Today’s Irish Times carries a commentary by Joe Humphreys titled, ‘Africa Should not be Defined by Single Events.’ Citing the recent example of the successful World Cup in South Africa, Humphreys notes how media coverage changed dramatically from hysterical predictions that tourists would be murdered, to nearly universally positive, even fawning coverage of the tournament and the country.
Humphreys asserts that our images of Africa are familiar and therefore even comfortable – either despairing to the extent that we feel helpless to see or effect any change; or positive in a caricatured sort of way, i.e. ‘Africans are always happy.’
Continue reading ‘South Africa & the World Cup: Challenging Stereotypes?’
Margaret Poloma and Ralph Hood’s recent book, Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church (NY University Press, 2008), left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Poloma and Hood offer a sociological account of a church that has ‘failed.’
By ‘failed’ I mean that Poloma and Hood’s research coincided with a time when the Atlanta-based congregation they were studying abandoned its downtown premises. The homeless they were trying to attract were seemingly forgotten about.
Continue reading ‘Poloma and Hood Book Review: Blood and Fire – Is this the Emerging Church?’
Last week as the conference, ‘Re-emergence: Christianity and the Event of God,’ was coming to a close, we were shaken out of our conversations as the fire alarms in the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, reverberated throughout the building.
It wasn’t a fire. The alarms had been set off by the dismantling of a Light Installation by Beyond Church from Brighton. The installation had involved the use of a smoke machine, which our alarms took every bit as seriously as real smoke.
Continue reading ‘Re-Emergence in Belfast: De-Institutionalising Christianity’
Xoliswa Sithole – an accomplished film maker who was once proud to call Zimbabwe her home – has produced a wrenching documentary chronicling the economic and political melt-down of her country, and the devastating impact this is having on children.
The BBC aired the documentary, ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children,’ earlier this month. When I watched the film, I was struck by the grim resignation and stoicism with which the children she worked with seemed to accept their fate. They knew their childhoods had been stolen.
Continue reading ‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children: Review of the Documentary by Xoliswa Sithole’
What can Christians in the West learn from the Masowe Apostles? Much can be gleaned from a remarkably insightful book, Dr Matthew Engelke’s A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (University of California Press, 2007).
Not long ago on this blog, I reviewed Dr Isabel Mukonyora’s book about the Masowe Apostles, an African Christian movement with its origins in Zimbabwe. That post has prompted some discussion on this blog about varieties of practice within the movement, and how the Masowe Apostles fit into the wider Christian story.
Continue reading ‘Matthew Engelke Book Review: A Problem of Presence – Beyond Scripture in an African Church. What Do the Masowe Apostles and Post-Modern Christians have in Common?’
Last month Bishop Paul Verryn was suspended from the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. Bishop Verryn was a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner and has in recent years become well-known for opening the doors of the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg to Zimbabwean refugees.
About 2,000 displaced Zimbabweans sleep in the church every night. Everyone seems to agree that this stretches the capacities of the church and its resources to a breaking point. South African authorities have claimed that the church has become a health and sanitation hazard, and there are rumours that some children have been sexually abused in the church.
Continue reading ‘The Suspension of Bishop Paul Verryn & the Zimbabwean Refugees: Problems with being a Prophet?’
I’m intrigued by the astronomical growth of Christianity in the majority world, and I think it’s important that Christians in the West ask themselves what the churches in all the far-flung corners of the globe can teach us. That’s a part of what motivates my research on charismatic Christianity in Zimbabwe.
During my fieldwork in Zimbabwe in 2007, I couldn’t help but notice the Masowe Apostles. They are distinctive for dressing in white robes and meeting for hours in the open air. It is hard to miss them.
Continue reading ‘What can the Churches Learn from Zimbabwe’s Masowe Apostles?: Isabel Mukonyora Book Review, Wandering a Gendered Wilderness’
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