Theology on Safari: 15 July 2010

This past Saturday marked the culmination of our second year at Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST), with 90 students graduating with hard-earned masters degrees. Stephanie and I (Bill) have been here long enough to know many of the graduating class well, indeed to have had most of them in classes that we’ve taught. This past term Stephanie taught second-year Greek students with a focus on translating and understanding Ephesians. She also taught a course on the Gospel of Luke, which a number of students have told me was transformational in their understanding of Jesus and his ministry.

I taught Christian Apologetics, which I wrote about in my last letter. I also taught the third of three terms of Systematic Theology, which focused on both the church and the end times. I’ve become increasingly aware that what we in the West learn as ‘systematic theology’ is actually a very Western way of understanding the Bible and organizing what we understand its contents to be. After centuries of various theological disputes (that is, Western theological disputes), we have packaged up our conclusions and organized them into summaries which we then pass onto the next generation of Christian leaders as systematic theology.

Given this, I’ve been forced to rethink how I should teach systematic theology to a class full of students from across sub-Saharan Africa. These, of course, are students whose world view is different from a Western (e.g. North American or British) world view, whose issues and concerns are different from Western issues and concerns, whose histories and traditions are very different from Western histories and traditions. For example, the 16^th century conflict between late Medieval Roman Catholics and the emerging Protestant movements was a Western fight, not an African fight, as was the conflict between early 20^th century Fundamentalists and Liberals. So this is the challenge that I face as I, a North American Protestant Presbyterian Evangelical Charismatic with Orthodox sympathies, stand before men and women from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda and Sudan, and try to teach them theology.

I’ll spare you a description of how I tried to meet that challenge. But I thought you might be interested in what a few of my students themselves wrote in their reflections on our year together in Systematic Theology:

‘Students come to NEGST from different backgrounds bringing along a lot of baggage and presuppositions about Christian doctrines on what they believe in depending on their different orientations. Most of us have an influence from Western evangelicals and therefore tend to believe what we have heard or what we have been told without trying to verify the truth. The study of systematic theology at NEGST has helped me understand better on what I believe in by overcoming wrong ideas and I am now keen in finding out the truth for myself from the Bible and looking forward to a more African oriented Biblical theology.’ (Anglican student from Kenya)

‘The Systematic Theology Courses I have taken at NEGST have had a tremendous impact on my understanding of theology in a dramatic way. It has been a paradigm shift experience in the reflections I have had in relation to the understanding of theology and its application in life and ministry. I liked very much the professor’s approach to teaching. It was engaging and provocative in such a way that I would critically examine my former understanding of theology that I had been taught in my church and in my undergraduate studies. I can boldly say that it has laid a solid theological foundation which is sound and comprehensive after it shook and displaced my former foundation. It has also enabled me to put together the theological pieces which existed in isolation from each other.’ (Baptist, Tanzania)

‘I belong to a denomination which downplays theological training and lays emphasis on direct revelation, experience and soul wining. For a long time I could not understand why, and answers given by church leaders were unsatisfactory. This thanks to ST I can now explain has to do with our spiritual family tree as Pentecostals. Through this Systematic theology experience, I have come to appreciate the value of theological training, as I begun to see theology as relevant to my concerns and issues in my African and contemporary context, and not just an academic concern. In the process, I discovered that every Christian is a theologian, and as long as I wrestle with all the hard questions regarding my faith and begin to make sense of it, theology is not optional in my life.’ (Pentecostal, Kenya)

‘This course has challenged my faith in a number of ways and the following are some of the reasons; first, the fact that the task of theology is not so much an intellectual or academic exercise but rather a relational one—knowing God and growing in that relationship is very crucial. Viewing the task of theology from the relational lens has challenged me to shift from focusing on gaining knowledge as an end, to developing my relationship with God and with other people. Thus, based on this approach the goal of theology changes from gaining deeper knowledge, to focusing on the quality of one’s relationships. Arising from all this I have had an opportunity to reexamine afresh many of the doctrines from the relational lens.’ (Presbyterian, Zambia)

‘Up until this class, salvation had been a personal affair that focused on God saving a sinner from the eternal damnation. The class discussions were particularly interesting and informative. They brought out loopholes in the conventional understanding of salvation that is marked by responding to the altar call and saying the sinners’ prayer. It became paramount that this is the reason why there is a big disconnect between the number of Christians in our societies and churches and the impact on godly living. By looking at salvation as a bigger plan of what God is doing concerning his entire creation, I realized that as believers our mandate is bigger than we think. It is not about making converts rather it is about creating relationships that reflect the love of God here on earth. The power of the Gospel must change who we are and what we do and how we live with each other.’ (Pentecostal, Kenya)

‘Doing Systematic Theology as a course at NEGST has been one of the most valuable and life-changing things to have ever happened to me. The course has indeed had a revolutionary impact on my understanding of Christianity , moving me from the parochial and egocentric view to the rather more universal and objective view of Christianity and the Church in particular. The lecturer’s approach to teaching this course was at first both baffling and challenging in that it was radically different from what I was used to. Having had the opportunity to study Systematic Theology at the undergraduate level, this departure from the conventional way of doing Systematic Theology, where tutors simply present the students with volumes of information brewed in the Western-skewed theological worldview with the expectation of reproducing it at the end of the course, was quite evident.’ (Pentecostal, Kenya)

I’ve been encouraged and challenged as I read what my students have said, and I hope you are, too! Those of you who pray for us and support us financially, thank you for making this sort of transformational interaction with this next generation of Christian leaders in Africa possible.

Here are some ways that you can be praying for us and our work here.

Praise for a very good year of teaching at NEGST, and for growing relationships with students and colleagues.
Prayer for both Bill and Stephanie, that we may rest and recover from a busy academic year and get ready for the new academic year which begins in September.
Praise for Linnea’s (21) excellent short-term experience in Senegal. She has returned home with a renewed vision for missions and of what her role in God’s world might be.
Prayer for Caroline (19) as she arrives in Kenya tonight to spend some time with us (15-24 July & 8-17 Aug) and also to Ethiopia (25 July – Aug 7) to visit her old home and friends there.
Prayer for a peaceful aftermath to the upcoming national referendum on Kenya’s new constitution. Voting will take place on 4 August.
Prayer that Stephanie’s parents’ house in Virginia Beach, VA would finally sell. This has been a three-year ordeal and complicated our ability to finance the girls’ education.
Prayer that God would provide the additional $15,000 above our normal missionary support that we need to cover our family contribution towards college costs for the coming year.

By grace,

Bill

(for Stephanie, Linnea and Caroline Black)

NEGST Graduation 2010

The weekend before – Annual ‘Cultural Night’ to celebrate national foods, clothing, music

Bill sampling West African dishes

Lots of singing and dancing (this couple’s from Chad)

Bill teaching the kids a game

Bill and I (Stephanie) decided our American clothes were too boring compared to our African friends, so we ‘borrowed’ Indian culture for the evening (souvenirs from teaching in Bangalore in 2008)

On Graduation Day (10 July) – All dressed up and ready to go

Bill (right) with colleague John Evans (left) and NEGST Student Council Chairman Mweemba Mwaanga from Zambia (center)

Eager graduates ready to march in

NEGST Vice-Chancellor (= President) Doug Carew, from Sierra Leone, with some of the NEGST faculty behind him (me in far left back)

Singing the Kenyan national anthem (not sure we’d ever heard it before…)

From my seat I had a great view of my students graduating—a proud moment for all!

Finally! Happy NEGST graduates

Now for the milling about and congratulations

And then back to our house for a graduation party for Karen Forrest (UK & Gambia)

Linnea’s Senegal Mission Trip

In June, Linnea (far left) traveled to Senegal, West Africa, with a short-term medical team. Working alongside an area doctor and his wife and a team from a local hospital, they held clinics in villages and prisons.