How does a society’s worldview and/or religious beliefs affect development?
Photo credit: marco magrini - flickr
by Sundee Simmons
A biblical view of international development is found in the metanarrative of the Bible, i.e., God’s global mission/purpose and specifically in the reality of the Kingdom of God with Jesus as King and humans being made in the image of God. Being made in God’s image, we were made for community, we were made to be in right relationship with God and all that He created.
Read Moreby Chris Ampadu
Africa, the pleasant continent of promise, has been perceived as a dark and cursed continent. But is Africa cursed? Most of the world is acquainted with only the bad news of Africa: wars, sicknesses, pain, poverty, hunger, famine, and deprivation. On the continent, many have given up hope. With the massive assistance and support that Africa has received, coupled with the enormous natural resources at her disposal, why has the continent not emerged from her predicaments? Though external factors such as colonialism, the slave trade, and global trade balances have taken their toll on Africa, the biggest obstacle to the continent’s development and progress is internal.
Read Moreby Jim Harries
The contemporary approach to development defines Africa’s needs almost entirely in terms of money and Westernization. What Africa needs, donors assume, is to be more like the West. The means used to attempt to reach this goal are outside money and Western-style education in Western languages (usually English).
This article questions these presuppositions. But if outside donor money is not the answer for development in Africa, where should we look for the answer? This article presents research showing that human thinking is rooted in metaphors that are themselves rooted (or embodied) in actual experiences. This, then, opens doors of understanding ways in which Christian / biblical teaching is central to the initiation and propagation of sustainable, transformative, and indigenously rooted socio-economic development.
Read Moreby Stephen Mosheni
Sub-Saharan Africa has been on the receiving end of the gospel for more than two centuries. But many came to the faith based on the fear of being banished by God. This was good to certain extent, but many never experienced transformed lives.
Read Moreby Chris Ampadu
Why is Africa poor, given all its natural resources: gold, diamonds, oil, timber?
View a Whiteboard Animation explanation in this blog that is based on Chris Ampadu’s WCIU dissertation and West African workshops.
