In 1991, Ahmed Ali Haile returned to the chaos of his native Somalia with a clear mission: to bring warring clans together to find new paths of peace—often over a cup of tea. A grenade thrown by a detractor cost Haile his leg and almost his life, but his stature as a peacemaker remained. Whether in Somali’s capital, Mogadishu, or among Somalis in Kenya, Europe, and the United States, Haile has been a tireless ambassador for the peace of Christ. Into this moving memoir of conversion and calling, Haile weaves poignant reflections on the meaning of his journey in the world of Islam. Part of the Christians Meeting Muslims series
What happens when North American Mennonite Christians arrive in Islamic Somalia? The answer, according to Peter Sensenig, is that something new emerges: a peace clan. From the first schools and medical work in the 1950s up to the educational partnerships of the present day, Somalis and Mennonites formed a surprising friendship that defied conventional labels. Peace Clan is the story of two deeply traditional communities as they encounter change. How can Somalis apply the profound peacemaking resources of their culture and faith in a society fragmented by violence? And how can modernizing Mennonites make sense of their peace convictions in the context of civil war and military intervention? In struggling with these questions over the course of six decades, Somalis and Mennonites held a mirror up to one another. The author shows how the common quest to transform enmity brings out the best in both communities, and suggests what a fruitful partnership might look like in the present challenges. Students, academics, and lay readers alike will find on these pages a compelling invitation to join the peace clan.
Many Christians have grown up with a very limited concept of "missions" and "missionaries." In this view a missionary is a person who goes and preaches to lots of people, often in primitive lands, and explains the theology of the gospel. The natives are convinced and become Christians. Thus the gospel commission is fulfilled. Actual missions have not been carried out in this way very much. Missionaries are generally very aware of the personal aspect of their activities, and the importance of hospitality. But western churches have become much less attuned to hospitality. The days are past when visitors could assume they'd be invited home for lunch or become personally connected to people in a church they visit. But hospitality is a key concept, and a key practice, in the Bible, both in Old and New Testament times. This involved both God's relationship with his people, in which some "entertained angels," in their relationships with one another, and in the way they reached the world with the good news God had given to them. Chris Freet examines the biblical idea of hospitality, the role it played in biblical times, and the example that provides for us. He concludes that the western church needs to be re-awakened to the mutual and reciprocal biblical definition of hospitality; that it must undergo some contextualization in order for the biblical role of hospitality and the "person of peace" to work in it; and (3) it must transition from short-term encounters of hospitality in the West to long-term relationships as the family of God. This is a serious theological examination, but it is also both a challenge and a practical guide to help us get started in giving hospitality the role in our churches that the biblical story envisions.
Winner 2016 “Christianity Today Book Award” for Mission/Global Church catelogry. Can Christians and Muslims be friends? Real friends? Even in an era of intense religious conflict, David Shenk says yes. In Christian. Muslim. Friend., Shenk lays out twelve ways that Christians can form authentic relationships with Muslims—characterized by respect, hospitality, and candid dialogue—while still bearing witness to the Christ-centered commitments of their faith. Rooted in fifty years of friendship with Muslims in Somalia, Kenya, and the United States, this book will inspire readers with astounding stories of the author’s animated conversations with Muslim clerics, visits to countless mosques around the globe, and the pastors and imams who are working for peace. These tried and true paths offer a compelling resource with practical application for mission personnel, Sunday school classes, and Christians who meet people of Islamic faith in their communities. For a radio interview with David Shenk, which aired originally by Paul Ridgeway of KKMC Christian Talk radio, Twin Cities, Minn., click here and scroll to the bottom of the post
A global citizen. A commitment to sharing the peace of Jesus. A witness to the difference that Jesus makes. The story David Shenk either begins in Shirati Village in Tanganyika, East Africa, or we might decide it begins among the orchards of Lancaster County, Pa., where farmers with their horses line up a mile for water as they rearrange their loads for their trek home on market day. In either reading, this is a story of mission—a story of people chattering along a roadside spring on the way to and from market. At age six, Shenk asked his parents, “What difference does Jesus make?” The answer to that question is the reason he became a Christian. Day by day, as he travels in the way of Jesus—living, serving, and ministering around the world—Shenk continues to unpack what difference Jesus makes. This is the story not just of Shenk and his remarkable work in Christian missions. It’s the stories that David has heard within societies, cultures, and religions when he asks the question: What difference does Jesus make?
This reference collection presents academic reviews of more than twelve-hundred contemporary Africa-related publications relevant for informed Christian reflection in and about Africa. The collection is based on the review journal BookNotes for Africa, a specialist resource dedicated to bringing to notice such publications, and furnishing them with a one-paragraph description and evaluation. Now assembled here for the first time is the entire collection of reviews through the first thirty issues of the journal’s history. The core intention, both of the journal and of this compilation, is to encourage and to facilitate informed Christian reflection and engagement in Africa, through a thoughtful encounter with the published intellectual life of the continent. Reviews have been provided by a team of more than one hundred contributors drawn from throughout Africa and overseas. The books and other media selected for review represent a broad cross-section of interests and issues, of personalities and interpretations, including the secular as well as the religious. The collection will be of special interest to academic scholars, theological educators, libraries, ministry leaders, and specialist researchers in Africa and throughout the world, but will also engage any reader looking for a convenient resource relating to modern Africa and Christian presence there.
Longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award A historical tapestry of border-crossing travelers, of students, wanderers, martyrs and invaders, The White Mosque is a memoiristic, prismatic record of a journey through Uzbekistan and of the strange shifts, encounters, and accidents that combine to create an identity In the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites traveled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return. Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Named Ak Metchet, “The White Mosque,” after the Mennonites’ whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years. In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveler of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer, and explores such topics as Central Asian cinema, Mennonite martyrs, and Samatar’s own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss-Mennonite and a Somali-Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of color in America. A secular pilgrimage to a lost village and a near-forgotten history, The White Mosque traces the porous and ever-expanding borders of identity, asking: How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self?
This book examines the evolution of post-colonial African Studies through the eyes of Africanists from the Anabaptist (Mennonite and Church of the Brethren) community. The book chronicles the lives of twenty-two academics and practitioners whose work spans from the immediate post-colonial period in the 1960s to the present day, a period in which decolonization and development have dominated scholarly and practitioner debate. Reflecting the values and perspectives they shared with the Mennonite Central Committee and other church-sponsored organizations, the authors consider their own personal journeys and professional careers, the power of the prevailing scholarly paradigms they encountered, and the realities of post-colonial Africa. Coming initially from Anabaptist service programs, the authors ultimately made wider contributions to comparative religion, church leadership, literature, music, political science, history, anthropology, economics and banking, health and healing, public health, extension education, and community development. The personal histories and reflections of the authors provide an important glimpse into the intellectual and cultural perspectives that shaped the work of Africanist scholars and practitioners in the post-colonial period. The book reminds us that the work of every Africanist is shaped by their own life stories.
Autobiographical writings on faith frequently come from the lives of ordinary persons whose struggles with faith are often lived at the margins of the church, academy, and society. Yet these voices have the potential to reshape the ways in which each of these fields function. To find out what it means to stand before God with all of one's humanity on display is to engage in not only the act of confession, but to demonstrate a bold theological reflection that needs to be more explicitly understood. By turning to spiritual autobiographies as theological source texts, we learn to place our emphasis where it matters most, on the people whose lives of faith move us deeply and cause us to re-examine our own lives in light of their witness. Moving through a range of ancient, early modern, and contemporary spiritual writers in order to demonstrate a profound connection that unites them all, this book portrays how a critical self-examination of one's most personal, internal fractures (our "poverty" as it were) is the only way to develop a life of faith--the dual meaning of the word "confession," which expresses both a revealing of one's sins, or brokenness, and the articulation of what one believes.
Discover God's Heart for Muslims: Investigate Islam through this positive and hopeful 640-page book. Encountering the World of Islam explores the Muslim world and God's plan for Muslims. Read from a collection of writings about the life of Muhammad, the history of Islamic civilization, Islamic beliefs, Muslims today, and the everyday lives of Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. Gain insight from 80 different practitioners into diverse Muslim cultures and worldviews as well as Christian outreach toward Muslims, our response to Islam, and prayer for the Muslim world. This book is used as the textbook for the Encountering the World of Islam course. Revised, updated, and expanded for 2014.Fifty-seven new articles, highlights, maps, and tables.Fully indexed and cross-referenced.Over 100 additional pages of free online articles at the companion website.Features: Reading Assignments: Each lesson includes an average of 35 pages of reading, plus additional articles online (available after free registration for access). Highlights: Brief readings focusing on specific topics of interest to the reader are found throughout the book, including: Concepts: Important biblical or cultural concepts the student should know.Outreach: Appropriate ways for reaching out to Muslims.People Groups: Overviews of the major ethnic Muslim affinity blocks, illustrated with descriptions of characteristic people groups from each block.Pray Now: Guides to praying for Muslims within each lesson.Quotes: Quotations from "the experts" illustrating important lesson points.Qur'an: Important verses and concepts from the Qur'an.Stories: Narrative accounts from the lives of Muslims and Muslim-background believers.Women: Specific issues that affect the lives of Muslim women.Ponder This: Introductory questions help set the mental stage for entering each lesson. Explore: Recommendations for deeper exploration of lesson topics. Discussion Questions: Application questions to use in class activities, provide ideas for forum postings, or simply serve as points for individual reflection. Learn More: Additional activities which may be assigned by your professor or completed just for fun, including reading, watching, praying, visiting, eating, listening, meeting, shopping, and browsing the internet. Glossary: Unfamiliar terms or concepts are cross-referenced and included in the 40-page glossary. Pronunciation Guide: Help with pronouncing non-English words found throughout the text. Common Word List: Key words that occur frequently throughout the book. Illustrations: 110 illustrations, maps, and tables. Index: Comprehensive and extensively cross-referenced topical index, as well as separate Bible and Qur'an indices. Bibliography: Complete, scholarly collection of the authors, readings, and highlights that appear in the book. Resources for teaching: Example lectures and PowerPoint presentations for the materials in Encountering the World of Islam are available in the Instructor Resources area of our companion website.
