Traditional greetings include elaborate exchanges of “eating the news.” When you want to catch up with someone, you will invite them, mainosa ilomon! (“let’s eat the news!”);* the word ainos is one of the verbs for eating; enkinosata refers to the act of eating. Thus we speak of enkinosata Ororei le Nkai, “eating the Word of God,” anaa enkiteng nanyaal ing’amura, “as the cow chews the cuds.” We have developed this more fully in Maa elsewhere (e.g, Barron and Barron 2008, 27–28 and 48–57).

[*footnote: The Maa phrases meaning “eating the news,” using the verbs ainos or anya, are usually translated as “chewing the news” in English, though anyaal is the proper term for “to chew;” this is probably due to the influence of the English idiom of “chewing the fat.”]

…..That first course on Enkinosata Ororei le Nkai was so well received and proved so helpful that we developed it into a full curriculum which went to press in December 2008. The full title translates to “Eating the Word of God: Comprehending the Holy Bible: How You Can Really Listen to the Word of God in the Bible so that you grasp its meaning.” We wrote it with the understanding that the majority of the Maasai congregants in rural congregations were illiterate, especially among the older generations. Sometimes the teacher or preacher might be the only literate person in the gathering. (In other words, we took the African contextual reality of the importance of orality quite seriously.) After an introductory “instructions for teachers” which explains how to use the following lessons and demonstrates the importance of communicating in a Maasai fashion, there are ten lessons (though most Maasai teachers will take more than ten sessions to teach the material). All of the lessons are parable based, using parables which arise naturally out of Maa culture — just as the parables of Jesus rose naturally out of his surrounding cultural context — and include the frequent use of enkiguran (“drama”). We give examples of how one may, as a Maasai, “chew the cud” of the biblical texts in order to direct Maa cultural questions to Scripture. The Enkinosata book has since been translated/adapted for kiSwahili and NgaTurkana.

…..Charles Nyamati (a Tanzanian biblical scholar) taught that “the Christian has something to learn from the traditional African; not in the sense of new doctrines, but in the sense of new insights and new ways of understanding God” (1977, 57); I would add “new insights and new ways of understanding Scripture.” As we worked on the Enkinosata project and as I have continued to develop in my other research and teaching what I have here called an enkiteng hermeneutic, I have tried to encourage Maasai believers “to embrace and celebrate the use” of their Maa language in their biblical interpretations and in their theologizing and “to make full use both of Maa culture and language” in intersection with the Scripture as they build up the Church of Christ in Maasailand (Barron 2021b, 15). I hope that as a professional reader I thus have been able to join Maasai indigenous and ordinary readers of Scripture as “partners in an ethical way of relating the biblical texts to the context” (Nkesela 2020, 10).

Conclusion
…..Like Masenya and Ramastwana, I am convinced that

required to abandon their African optic lenses. Rather, it is through such lenses that they are called upon to contribute to the global intercultural theological or biblical hermeneutics table as equal partners. (Masenya and Ramantswana 2015, 3)

Through this enkiteng hermeneutics — an intercultural Maasai African Biblical hermeneutics — Maa culture and the cultural sensibilities of the ordinary readers among the Maasai people are privileged. This “encounter between the Maasai and the Bible provides conceptual tools for strengthening not only [Maasai culture] but also African culture and identity more generally” (Nkesala 2020, 194), enabling Maasai Christians to translate “biblical truth into [the] vernacular categories and worldview” (Shaw 2010, 167) “of the broader Maa culture” (Barron 2021a, 5). Masenya and Ramantswana correctly assert that “the survival of African Biblical Hermeneutics depends on African biblical scholars digging more wells from which Africans will quench their thirst” (Masenya and Ramantswana 2015, 11). Through enkiteng hermeneutics, I have seen numerous such new wells flow with the enkare namelok (“sweet water”) of new insights for Maasai Christianity (for some examples of possibilities of such new wells, see Barron 2019 and Barron 2021b; time does not permit me to share more).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barron, Joshua Robert. 2021a. “Conversion or Proselytization? Being Maasai, Becoming Christian.” Global Missiology 18 (2): 12 pages.
NB:  a PDF of the article is available at Global Missiology’s site. 

Barron, Joshua Robert. 2021b. “My God is enkAi: A Reflection of Vernacular African Theology.” Journal of Language, Culture, and Religion 2 (1): 1–20.
NB:  a PDF of the journal issue is available here.

Barron, Joshua Robert. 2019. “Lessons from Scripture for Maasai Christianity, Lessons from Maasai Culture for the Global Church.” Priscilla Papers 33 (2): 17–23.
NB:  a PDF of the journal issue is available here.

Barron, Joshua [Robert] and Ruth Barron. 2008. Enkinosata Ororei Le Nkai: Enkibung’ata Bibilia Sinyati: Eninko Teninining Ororei le Nkai te Bibilia Nimbung Enkipirta enye: Inkiteng’enat Tomon. Nairobi: Community Christian Church.

Bediako, Kwame. 1998. “The Doctrine of Christ and the Significance of Vernacular Terminology.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 22 (3): 110–111.

Elness-Hanson, Beth E. 2017. Generational Curses in the Pentateuch: An American and Maasai Intercultural Analysis. Bible and Theology in Africa 24. Edited by Knut Holter. New York: Peter Lang.

Kĩnyua, Johnson Kĩriakũ. 2011. Introducing Ordinary African Readers’ Hermeneutics: A Case Study of the Agĩkũyũ Encounter with the Bible. Religions and Discourse 54. Edited by James M. M. Francis. Oxford: Peter Lang.

Liew, Tat-siong Benny, ed. 2018. Present and Future of Biblical Studies: Celebrating 25 Years of Brill’s Biblical Interpretation. Leiden, Brill.

Lyimo-Mbowe, Hoyce Jacob. 2020. Maasai Women and the Old Testament: Towards an Emancipatory Reading. Bible and Theology in Africa 29. Edited by Knut Holter. New York: Peter Lang.

Masenya (ngwan’a Mphahlele), Madipoane. 2016. “Ruminating on Justin S. Ukpong’s inculturation hermeneutics and its implications for the study of African Biblical Hermeneutics today.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 72 (1): Article # 3343, 6 pages.

Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele) and Hulisani Ramantswana. 2015. “Anything new under the sun of African Biblical Hermeneutics in South African Old Testament Scholarship?: Incarnation, death and resurrection of the Word in Africa.” Verbum et Ecclesia 36 (1): Article #1353, 12 pages.

Mburu, Elizabeth. 2019. African Hermeneutics. Carlisle, England and Bukuru, Nigeria: HippoBooks.

Nkesela, Zephania Shila. 2020. A Maasai Encounter with the Bible: Nomadic Lifestyle as a Hermeneutic Question. Bible and Theology in Africa 30. Edited by Knut Holter. New York: Peter Lang.

Parratt, John, ed. 1997. A Reader in African Christian Theology. 2nd edition. International Study Guide 23. London: SPCK.

Sanneh, Lamin. 2009. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. 2nd edition, revised and expanded. American Missiology Society 13. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2009.

Sawyerr, Harry. 1971. “What is African Christian Theology?” Africa Theological Journal 4: 7–24.

Shaw, Mark. 2010. Global Awakening: How 20th-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.

Sugirtharajah, R. S., ed. 1999. Vernacular Hermeneutics. The Bible and Postcolonialism 2. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press.

Ukpong, Justin S. 1995. “Rereading the Bible with African Eyes: Inculturation and Hermenetuics.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 91 (3): 3–14.

West, Gerald O. 2018. “African Biblical Scholarship as Post-Colonial, Tri-Polar, and a Site- of-Struggle.” In Present and Future of Biblical Studies: Celebrating 25 Years of Brill’s Biblical Interpretation, edited by Tat-siong Benny Liew, 240–273. Leiden, Brill.

West, Gerald O. 1999. “Local is Lekker, but Ubuntu is Best: Indigenous Reading Resources from a South African Perspective.” In Vernacular Hermeneutics, edited by R. S. Sugirtharajah, 37–51. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press.

Does culture matter?

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[This is something I shared with African Christian Theology, a forum for pastors and theological educators (bible colleges and seminaries) in anglophone Africa which I administer; I have lightly edited it to make it more generally applicable.  The original version was written in French for Théologie Contextuelle en Afrique, the sister group for francophone Africa; if interested see my post “La culture est-elle importante ?” from earlier today.]

Does culture matter?  Specifically, I want to ask whether culture plays an important role in our theological formulations. As for me, I think culture does matter, but it remains a question as to how culture matters. What is the appropriate role, including limitations on that role, for culture in our theologizing?

Before I proceed, kindly note that I am not calling for theological relativism. But I am asserting that we should not absolutize previous culture-specific theological articulations — Western theological expressions have much to offer World Christianity and should not be discounted. But neither should they be absolutized.

I am a historian, as many of of our readers know. Within the Christian tradition, I see that both culture and language — notably Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ge’ez (or Old Ethiopic), and Nubian during the patristic era (i.e., the first 600–700 years of Christian history) — have influenced theological articulations. Or, as I enjoy preparing food in the kitchen, I might say that culture imparts a certain flavor or aroma to the way we “do theology.”

More recently, I can see distinctives between English-speaking Christianity of Scotland or America and French-speaking Christianity of France or Belgium — though both anglophone and francophone Christianity are certainly like twin sisters within the context of Western Christianity.  When we move to non-European cultures, however, (and I consider the cultures of North America to be primarily European, or, if you like, Euro-American) it is possible to see greater differences in Christian expression.  Naturally, when we move into vernacular theologies — thinking in the languages of Africa or of Asia instead of insisting on anglophone or francophone or lusophone theological forms — these differences are accentuated, much as Ge’ez and Syriac theological formulations sound rather different from the anglophone or latinate theological formulations of Western Christianity to which we are accustomed!

Different cultures ask different questions. The answers given by brilliant theologians a thousand years ago, or five hundred years ago, in England or France or Germany might not be pertinent to our African contexts, simply because here in Africa we are asking different questions to which traditional Western Christian theology simply has no answers.

Allow me to restate my question:

  1. When we theologize, does culture matter?
  2. If culture matters, what its appropriate role and function?
  3. Specifically within the setting of the African contextual realities, what is the appropriate role and function of African culture in our (Christian) theologizing, that is, in how we express the truth of the Gospel and its implications for how we live?

La culture est-elle importante ?

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[For francophone friends and colleagues; this is something which I shared in Théologie Contextuelle en Afrique, a forum for pastors and theological educators (bible colleges and seminaries) in francophone Africa which I help administer.  The version here has been lightly edited to be more generally applicable.  I apologize in advance for any bad grammar or other errors in what I have written!  For an English version, see my “Does culture matter?” post.]

La culture est-elle importante ? Plus précisément, je veux discuter du rôle important que joue la culture dans nos formulations théologiques. Dans ce groupe, nous savons que la culture compte, mais la question reste de savoir comment la culture compte. Quel est le rôle approprié de la culture dans notre théologie ?

Je suis historien. Au sein de la tradition chrétienne, je vois que la culture et la langue — notamment le grec, le syriaque, le latin, le copte, l’arménien, le géorgien, le guèze (ou le vieil éthiopien) pendant l’ère patristique — ont influencé les articulations théologiques. Ou, comme j’aime cuisiner dans la cuisine et que mes amis me considèrent même comme un chef, je pourrais dire que la culture confère une certaine saveur ou un certain arôme à la façon dont nous « faisons » la théologie.

Veuillez noter que je n’appelle pas au relativisme théologique. Mais j’affirme que nous ne devrions pas absolutiser les articulations théologiques précédentes spécifiques à la culture — les expressions théologiques occidentales ont beaucoup à offrir au christianisme mondial et ne doivent pas être écartées. Mais ils ne doivent pas non plus être absolutisés.

Plus récemment, je peux voir des différences entre le christianisme anglophone d’Angleterre ou d’Amérique et le christianisme francophone de France ou de Belgique — bien que le christianisme anglophone et francophone soient certainement comme des frères dans le contexte du christianisme occidental. Cependant, lorsque nous passons à des cultures non européennes (et je considère que les cultures d’Amérique du Nord sont principalement européennes, ou, si vous préférez, euro-américaines), il est possible de voir de plus grandes différences dans l’expression chrétienne. Naturellement, lorsque nous entrons dans les théologies vernaculaires — penser dans les langues d’Afrique ou d’Asie au lieu d’insister sur des formes francophones, anglophones ou lusophones — ces différences s’accentuent, tout comme les formulations théologiques guèze et syriaque semblent assez différentes de la théologie théologique francophone. formulations du christianisme occidental auxquelles nous sommes habitués !

Différentes cultures posent des questions différentes. Les réponses données par de brillants théologiens il y a mille ans, ou il y a cinq cents ans, en France, en Angleterre ou en Allemagne pourraient ne pas être pertinentes pour nos contextes africains, simplement parce qu’ici, dans les divers pays d’Afrique, nous posons différentes questions auxquelles théologie chrétienne occidentale traditionnelle n’a tout simplement pas de réponses.

Veuillez me pardonner si mon discours a été trop long, mais je suis enseignant ! et permettez-moi de reformuler ma question :

  1. Lorsque nous théologisons, la culture importe-t-elle ?
  2. Si la culture est importante, quel est son rôle et sa fonction appropriés ?
  3. Spécifiquement dans le cadre des réalités contextuelles africaines dans lesquelles la plupart des membres du groupe vivent et travaillent, quel est le rôle et la fonction appropriés de la culture africaine dans notre théologie (chrétienne) ?

C’est ma conviction que les chrétiens africains ne sont pas seulement authentiquement chrétiens mais peuvent aussi être authentiquement africains.

musings on family history

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I love history. Also family history.

If you look at our family pictures, is pretty obvious that we don’t have that much genetic diversity. But we have a little.

I have some slight Cherokee heritage. It’s only 1/64th, so our children are a mere 1/128th, not much at all. But it is still worth noting and celebrating.

One of my great-great-great-great-grandmothers was Cherokee. According to family lore she married a French fellow who had fled France for reasons of health — either because of his Huguenot faith or, if he fled during the French Revolution, because his family belonged to the lesser nobility; I forget when in the 1700s he came over. I wish I knew the story about how they met.

I do know he was a Huguenot (a French Protestant). The Huguenots often faced persecution, and sometimes massacre, in Roman Catholic France. I also know that his family claimed to be descended from Charlemagne. That claim may well have been mere pretension, but it wouldn’t have made the family popular during the Reign of Terror. So I’m also at least 1/64th French.

One of their children married one of my Scots-Irish ancestors; they were my great-great-great-grandparents. Once we get to the grandchildren of the Cherokee and French couple I start to know more family history.

So my great-great-grandfather William Robert McCracken (he went by “W.R.”) was a quarter Cherokee. He was early a part of the Restoration Movement in the 1800s. A farmer in Indiana, he gave a section of his land to the Monrovia Christian Church when they were sufficiently organized to want a building. The building on that plot now houses a Methodist congregation; at some point before my birth the Monrovia CC grew out of their space, and another farmer just outside of the village gave them land to build a larger structure.

The Restoration Movement — which resulted in today’s Christian Churches, Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ — was born out of the Second Great Awakening. Its three most famous early leaders were Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell, and Alexander Campbell.

Interestingly, Barton Stone was fluent in the Cherokee language and would often preach in that language. (I’ve read that he knew five different Native American languages, but cannot provide citations for that. There are extant manuscripts of Stone’s sermons in Cherokee, though written phonetically in Latin script. Stone was preaching in Cherokee before Sequoyah’s newly devised Cherokee script was adopted.) It’s statistically unlikely that WR (who may not have spoken the language), his parents, or his Cherokee grandmother heard Barton Stone preach in the Cherokee language. But it’s still an interesting connection.

Barton Stone was the minister of the Cane Ridge church in Kentucky during the Cane Ridge Revival, which was part of the Second Great Awakening. An early opponent of slavery who manumitted the two slaves he had inherited, he reflected that “This revival cut the bonds of many poor slaves!” At Cane Ridge and other churches influenced by Stone at this period, there was no distinction based on skin color or ethnicity. Those of African heritage were listed on membership roles alongside those of European heritage — a novelty at that point in American history.

I don’t know whether my great-great-grandfather ever met Stone or the Campbells. But I do know that he shared Stone’s views on the abhorrent evils of slavery. In the 1860s, he joined a regiment from Indiana. One of his motivations was the abolition of slavery. He was willing to fight, and perhaps to die, to “declare freedom to the captives.” He served with distinction as a second lieutenant and the aide de camp to General Benjamin Harrison, who later served as America’s 23rd President.

WR was not a warmonger, however. He had seen the horrors of war first hand. Many years later his son, my great-grandfather Benjamin Harrison McCracken, was eager to join Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders to go to Cuba to drive the Spanish out of the New World and liberate the Cubans. WR put his foot down. You think that war is all romance (using that term in the 19th century sense of “adventure”) and glory, but you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. War is hell, and I don’t want any son of mine to see what I’ve seen. Perhaps he was also thinking that he didn’t want any son of his to do what he had done? I don’t know — to my knowledge, that’s the closest he ever got to speaking of his war experiences. My family still has his service revolver … I wonder what stories it could tell? I wonder if I would want to hear them … . Regardless, Benjamin did not go to war in Cuba.

I know a funny story about great-grandpa Ben and a corny joke from the 1800s. He married later in life than was then common. When he started courting Miss Minnie Cain, they would promenade up and down the street of their small town as they conversed. His friends guffawed, “Lookie there at ole Ben. He’s so old, he’s awalking with a Cain!” <cue laugh track>

My mother has a letter that WR wrote to his son Benjamin. Apparently a later than average courtship and marriage weren’t the only way he was a bit slow to “settle down.” He had at that point only toyed with the Christian faith. He knew the good news about Jesus is true, but he hadn’t settled down and made a commitment. It’s about time for you to man-up, son, and make a decision. (Well, maybe that’s how he would’ve written today. Over a century ago, his language was a little different.) At least twice, Benjamin listened to his father. He didn’t go to war with Roosevelt, and sometime after reception of this letter, he did accept Jesus as Lord. He was baptized and followed Jesus until his death. The letter must have made a difference, for he kept it and my grandma (his daughter) kept it after him.  Sometime around 1918–1919, Ben & Minnie moved back to Monrovia, Indiana.  As members of Hazelwood Christian Church, Ben taught an adult sunday school class for years.  My mom has both WR’s letter to Benjamin (her grandfather) and the bible from which Benjamin taught.

Can a girl grow up to be a theologian?

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Of course! Those who think otherwise are either confused about the nature of theology or are just wrong.

On definitions of theology:

“If you are a theologian, you will pray truly.
And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.”

— Evagrius of Pontus (345–399), “On Prayer,” The Philokalia, vol. 1.

 For our Greek-nerd friends, here’s the original:
 «Εἰ θεολόγος εἶ, προσεύξῃ ἀληθῶς, καὶ εἰ άληθῶς προσεύξῃ, θεολόγος εἶ.»

 — Εὐάγριος ὁ Ποντικός

…

Thus, a theologian (théologien OR théologienne,* equally), is one who, having spoken well with God, is enabled to speak well — and teach well — about God and the things of God.

A theologian is not merely someone with facility in articulating academic jargon.

Today’s théologiennes are part of a vast cloud of witnesses. Here are a some of my favorites (mostly arranged chronologically).

  • Mary the First Evangelist and the Apostle to the Apostles (NT period)
  • Phillip the Evangelist’s four preaching daughters (NT period)
  • Junia the Apostle (NT period)
  • Priscilla the teacher of the apostle Apollos (NT period)
  • Lois the teacher (and grandmother) of the apostle Timothy (NT period)
  • Eunice the teacher (and mother) of the apostle Timothy (NT period)
  • Perpetua (martyred 203; Carthage)
  • Felicity (martyred 203; Carthage)
  • Macrina the Elder (before 270 – c. 340; Cappadocia)
  • Macrina the Younger (c. 330 – 379; Cappadocia and Pontus)
  • Nina the Equal to the Apostles and the Enlightener of Georgia (aka Nino; c. 296 – c. 338 or 340; Cappadocia and Georgia)
  • Marcella (325–410; Rome)
  • Melania the Elder (c. 350 – either before 410 or c. 417; Spain, Rome, Jerusalem)
  • Melania the Younger (c. 383 – 439; Rome, Jerusalem)
  • Paula of Rome (347 – 404; Rome, Bethlehem)
  • Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179; Germany)
  • Hadewijch of Antwerp (1200s; The Netherlands)
  • Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1260 – c. 1282/94; Germany)
  • Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1423; England)
  • Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380; Italy)
  • Catherine of Genoa (1447 – 1510; Italy)
  • Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582; Spain)
  • Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati (usually just known as “Pandita Ramabai”; 1858 – 922; India)
  • Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 – 1957; England)
  • Mercy Amba Oduyoye (b. 1934; Ghana)
  • Marianne Katoppo (943 – 2007; Indonesia)
  • Gillian M. Bediako (living; Ghana)
  • Philomena Njeri Mwaura (living; Kenya)
  • Dana L. Robert (living; America)
  • Musa Dube (aka Musa Wenkosi Dube Shomanah, b. 1964; Botswana)
  • Lynn H. Cohick (living; America)
  • Michelle Lee-Barnewall (living; America)
  • Wanjiru M Gitau (living; Kenya)
  • Cynthia Long Westfall (living; America)

And of course this list would not be complete without the inclusion my very favorite théologienne:

  • Ruth Barron (living; America and Kenya)

The discerning reader will note that this is list is quite short with large gaps, both chronologically and geographically. I attribute that to the limitations of my own education. Also note that this is a list of favorites, not an exhaustive list of all whom I’ve read. Note that Macrina the Elder and Macrina the Younger were responsible for discipling two the other three “Great Cappadocians” — Macrina the Younger’s younger brothers Basil the Great (of Cappadocian Caesarea) and Gregory of Nyssa; she also played an important role in the formation of Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzen. Historically speaking, those three men were largely responsible for the survival of Nicene Orthodoxy. But the Nicene Orthodoxy of those three men is due to those two women, the two Macrinas. (Moreover, those godly men recognized publicly that they owed their very faith to the teaching of those two women.) Also of special note is Nina, to whom the ancient Church really did bestow two lofty titles: “Equal to the Apostles” and “Enlightener of Georgia.” She was nearly singlehandedly responsible for the conversion of an entire country.

As Mercy Amba Oduyoye has explained, using an Akan proverb, “a bird has two wings.” A bird with one wing is necessarily grounded. A bird with only one strong wing may well fly in circles. If the Church is to soar, she most exercise both wings equally — she must give voice (and ear) to both men and women.

* In French, “theologian” is translated as either théologien (masculine) or théologienne (feminine); the language (and ancient Christian tradition) recognize that theologians — including teaching theologians — may be either male or female.

…………………………

This post is dedicated to Alitzah, Hannahgail, Eliana, Ahaviah, and Shalviah.