by Brett Molter
This article applies face-negotiation theory (“saving face”) to conflict situations in Senegal, West Africa..
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by Jim Harries
When a European language is used in East Africa for making decisions and setting courses of action, the ability to communicate in that language will be hampered by its rootage in non-indigenous contexts. The author suggests this is severely limiting to healthy indigenously-rooted growth of African Christianity.
Read Moreby Chris Brittain
In Papua New Guinea (PNG), biblical discipleship has been handicapped by the way the gospel was presented to the people by early missionaries. In the past it seemed rare for missionaries to be aware that they had interpreted the gospel through their own cultural lens and that there were serious distortions as a result. They assumed that their task was to get natives to abandon their heathen culture and exchange it for theirs. As a result, the church they planted was not a truly indigenous church because tribal peoples were discouraged from finding answers to their own questions that arose from their animistic worldview. Instead Bible teachers encouraged them to adopt the values and arbitrary customs of Westerners with regards to music, dress, worship patterns etc. As a result, there is a need for a “Missional Discipleship Movement (MDM)” within the church to help believers to discover for themselves what it means for the “Word to become flesh” in the PNG setting.
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