Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.
We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
Read the full essay. From The Times Online, link via Brits at Their Best.
Not all religions are equal.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.
We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
Read the full essay. From The Times Online, link via Brits at Their Best.
Not all religions are equal.
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
Story here, from The Washington Post.
WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president celebrated the start of Hanukkah by visiting Warsaw's main synagogue Sunday, a gesture the city's Jewish community greeted as a historic step in its revival.
Lech Kaczynski's visit marked the first time the head of state has attended a religious service at a synagogue in Poland, whose Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and later suffered from communist-era repression.
Pre-WW2 Poland had a huge Jewish population, and huge anti-semitism among Poles. Simon Wiesenthal recounts his high school experience:
Two years before the outbreak of war the Radical elements had invented a "day without Jews," whereby they hoped to reduce the number of Jewish academics, to interfere with their studies and make it impossible for them to take examinations. On these feast days there assembled inside the gates of the High Schools a crowd of fraternity students wearing ribbons inscribed "the day without the Jews." It always coincided with examination day. The "day without the Jews" was thus a movable festival, and as the campus of the Technical High School was ex-territorial, the police were not allowed to interfere except by express request of the Rector. Such requests were rarely made. Although the Radicals formed a mere 20 percent of the students, this minority reigned because of the cowardice and laziness of the majority. The great mass of the students were unconcerned about the Jews or indeed about order and justice. They were not willing to expose themselves, they lacked willpower, they were wrapped up in their own problems, completely indifferent to the fate of Jewish students.
. . . In the side streets ambulances waited patiently and they had plenty to do on examination days. The police too waited to prevent violence from spreading outside the campus. . . .
Given this historical context, the visit to the synagogue by Poland's president is a very welcome step.
The attempt at a Final Solution was possible only because there existed in the populations conquered by the Nazis an embedded anti-semitism. There never were enough Nazis to carry out the Final Solution without help. In conquered nations where the Gentile population refused to round up Jews, such as Denmark, the Nazis were unable to put their plans into effect.
WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president celebrated the start of Hanukkah by visiting Warsaw's main synagogue Sunday, a gesture the city's Jewish community greeted as a historic step in its revival.
Lech Kaczynski's visit marked the first time the head of state has attended a religious service at a synagogue in Poland, whose Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and later suffered from communist-era repression.
Pre-WW2 Poland had a huge Jewish population, and huge anti-semitism among Poles. Simon Wiesenthal recounts his high school experience:
Two years before the outbreak of war the Radical elements had invented a "day without Jews," whereby they hoped to reduce the number of Jewish academics, to interfere with their studies and make it impossible for them to take examinations. On these feast days there assembled inside the gates of the High Schools a crowd of fraternity students wearing ribbons inscribed "the day without the Jews." It always coincided with examination day. The "day without the Jews" was thus a movable festival, and as the campus of the Technical High School was ex-territorial, the police were not allowed to interfere except by express request of the Rector. Such requests were rarely made. Although the Radicals formed a mere 20 percent of the students, this minority reigned because of the cowardice and laziness of the majority. The great mass of the students were unconcerned about the Jews or indeed about order and justice. They were not willing to expose themselves, they lacked willpower, they were wrapped up in their own problems, completely indifferent to the fate of Jewish students.
. . . In the side streets ambulances waited patiently and they had plenty to do on examination days. The police too waited to prevent violence from spreading outside the campus. . . .
Given this historical context, the visit to the synagogue by Poland's president is a very welcome step.
The attempt at a Final Solution was possible only because there existed in the populations conquered by the Nazis an embedded anti-semitism. There never were enough Nazis to carry out the Final Solution without help. In conquered nations where the Gentile population refused to round up Jews, such as Denmark, the Nazis were unable to put their plans into effect.
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
Fr. Zakaria Botros, that is. If you are a regular reader, you've been introduced to him. He is a Coptic priest who is having a big impact on the Muslim world. His Arabic-language television show is watched by an estimated 60 million people, mostly Muslim. He teaches and debates for conversion--from Islam to Christianity. There is a price on his head, but modern technology and sensible precautions have kept him alive so far.
Now he has won the 2008 Daniel Award.
Story here.
Now he has won the 2008 Daniel Award.
Story here.
Category: Religion and History
Posted by: an okie gardener
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