DO YOU HAVE A HEAD AND HEART TO DARE TO BE DIFFERENT IN 2018?

MAKING GREAT CHOICES: Learning to use your head and heart.

                            (Chukua control wewe mwenyewe)

We are all warming up to enter the new year and excited to see the year 2018. We need to build a foundation, and a strong one that can help us survive through the year. 

We need to have an ambitious vision of the future, and stand for values that are not for sale. We need to create an enduring core but also be prepared to change everything else. We need to preserve the core and stimulate inner progress. 

There should be something to incite us lest we become immuned and simply indifferent.  If you have no core principles, you will fail, more so if you are not apart of changing the world around you. How do we make this decisions in 2018?

You need to set a tool of engagement and operation of doing things, amidst the dilemma we have to resolve. So instead of looking outside ourselves for answers in bookstores shelves when we face major decisions. We have to learn to look inside ourselves with ever greater confidence through 2018.

Newman’s wise maxim brings to me great memories… “To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” We know that bad outcomes don’t always indicate bad decisions. Good marriage requires lifelong work, sacrifice, compromise and mutual support. 

Marriages fall apart for all kinds of reasons, sometimes not because the decision to wed was misguided but because either partner or both stopped working at the marriage. The partners may have chosen well but failed to live out their choices day and day.

We can’t resolve most of our consequential life decisions by punching numbers into calculators. Everything has to be done when we sit down and start confronting each other, than simply becoming hearers and carrying rumours of what is happening on others. We can’t be experts of solving other people’s problems, life has a lot many problems than adding more problems of others into your years.

The straightforward choice between two people’s proposals may follow a gut-wrenching decision to accept a job/mission transfer and relocate your family/community. Some of us pay a lot of attention to feelings and thus make irrational, emotionally driven decisions. Others of us feel comfortable only with tangibles we can measure or count, so we completely ignore our inner voice. 

We need a rigorous method for decision making that incorporates both hard facts and intangibles such as feelings, values, and religious beliefs. Instead of compartmentalizing, we need to make whole-life decisions for whole-life strategies.

We need to choose wisely. To use our heads through 2018 to know our talents, circumstances, opportunities and beliefs, and means using our heart and spirit to make free choices that bring peace rather than regrets. Decision making is an art, not a sterile science of lining up a few facts. 

You have to use your intuition rather than on facts in running the business of life. The higher you advance in your life and profession is a more you need to use your intuition. The difference between happiness and misery often lies in the ability to choose well. (Proverbs 3:13-15, 18-19)

Blessed is the man that finds wisdom and is rich in prudence:
14	The purchasing thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and her fruit than the chiefs and purest gold:
15	She is more precious than all riches: and all the things that are desired, are not to be compared with her.
18	She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her: and he that shall retain her is blessed.
19	The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, hath established the heavens by prudence.

The root of the word wisdom means “seeing” or “knowing” Sometimes we don’t see that we are on the wrong track. We lack wisdom. Each one of us ought to be wiser than we are today. To be sure wisdom will remain to some extent both a gift and mystery. Wisdom is at home in the mind of one who has understanding, but it is not known in the heart of fools (Proverbs 14:33)

33	In the heart of the prudent resteth wisdom, and it shall instruct all the ignorant.

The first step towards attaining wisdom is to desire it in the heart. The fool doesn’t even desire wisdom because he doesn’t recognize its value. The art of wisdom is instructive. 

And as most arts, we pursue it by learning certain practices and applying them considerately and patiently, we improve with time and practice. The wisdom we seek is spiritual in nature and grounded, but it is also worldly. Wisdoms makes us whole people who are spiritual yet fully immersed in the world. 

We rarely use the word wisdom in our daily interactions. Wisdom may be nice to come by and comforting in old age but largely irrelevant to the day-today-today business of living.

Basic facts of making good decisions in 2018. Some elements of Ignatian Spirituality could be handy at this point in time. (30 days of retreat) not only for the religious but all who feel the need to see something better than what you are seeing and for better sobriety.

1.      Take charge of your life

2.      Retreat to go forward

3.      Control the controllables

4.      Free yourself

5.      Recognize consolation and desolation

6.      Get (real) friend

7.      Do it over again… and again…

Trailing our clouds of childhood in Baby Jesus

Meatai ntorrno nemeata nkiting'oto- There is no evil that has no end                                                 (Samburu saying- Kenya)

We are all going to participate in the Christmas festivities and celebration of Christmas Mass and we have all if not the majority are decorating their houses, homes and habitations with Christmas trees, cribs, lightings and making a complete overhaul in our respective houses.

Very interesting image passed over my mind that I felt I need to share with you as my Christmas thought, as you do what you are interested in doing at this moment of holidays. The image was that of looking into the baby’s eyes and seeing the joy and delight which can be found in that baby, for me that baby is baby Jesus (Divine baby jesus). 

I hope you will be able to like it as you decorate your christmas tree. Give a flash back to your own childhood, you saw the brightness of life, opened up to people and trusted, at the centre of your own universe.You felt free to express your emotions, you laughed, and you cried when you wanted to, you deserved to experience all that life had to offer, this was your birthright.

We come to full reality of who we are in baby Jesus, full of wonder, miraculously fixed to a thing or two that catch our eyes and heart. We used to love all, we could love ourselves maximumly, our sense of worthiness was intact, we had a full self-esteem. 

We felt good once we were in high self-esteem, we felt good about ourselves. We enjoyed challenges and we would take them head on whenever they came our way. We felt creative and we made things happen in our small world. The question is how do we feel like this now?

The baby Jesus has to give us a sense of our floated away glory image of our childhood. We have turned into adults of self defense so that we can protect our self-image. We have lived with a lot of mistrust of the world and even our very selves, and even the self-esteem has been lost in equal measure. 

Today many of us are moving around with low self-esteem that to some life has become self-destructive (drinking a lot, smoking a lot, driving carelessly, abusing everyone no matter who, where and when, lazy to even wash personal belongings, plates, eating and leaving a plate on the table expecting someone else to remove it, kneeling in church has become a nightmare, stopped receiving holy communion, or simply suspended Sunday mass until further notice).

We have another opportunity to change all the negatives into positive this Christmas before baby jesus. All roads should lead to church on the 24^th December Night mass, but above all your own heart to find your self-esteem. It does no good to go and see baby jesus in the crib yet there are still many unfinished business that Jesus wants you to change this christmas. 

I know we are all different in the way we handle our challenges or call them difficulties but the way of seeing a new baby changes our angle component of introspection.

Creating self-esteem is all about you, your individual ability to create for yourself a strong sense of self worth which, in turn, leads to high esteem. We are all called upon to make decisions, act spontaneously, express our feelings. You are a person who can make things happen in the way you want them to happen.

This Christmas enjoy your life fully, make what you want to be, and do that you love. Run your life around and in case of assistance ask, there are always good people around who respond with great heart and charity. 

Let us bring our woundedness, hurts, pains, difficulties to Jesus this Christmas, let us connect with our inner world of beauty and paint lovely colours of love, beauty of sentiments to someone special this Christmas. Allow yourself to be a person of wonder to others and others give flashing lights that beam your eyes and heart.

Happy Christmas to you all. 

Thanks for being there at time of need, those I met in all social media platforms and we simply connected. Receive my blessings for the New year 2018, may we remember what we promised in the beginning of this year and, yet we never  fulfilled. There is always an opportunity to always change things around and seeing them them in a way we want them to be seen and experienced.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

EDUCATION WITHOUT GOD PRODUCES CLEVER DEVILS.

Boy child has been checked as in a chess game...as the king runs out of one step movement, he surrenders and  we call that check!!!game over, close the chess board.

Get the boy child out of class or school and you tilt the scale of insecurity, lawlessness, and unarrests. Why are many young people, simply evaporating into the air...what becomes of them, do they come back in form of "rain" with hailstone to start pounding us up.

Even that girl child is put on high alert because the security risk is upgraded to very volatile.

If the boy child is not taken care of, someone else will make use of him, not in the way we know as a society of giving back to the society but breaking up the society in a very peculiar way, beyond human imagination.

It looks to me, there is someone militarizing our education system. Don't be surprised to hear that after Form Four, a compulsory one year enrollment into NYS. The government is good at misusing the boy child and then dumped.

The girl too needs our attention as much, but she too needs to wake up and get involved to work and work hard for nation building. 

Mothers have to come up with strategies of telling there daughters that in this modern world, there is nothing for free.

No time to waste on beauty, those who spend time on beauty are those who have worked for that money and can spend some of it on that. It's no longer...your money is ours and my money is mine!!!

We are dealing with clever devils ready to do anything to smoothen their ego. The ministry of education seems to be wobling. 

Once you mishandle societal educational system, you should be ready for a rowd shock.

Let's talk sense among ourselves as Kenyans and ask ourselves, who has bewitched us that we can talk over educational matters soberly without mixing it with politics or militarizing it.

There should be a crisis meeting of the stake holders to brainstorm the way forward. Fail to do so, then allow the incompetent with attached titles to their names yet they can't deliver, and if they do it's because they had no option but to do just the essentials and then start moon lighting activities.#Thelastword.

EDUCATION IS SHAPED BY REAL MOTHERS AT WORK.

Pope Benedict addresses Teachers and Religious

Chapel of St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, Friday, 17 September

Your Excellency the Secretary of State for Education,

Bishop Stack, Dr Naylor,

Reverend Fathers, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding contribution made by religious men and women in this land to the noble task of education. 

I thank the young people for their fine singing, and I thank Sister Teresa for her words. To her and to all the dedicated men and women who devote their lives to teaching the young, I want to express sentiments of deep appreciation. 

You form new generations not only in knowledge of the faith, but in every aspect of what it means to live as mature and responsible citizens in today’s world.

As you know, the task of a teacher is not simply to impart information

or to provide training in skills intended to deliver some economic

benefit to society; education is not and must never be considered as

purely utilitarian. 

It is about forming the human person, equipping him or her to live life to the full – in short it is about imparting wisdom. And true wisdom is inseparable from knowledge of the Creator, for “both we and our words are in his hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts” (Wis 7:16).

This transcendent dimension of study and teaching was clearly grasped by the monks who contributed so much to the evangelization of these

islands. 

I am thinking of the Benedictines who accompanied Saint Augustine on his mission to England, of the disciples of Saint Columba who spread the faith across Scotland and Northern England, of Saint David and his companions in Wales. 

Since the search for God, which lies at the heart of the monastic vocation, requires active engagement with the means by which he makes himself known – his creation and his revealed word – it was only natural that the monastery should have a library and a school (cf. Address to representatives from the world of culture at the “Collège des Bernardins” in Paris, 12 September 2008).

It was the monks’ dedication to learning as the path on which to

encounter the Incarnate Word of God that was to lay the foundations of

our Western culture and civilization.

Looking around me today, I see many apostolic religious whose charism

includes the education of the young. 

This gives me an opportunity to

give thanks to God for the life and work of the Venerable Mary Ward, a

native of this land whose pioneering vision of apostolic religious life for women has borne so much fruit. 

I myself as a young boy was taught by the “English Ladies” and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude.

Many of you belong to teaching orders that have carried the light of the Gospel to far-off lands as part of the Church’s great missionary work, and for this too I give thanks and praise to God.

Often you laid the foundations of educational provision long before

the State assumed a responsibility for this vital service to the

individual and to society.

As the relative roles of Church and State in the field of education continue to evolve, never forget that religious have a unique contribution to offer to this apostolate, above all through lives consecrated to God and through faithful, loving witness to Christ, the supreme Teacher.

Indeed, the presence of religious in Catholic schools is a powerful reminder of the much-discussed Catholic ethos that needs to inform

every aspect of school life. 

This extends far beyond the self-evident requirement that the content of the teaching should always be in conformity with Church doctrine. 

It means that the life of faith needs

to be the driving force behind every activity in the school, so that the Church’s mission may be served effectively, and the young people

may discover the joy of entering into Christ’s “being for others” (Spe Salvi, 28).

Before I conclude, I wish to add a particular word of appreciation for

those whose task it is to ensure that our schools provide a safe environment for children and young people. 

Our responsibility towards those entrusted to us for their Christian formation demands nothing less. 

Indeed, the life of faith can only be effectively nurtured when the prevailing atmosphere is one of respectful and affectionate trust.

I pray that this may continue to be a hallmark of the Catholic schools

in this country.

With these sentiments, dear Brothers and Sisters, I invite you now to

stand and pray.

CHANGING THE WAY YOU RESPOND TO CRITICISM

Today some of us are finding ourselves in an open market of rapid interactions and releases of messages on Facebook platform, that we are caught in between hit and run attitudes, intellectual terrorism and the whole reality of fake news,(Alternative truth), where someone seats behind the keyboard of his laptop, cellphone, and literally does a lot of "bombing activations", "grenade" throwing and attacks in the net, through what we call "let the fingers do the walking".

Many of us have closed their facebook, twitter, and social media accounts or simply switched off that world of social media. They have chickened out. Is that a solution? maybe, maybe not for a short while or temporal solution who knows.

The internet and social media is here and it looks like every day new approaches and means of delivering news, agenda depending on what you are planning and inventing easier ways of communicating inter and intra the global village.

Some of us have built on internal critic which is embodied in negative beliefs which we hold to ourselves. when we are low in self-esteem we will do all that is possible to avoid criticism, we can't tolerate disapprove of ourselves and generally we can't stand criticism because we are self critical.

We have developed a poor self concept by hanging on to negative beliefs about ourselves. This is as a result of the unfinished business in our childhood. Do you love and value yourself whenever you find yourself in self criticism? or else you find yourself falling into your old self-invalidating habits. You have always to affirm yourself (I LOVE AND VALUE MYSELF) often whenever you find yourself falling or leading thyself in that temptation. This will remind you of what is happening.

It is ok for you to make mistakes, it's something else to allow yourself to slip into a black hole of fear and helplessness. You have to give yourself some space to evaluate of what is being said about you, what sort of criticism is it, is someone just trying to have a go to you, stalking you. Is what they are saying justified or not? Sometimes the way we behave simply opens floodgates of criticism that everyone junky wants to use you for a dumping site.

Sometimes we hear statements like "that was really something stupid to do", "you are insensitive". If you say yes, indeed "I know it was something wrong to do". "I'm ever so sorry", "I am stupid", "I am always making mistakes". It means you are playing to the submissive victim.

Of course you can also play aggressive victim and reply with more criticism. Like "What right have you when everyone here know who you are and what you do with people's........." you are in conflict, counter attack and throwing a grenade is very easy, you don't want to die alone, better to die with the whole village. (Facebook postings, fights and dirty talks we post on our social media outlets, which some turn out to be FAKE).

Facebook turns out to be a very good ground for intellectual and gorrilla exchange of words in names of bloggers. we feel threatened, neither do we feel good about ourselves, we are both low in self-esteem.

Sometimes it's very hard to say "I AM VERY SORRY", "it was a very wrong thing to do","I know that at times I can be insensitive but I am trying to change my approach". There are creative responses which do not diminish your self-esteem.

You can apologise without crawling with your face downward. Its right to make mistakes but learn from them, don't repeat the same mistake. Ask for constructive feedback to be helped in your perspective of looking looking at reality before you.

If you feel that criticism is unfair, then say so, "I don't think I am insensitive do I?" "I don't accept that description of my behaviour" say what you feel clearly and convincingly, once we are in high esteem we behave very creatively and this means taking responsibility for one's own strengths and weaknesses. If the glove fits, then wear it. In other words, recognize and accept justified criticism. It will be in your best interests to do so. If it doesn't fit, don't try to own it. Stand for yourself without attributing any blame. Ok!!!!!!!!!

The more you practice these techniques the easier they will help you through the main streamings of facebooking. When you are able to separate yourself from your behaviour you can recognize your intrinsic self worth. When you truly understand that you are lovable, valuable and worthy, then you have learned to create self-esteem.

Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year 2018 of facebooking.

CELIBACY AS AN ORCHESTRA OF LIFE

Celibacy can be compared to an orchestra. You don't pick an instrument and enter into an orchestra band...it involves a lot of practice, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, a lot of quality space and discipline.

To compete...you need more than 5months of Preparation. Not all who start in the orchestra school finish, that is how things are.

It doesn't mean that those who leave are bad at it. They may sing well except that they have difficulty of reaching the wanted note and key required for the audience. They audience have to be part of the training.

That is why the trainer will always emphasize, assume you are on an international stage of dignitaries what do want them to see and feel? Music, passion, flavour of the orchestra No!!!!!

 Celibacy is not for all, that is why there is a long period of formation. To think, rethink, evaluate, contemplate, test, try, and tease outs to reach a point of right baking temperature, some may still go through but what awaits them out there, may be challenging more than what is inside the seminary walls.

By the end of the training, the seminarians will be asked with good faith to ask their Spiritual directors whether they are ready for ordination.

It's the candidate who has to be engaged with the Spiritual director, an evaluative quality assessment.

That remains confidential report between the two. Some may be told by their spiritual directors the truth but may simply feel, otherwise, they go ahead and have an engine knock. Whom do you blame in such incidence.

It is a journey, and since it's a journey one needs to prepare for any eventualities...those who come to that acceptance stage of reconing decision, make very good Christians and always ready support the church, live in marriage vows and donate generously in the field of vocation.

It's an adventure of life for some, training camp for many, but a school of love for the majority, and an academy of life for a number.

That is why parents have to be involved in the formation structure one way or another.  seminary formation should be demystified and of course respected as Factory of priests. The factory too is subjected to check up routine and inspection.

The seminarians should be help to be discerned, not to be kept into walls for fear to be robbed by women, ladies, girls.

What happens when they finish formation. Do they go back to heaven or are sent to the world, to evangelize, and talk of the reign of God. They ought to be true men made of flesh and blood, active and alive and yet consecrated, set aside for a mission, that is what the mother Church wants, not timid, shy and not here nor there ministers of God or men of the clothe.

JUST A THOUGHT...

Reflect on these words

1.Your BIRTH came through others, by the very fact that your mother had good lovely friends to consult, whether her boyfriend, your father was a good man.

2.Your NAME was given by others. You were crying coming to this world, while others were just amazed how you looked and what name could suit your birthday.

3. You were EDUCATED by others. Your nursery teacher, primary teacher, secondary teacher, university, job...etc what do you owe them except love and discipline. Practice what you learnt.

4.Your INCOME indirectly comes through others. By the very fact you get your cash through the bank, appreciate he/she who didn’t forget to sign the cheque.

5. Your RESPECT is given by others. You don’t demand for it, to live and learn to be respected because of who you are to others.

6. Your first BATH was given by others. First your mother then your house help...do you remember her, or she was just any other woman paid to bath you.

7. Your last BATH will be done by other. At death hour there people who know how wonderful you have been and they will always give their last respects.

8. Your FUNERAL will be organised by others. The best committee is that of the funeral. They plan without cash yet they succeed with no cash saved.

9. You will be taken to your FINAL RESTING PLACE by others. Those who carry your casket are family members or people you shared a common goal together or simply strong men not women who believe in life after death.

and

10. EVERYTHING you owned will be inherited by others. Sometimes we do alot of savings without consulting anyone and that money will belong to anyone or simply to the State. Now you know why some money can’t be accounted for in big parastatals.

Hmm..... Why, then, do some of us let our EGO, our CAREER, our MONEY and our BELIEFS undermine the worth of others in our lives, when we are so dependent on others.

Isn't it high time we learn to live in peace and harmony with others, because all through our lives, at one point or the others, we will need each Other Hope you will share this message with others.

MODERN PC LANGUAGE

We thank God in many ways and those ways are part of our daily living. Sometimes we use words and we do not know whether they are what we mean.  I have been reflecting on something for this last few days and not much from books and discourses but from the technological point of view.  The world has become too small that one is able to know what is happening around himself or herself in a flash of seconds. The PC is a very interesting machine and very easy to use for those who know how to use it well, not that you have gone through a computer school but how to use it in the mind capacity-intelligence. Anyone can press a button of a key board and things simply change and eyes open and wonder takes its toll. This process of doing things and above all in the technological point of view has struck a note in me recently. Why?  The keyboard on my PC has simply made me discover something I have been using with little attention to it. What is it? Is the question you might be asking right now. In our PCs we have many commands that we use while working: FILE, SAVE, DELETE, FORWARD and other keys. I decided to put myself to task recently.  FILE: There are some incidences in our lives we need to file and we can retrieve them whenever we need to use those experiences like Birthdays, good memories, journey in form of photos, pictures and fact files.  But strange enough there are some of us who file other people in our lives that we ought not to file.  We are over burdened by carrying some people in our lives that we are sick of ulcers, stressed, and fatique its a high time such people who can’t take you anywhere you have to delete them.  People with negative thoughts, people who simply remain in their ideologies and they think they are better than others. We need to delete incidences like tribal hatred, ethnocentrism, racism, hard intolerance, fear, indifference and bad heart towards a neighbour. We need to SAVE people who are kind and who know where they are going and can also help us on our way to our self-discovery. We need to save our significant others. We need to FORWARD peace to all people of good will but we need to forward what we have. There are people who are simply sending empty messages and mixed signals in other people’s lives.  Be a person who forwards that inner self to someone who has not experienced you. Don't love because you like someone, love because you are called to love and its a decission you have committed yourself to. This is what I call knowing to use your PC.  It's quite provocate isn’t it? We use these words but we have never posed a moment to reflect what they mean in daily use and what meanings they bring out.  So as you begin your week and you find out that you are using your PC think about what you are doing and be that behind your mind.  Are you saving? if you don't you will loose all your work, if you don't file with the right name and root you will lose the work unless you recall, you might delete what you were not meant to delete, but sorry accidents  occur and you find yourself in dilemma.  You might forward a message to a person who might be going through a dilemma and you may be an angel to that person at that time. Let me close my document and hoping that I have saved you and that is why I send my sincere prayers to you and may you be a messenger of good work at your table. ©Padre Joseph Nyamunga Mubiru, SSA

RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AS AN ICON

Consider the language and image surrounding the death of Jesus as paying the price for our sins. We are saved by his blood. He paid the debt of sin. We are washed clean in his blood, the blood of the lamb. He is the Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

He restored us to life, after our death in Adam’s sin. He conquered death, once and for all. By his stripes we were healed. He offered an eternal sacrifice to God.

He is our victim. He opened the gates of heaven. He stripped the principalities and Satan of their power. He descended into hell.

Accepting the truth of his language is one thing, explaining it within the categories and language of ordinary life is something else.

About Jesus’ death, we have a language but we don’t have a vocabulary. We know its meaning, but we can never adequately explain it.

What exactly do we mean by these statements? How does Jesus’ death save me from being accountable for my sins? How does his death assist in substituting for human shortcoming, including our own through the centuries?

Why does God need someone to suffer that agonizingly in order to forgive me? How does Jesus ‘death open the gates of heaven? Why had they been closed? What does it mean that, in his death, Jesus descended into hell?

Literal explanations come up short here. The words are more like an icon, an artefact that highlights form to bring out the essence.

We cheat ourselves of meaning whenever we treat scripture, the creeds, and the dogmas of our faith as simple statements of history, newspaper accounts in literal language.

Remember an atheist is someone once quipped, is just another name for someone who doesn’t grasp the metaphor.

May you grasp the metaphor and sort out the truth and live the truth and not the literal meaning of the word.

BOOK REVIEW

J. ANDREW KIRK, What is Mission, Theological Explorations, Dorton, Longman, Todd, London, 1999.

Author

J. ANDREW KIRK is a dean and head of the School of Mission and World Christianity at Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham. He has lived in Latin America and travelled extensively, and is the author of several books in the area of mission studies, including The Meaning of Freedom: A study of Secular, Muslim and Christian view (Peternoster, 1998).

Acknowledgement

He engages with the thinking of others in case one has to come up with sound mission, with the crucial mission issues of the moment. What is Mission to J. Andrew Kirk is a matter for the whole people of God, listening to what the Spirit of Jesus says t the Churches, hearing the sorrows and joys of people’s daily lives and listening to one another. He captures it well in the statement of ‘I am because you are’. (Ubuntu Philosophy).

Introduction

A number of years in mission education of searching for a proper book for mission, dedicated in that line. David Bosch’s Magnum opus, Transforming Mission, to him is the standard text book in the foreseeable future. He says, ‘there are few people who are able to master so expertly such a wide range of material with such care, balance and sensitivity.’

 J. Andrew Kirk states that David Bosch presents the subject of Christian Mission like a journey of exploration in which the traveller takes sufficient time both to cover a wide territory and to do so with such attention to details. J. Andrews Kirk’s book is simply an introduction, presenting material of Mission Theology in a convenient form, guiding the students in some of the current relevant discussions on various issues.

 The difference between the two can be likened to the scale of a map. David Bosch is the large Map with all details of what a map ought to have, while J. Andrew Kirk is smaller scale indicating the location of the large villages, small towns and cities. Both are required. Transforming Mission and other books which cover a large terrain are resource books to which one returns once and time again. 

Some people find J. Andrew Kirk intimidating especially if English is not your first language, the courage to penetrate through murky waters, without being superficial.

The difference comes when him and David handle emerging ecumenical Missionary paradigm are not covered in David Bosch’s text book, previous situations of south Africa under apartheid when the book was written. He is indeed indebted to David Bosch as a scholar and as a person, he had a privilege to know him personally. To not acknowledge any contribution or significant studies, the reason will be ignorance rather than lack of appreciation.

Outline and scope

Providing students with a book that covers a range of issues in mission theology, current hot topics in the academia, breaking those issues in small bits and pieces to grip the gist of the discussion and trends, setting out various opinions as clearly as possible.

He divides the book in three parts. The opening three chapters deal with the question of foundations and methods, difference in opinion over the nature of the Missio Dei and the Church's relationship to it. How we approach fundamental matters to do with God and his purposes and the place that Jesus and the Christian community.

The second section is dedicated to seven main themes the choices are based on many years involvement in mission education on more than one continent.

The third part consists of one chapter only. The review of what the Church might be and do is she was sufficiently conscious of its nature as a church for the sake of mission. It also gives an opportunity to tie up some loose ends by including discussions not properly addressed elsewhere. The topics have to be look at with particular interest not to just read the book from page to page, but over view of scope.

J. Andrew Kirk states that he is not giving the impression that he has settled view on the all the questions raised in mission theology, far from it. For example, legitimisation of violence, the church involvement in politics, inculturation, preferential option for the poor, care of the environment all these raise storms which Christians have to sail through before reaching calmer waters. 

Even those who appear to reject firm beliefs about the Church’s mission have their firm reasons to do so. The problem is not to ascribing to God.in equal measure both masculine and feminine attributes. A human tragedy almost as old as humanity itself, the masculine must not be equated with domination, authoritarianism and control.

Interest of the book

When I finished my missioning experience, so as to embark on mission studies, I told the Christians I am going to study missiology and they were like what is that? That spark off a an exploration journey to answer to that question…to me this is book on  mission exploration contextualizing my missionary experience of 3 years in Tarija Bolivia, srla. 

LIBERATION THEOLOGY REBUTTED

LIBERATION THEOLOGY REBUTTED

Liberation Theology is one of those exciting teachings that are quite modern which does not only have a belonging to Latin America, but its roots have reached many quarters of the globe and like wine, it’s time for sincere dialogue to be held without anyone keeping the cards under the tables, so that the challenge and controversial issues are clearly dealt with.

This has been provoked both negatively and positively raised mixed reactions, some though exaggerated and emotionally drained. This has been twinkled with sometimes political and ecclesial frontlines. This has keenly raised interests, and the suspicion, of the Sacred Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith[1]. Pope Paul VI, gave qualified approval to the major theme of Liberation Theology: The Liberation of men and women from all forms of oppression and exploitation, both in their individual and social lives[2]. 

The General Assemblies of the Society of African Mission, in revising and clarifying our missionary goals and methods, made a study of the tenets of Liberation Theology, and in their final documents, incorporated some of its distinctive emphases. “Some of our missionaries in the field, not too well acquainted with the works Liberation Theologians, may perhaps find the new language and the new emphases in our documents somewhat disconcerting.” This has to give a glimpse and background, against which to situate the Liberation thrust of the reality.

The true content of Liberation Theology, is a label depicting a theological movement which erupted in Latin America in the mid-sixties, and became a coherent movement with its own identity at the second General Conference of Latin America Episcopate (CELAM) in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968.

Gustavo Gutierrez says, “Liberation theology should be regarded as a movement only in the very broad sense”.  Liberation theology is born in the context of social injustice in which the people live in. Gutierrez describes how his book, A Theology of Liberation, came into being: It is a theological reflection born of the experience of shared efforts to abolish the current unjust situation and build a different society, freer and more human[3].

Liberation theology is, then a reflection on the meaning of faith more so Christian faith as it is lived in the context of a committed struggle to overcome an unjust and powerful economic and political system, a system which creates massive oppression and economic dependence. This is to further the liberation process already begun, and support the commitment of Christians to the struggle for a more just and humane economic and political order.  

Gutierrez insists “It’s to let ourselves be judged by the Word of the Lord, to think through our faith, to strength our love, and to give reason for our hope from within a commitment which seeks to be more radical, total, and efficacious both individual and societal. “Hermeneutic” means “having to do with interpretation. And the circular nature of this interpretation stems from the fact that each new reality obliges us to interpret the Word of God afresh, to change reality accordingly, and then go back and interpret the Word of God again, and so on.”[4]

Man’s life never stands still. It is a dynamic, developing reality, and is subject to constant change. These changes come with constantly new perspectives on God’s Word, and calls for fresh interpretation of the Word. This Word enters the flesh of our lives, becomes an agent of change and transforms. Liberation theologians focus attention on man in his social relationships. Human beings have the capacity to subjugate and shape their environment, thus becoming subjects in a humanized world. Paulo Freire speaks of these people as living in the culture of silence where they are prohibited from creatively taking part in the transformation of their society and therefore prohibited from being[5].

The hopes of those suffering have to instil thrust towards the future in the context of a Liberation struggle to undo the chains of the present oppressive social order and build a new society, different from and qualitatively superior to, the one which exists at present. We now have to seriously embark on the SWOT ANALYSIS on Liberation Theology.

---

[1] The Instruction on Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberation”, Vatican City Rome, 1984.

[2] Evangelii Nuntiandi, nos. 29-39

[3] Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, the Magnum Opus, 1974, P.ix

[4] Gustavo Gutierrez, The Liberation of Theology, tr. John Drury, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY, 1976, P.8

[5] Cultural Action for Freedom, Penguin books, Middlesex England, 1977, P.30