Week 6- Class Reflection Wednesday

It is both exciting and frightening to think that my generation and my children's generation is part of a social world that is so different from the social world of America just 30 years ago. The economy, the religion, the politics and the many other areas of life have all been significantly altered.
EXTENDED THOUGHTS
I find that our culture and lifestyle are very obviously peculiar and unprecedented in history when I hear about the way that life is lived in many areas of Africa and South Asia. In many ways these areas are representative of a type of neo-feudalism. The social world in these areas leaves individuals propertyless and in a situation of indentured servitude. Also, these areas are characterized by failed states or non-existent government. Therefore the primary social structure for these people remain the family and the religious tradition.

Week 6- Monday Class Reflection

Class was a little tedious today. I am all for class discussion, but spending the entire period was a little much. I always appreciate Professor Bolger's insights and reflections from his research and so was a little disappointed from today's on-the-spot presentations. The things to be gained from today are mainly in recognizing the myriad of subcultures that we are surrounded by. There are so many different ways that people live their lives.

Week 5- Chapter 5 Bevans (Anthropological Model)

Bevans provides a sketch of the anthropological method of contextual theology and some case studies. The model seems useful in its upholding of the value and dignity of a given culture, and its suspicion of the directives of the missionary, which often have little to do with the gospel. However, I hesitate to go so far as Bevans as to define the "human as the place of divine revelation [...] equal to scripture and tradition" (Bevans 1994: 48).

Extended thoughts....
At some point there must be a recognition of the evil that is to be found in all cultures. There must be a lot more put into defining the essentials of the Christian message. The example of Vincent Donovan was telling in this chapter. Donovan seemed to indicate that while he had some kind of preconceived notion of the message of the gospel, that message would not be known until it was lived out among the Masai. If what is meant here is that the implications of the gospel are not known until demonstrated in a particular context, I am all for it. However, I am not ready to sacrifice knowledge of the true nature of God's incarnation, death and resurrection for the sake of being enculturated. I think we do have a core message to share... How to share it, what it will eventually mean for a people, and what kind of forms and institutions will arise around it are matters for cultural insiders to debate.

Week 5- Cobb Chapter (Images of God)

Cobb rightly exegetes our culture. My generation engenders feelings of God-pity as opposed to earlier generations of God-hate. In essence, our media portrayals of God are self-projections. Thus God is a lonely and lost individual who is uncertain of reality, but more importantly is uncertain of himself. Interestingly enough, while we reject traditional sources of authority concerning Godself, we readily absorb the teachings of our media which "reveal" to us the nature of deity.

Week 5- Response to Randy's blog

"My thought was that Jesus did not overthrow anything"
I have to disagree with you Randy. I feel like we too often want to play down the socio-political implications of Jesus' teaching and ministry. Jesus very much challenged both the Jewish religious leaders of Palestine, and the colonizing authority of Rome. Jesus effectively deconstructed normal ways of identifying the in and the out group of the received Judaism of his day, which was rightly perceived as dangerous to the maintenance of a cohesive society. Rome was also threatened as Jesus proclaimed himself as the righteous judge who will dispense of true justice when the time comes. At the very least we have to attribute to Jesus the overthrowing of worldviews and assumptions.

Week 5- Barker Chapter 10 (Sex, Subjectivity and Representation)

Barker recognizes early in this chapter that there are some biochemical aspects of being human that push us towards some kinds of "manlike" or "womanlike" behaviors. However, this chapter highlights the great degree to which "sex" and/or "gender" is a cultural construction that depends heavily on historical circumstance and media portrayals. It was helpful to know that there is some discussion about the damage that contemporary society plays upon men.

Week 5- Barker Chapter 9 (Ethnicity, Race, Nation)

Barker deconstructs thoroughly the concepts of ethnicity, race, and nation. These concepts are context-specific, fluid, and unreliable. Certainly these concepts are not "scientific". This chapter has been the most helpful to me in terms of missiology. When we minister to a group of people we cannot have in our minds that this people's culture, nation, and ethnicity are somehow eternal fixed categories. Our social worlds are constructed by mental categories, are always in flux, and are capable of amazing hybridity and transformation.