Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Series preface
Preface
Introduction
Selected Bemba glossary
1 Concepts of humankind: old and new
2 Biblical perspectives on the human condition
3 The descent of man
4 A traditional African anthropology
5 The human condition in the light of the gospel
Bibliography

Series Preface

This book is one of a series entitled The Global Christian Library, and is being published by a partnership between Langham Literature (incorporating the Evangelical Literature Trust) and Inter-Varsity Press. Langham Literature is a programme of the Langham Partnership International. The vision for The Global Christian Library has arisen from the knowledge that during the twentieth century a dramatic shift in the Christian centre of gravity took place. There are now many more Christians in Africa, Asia and Latin America than there are in Europe and North America. Two major issues have resulted, both of which The Global Christian Library seeks to address.

First, the basic theological texts available to pastors, students and lay readers in the southern hemisphere have for too long been written by Western authors from a Western perspective. What is needed now is more books by non-Western writers that reflect their own cultures. In consequence, The Global Christian Library has an international authorship, and we thank God that he has raised up so many gifted writers from the developing world, whose resolve is to be both biblically faithful and contextually relevant.

Second, what is needed is that non-Western authors will write not only for non-Western readers, but for Western readers as well. Indeed the adjective ‘global’ is intended to express our desire that biblical understanding will flow freely in all directions. Certainly we in the West need to listen to and learn from our sisters and brothers in other parts of the world. And the decay of many Western churches urgently needs an injection of non-Western Christian vitality. We pray that The Global Christian Library will open up channels of communication, in fulfilment of the apostle Paul’s conviction that it is only together with all the saints that we will be able to grasp the dimensions of Christ’s love (Ephesians 3:18).

Never before in the church’s long and chequered history has this possibility been so close to realization. We hope and pray that The Global Christian Library may, in God’s good providence, play a part in making it a reality in the twenty-first century.

John R. W. Stott
David W. Smith

Introduction

The task of writing about human beings is near impossible. A writer can only authoritatively make specific and subjective statements limited to his or her experience. Beyond that one is almost totally reliant on what others have said about human beings. So I am very aware of my personal limitations in this attempt. But in the end I suppose I am simply exploring a subject that fascinates me. In doing so, I am using my personal ‘lived in’ experience and my understanding of God’s Word to put forward some thoughts about the nature of human beings and their cultural environments.

My interests lie in general in the interface between the Word of God and the world of human experience, and in particular Bemba experience. There was a period of my life when I was submerged in an almost purely Bemba cultural context. The only light in the village came from the sun by day and from fires dotted around the village at night. The only running water was in the river half a mile away. Engagement with the world outside was minimal. But that did not last. Christianity and the wider world soon permeated my world and from the late 1950s until relatively recently I have viewed both of these realities largely through the eyes of a ‘borrowed’ cultural milieu. Although I grew up in Zambia, my initial experiences of both Christianity and the wider world were mediated through personal and corporate Zambian experiences of British colonialism and its educational and other social legacies enshrined in present Zambian life and its social structures.

In what I go on to write I make the first faltering steps in exploring my own world and use perspectives from that exploration as lenses through which to view both Christianity and the wider world. I believe strongly that this is imperative not just for my own development but, in a small way, for the church as a whole.

Many commentators, including Andrew Walls, have recognized that there is a massive demographic and cultural shift in the composition of the Christian church. This is borne out by many statistics. What is happening in places like Soweto, Manila and Rio de Janeiro will determine the character of Christianity in fifty years’ time. Making sense of those contexts in the light of the Scriptures will help to clarify and establish the identity of the ‘next Christendom’. Christian students of the Bible and culture from the emerging majority church must give themselves wholly to this task. As Andrew Walls says in his paper ‘Christian Scholarship in Africa in the Twenty-First Century’, given at a missions conference in May 2004:

Cross-cultural diusion (which is the life blood of historic Christianity) has to go beyond language, the outer skin of culture, into the process of thinking and choosing and all the networks of relationship that lie beneath language, turning them all towards Christ . . . This is deep translation, the appropriation of the Christian Gospel in terms of that culture, down to the roots of identity.

This process will in the end call for a certain rethinking of theological categories. Not a reinvention of historic Christian beliefs but a recasting into more culturally friendly categories. Christianity must make a home in the cultures of the southern hemisphere and thereby lose its foreignness. The task is making Christ Lord in every part of every culture. Failure to follow this through will lead to confusion, uncertainty and a lack of theological leadership in the principal theatres of Christianity in the twenty-first century.

In what follows I am aware that I may well be raising more questions than answers or perhaps only indicating the lines along which further explorations must follow. I trust that a growing volume of work from Africa, Asia and South America will arm the global nature of Christianity while at the same time remaining deeply rooted at the heart of each host culture, to the honour and glory of Christ our Lord.

1. Concepts of humankind: old and new extract

Michael Jackson, the American pop megastar, epitomizes the confusion that exists about what it means to be human. Jackson is both hugely popular and extremely wealthy, so popular that he is like a god, a global pop icon idolized by millions! Is he black or white? He looks white, sounds and behaves as if he were white, yet pictures of his youth clearly show he is from African-American stock. Although he is a male, he appears effeminate. A commentator on a BBC 3 television documentary, ‘Jacko’s Millions’ (7 May 2004), said words to the effect that Michael Jackson started out as a handsome young African-American man but after who knows how many plastic surgery operations and up to perhaps $300,000 later, he ended up looking like a middle-aged white woman! He is an adult but longs for and fantasizes about the make-believe evergreen childish world of Peter Pan. He also admits to sharing his bed with children, a matter that has landed him in hot water more than once. For a long time, he wore a breathing mask wherever he went, and his children never appear in public without facial masks. Is this simply paranoia or a loss of identity? If Michael Jackson were the human paradigm, what kind of beings would we turn out to be? What does it mean to be human? ...