Bible and Mission

First Thessalonians 4.13-18 reads: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  14  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.  15  For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.  16  For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.  17  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  18  Therefore encourage one another with these words (ESV translation). Encouraging believers about those who have d...

  The second week of Advent focusses on peace.   I suppose that the first week’s focus on hope hits us first in a more personal way.   I say, ‘I hope’.   But when we speak of peace, we often have grander notions in mind, like peace in the Middle East or in Ukraine.   In today’s lesson, we will start with the idea of peace on earth but end up with a focus on the peace of the Church, in our families, and in our own lives. Governments We have heard the phrase, ‘Peace through strength’.   It is perhaps most associated with policies of governments during the Cold War, but ‘peace through strength’ was the heart of imperial Rome, the pax Romana .   The first emperor, Augustus Caesar, boasted that he had brought piracy under control and fought numerous wars to establish peace in the empire. Yet we have learned to fear governmental power.   An article just yesterday, entitled ‘Slipping through our fingers: How democracy is being eroded’, mentions mul...

  Theological Liberalism in the West was substantially an Enlightenment project.   It sought to broaden or generalise theological understanding by making it universal through the reason and religious experience in common with all human beings.   It was, therefore, construed as relevant across social groupings and at the intensely personal level.   Just how, then, could theological liberalism at all be a feature of African theology, with its concerns for relevance to African experiences and contexts?   Even more, what does it have to do with African Evangelicalism? Western theological liberalism found Christian theology too confining.   Theologians did not want their theological reflection to be confined by Scripture.   They found theology to be too confining in an environment that championed reason.   They reduced the Son of God to a good moral teacher.   They understood the essence of Christianity to be the threefold creed not of Trinitari...

  The concern of Public Theology is that theology remain in and be for the public rather than be isolationist and distinctively ecclesial.  It is concerned that theology focus on the public character of truth, not the esoteric nature of Biblical revelation.  It requires of theologians that they be more ‘statesmen-philosophers’ than Christian teachers. [1]   The opposite of Public Theology would be H. Richard Niebuhr’s first of five possible relationships of ‘Christ’ (i.e., the Church) and culture:  Christ Against Culture . [2] The relevance of this essay lies in the appeal of Public Theology in both the West and the Majority World.  In the West, Liberal Theology sought to universalise Christianity such that its message was not unique and esoteric.  The fundamentals of Liberal Theology were the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of mankind, and the infinite worth of the human soul.  Note the omission in this of any reference to Chr...