How can cross-cultural development workers help communities and societies thrive by following godly principles?
by Kenton Moody
In this analysis of the root cause of gang violence in El Salvador we can see that the United States is not unique in its current crisis with tens of thousands of deaths and civil unrest against government. What lessons can be learned from the failure of the Evangelical church in El Salvador to have a transformational impact on society?
Read Moreby Kenton Moody
“To be honest, I think all of us are a little afraid,” said one of the pastors who had come to discuss the establishment of a transition house for gang members wanting to leave the gangs. A circle of Evangelical leaders sat around the table looking defeated and puzzled at the same time. “We’re here because we want to do something and don’t know what to do,” said another, “Fear has all of us paralyzed!”
The pastor could’ve been speaking for the large majority of the Salvadoran population. Fear is part of life in El Salvador, one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Like many Latin American countries, El Salvador’s history is rife with violence, dictatorships, coups, war, and economic instability. The country won its independence from Spain in 1821 and unsuccessfully tried uniting with neighboring countries to form a larger Central American union. With such a small land mass, El Salvador survived by single crop economies—first indigo and then coffee. Fourteen families, who were known as the oligarchy, controlled the politics and economy for most of the 20th and 21st centuries and still are part of the controlling political parties today (Boland 2001).
Read MoreInnovating in an African Catechism to Overcome the Superficiality of Faith: The Central African Case Paradigm
by Banga Anatole, PhD Student, Institut Universitaire de Développement International (IUDI)
This article is in French. Use Google Translate if necessary to read one section at a time (3900 character limit per translation)
The author writes about an absence of transformation in the lives of those who declare themselves Christians. The ongoing crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) raised many questions among which the biblical teachings or catechism that pioneer missionaries taught years ago to introduce Christianity in the country. During the current armed conflict, when Muslim rebels persecuted harshly Christians to the extreme and destroyed churches, one can observe the so-called Christians militias reacted in very evil ways against Muslims in the country. The use of witchcraft to protect oneself against bullets from enemies, the killing of innocent people in the name of Christ, and so on, were some of the images international medias and breaking news at that time portrayed as the misconduct of believers in CAR. Yet, it is widely known Central African Republic has the record of 80% Christians, and according to Operation World 52% are evangelicals. Are such mentioned above testimonies the confirmation of the saying “in Africa churches are one mile length and one inch deep”?
When reflecting about that problem, we may find the root in the lack of anthropological knowledge at the time missionaries arrived and also their misinterpretation of the African peoples’ culture. The gospel was modeled according to a western point of view and didn’t deal according to the local context. Today, on the one hand, souls are saved every day, churches are planted every month, and statistics astonish us every year. But on other hand, there is no transformation of African societies. Poverty has prospered, wars are waging over the continent. We are suggesting an African catechism to overcome the problem. Such catechism will take in consideration the oral tradition of the people, the cultural context of the nation, the wide range of stories in use in the traditional societies for teaching, the community way of living of African people, as well as socioeconomic realities.
Read Moreby Jennifer Winters
Abstract
Today slavery is almost universally condemned as evil, and absolutely unacceptable, but the practice of slavery has been the rule of history and not the exception. Philosophers and politicians such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and many others believed slavery was the normal and necessary way of life. No culture can claim total freedom for all of its members, although some societies have done better at identifying slavery and allowing freedom to thrive. What are the elements of slavery in our modern day? The goal of this article is to expose the elements and characteristics of slavery, how it grows in a society, and then how it declines. It is no coincidence that the fight to end slavery occurred in the Christian world. The reason why the failure to fully end it seems so atrocious is because it stands in stark contrast to the ideals of freedom given by the Hebraic Christian faith. Slavery has been a stumbling block leading one to infer that there is something in the nature of mankind that descends towards the practice of enslaving others while at the same time acknowledging it as an injustice. By the same reasoning it can be said that people do not choose freedom for others, just for themselves. If one does not choose freedom for one’s self and others one will be enslaved. I hope that this paper will lead men and women to choose freedom over slavery.
Read MoreBy Kenton Moody
In this two-part reflection, a WCIU student doctoral student describes a few incidents showing some positive results, as well as dilemmas, resulting from his long-term commitment to a community dominated by violent gangs.
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