Those of us who live in a culture other than our own often talk about ‘cross-cultural tensions’ and it looms large for us as the stuff and stress of everyday life. However, I suspect it sounds kind of vague and wishy-washy to your average Joe. So I thought I’d give […]
In the last post I suggested that Tanzanians do not necessarily view hierarchy as inherently abusive, in contrast to how I and many westerners think. So if hierarchy is not abusive, what is? How do you define abuse? Here I try to process some of the factors involved in this […]
A well-known egalitarian scholar once told me that the reason Africans read hierarchical gender roles in the Bible is because they don’t have the theological scholarship that we do, so we need to go and educate them. I smiled politely because this guy was significantly older than me, and ironically wasn’t […]
Have you seen this article doing the rounds? Aside from the assumptions that missions is (a) to unreached people groups and (b) that those unreached peoples are poor, Nik Ripkin raises some super important issues that can be considered beyond the immediate context he is addressing, which is persecuted Christians in […]
Earlier this year I was one of the speakers on the panel at Grace Conference, and I also gave a seminar on a Christian engagement with feminism. That seminar has now been written up as a series of three articles at Fixing Her Eyes. Feminism 102: Beyond stereotypes Three Christian […]
Arthur and I are not the only ones simultaneously re-entering Tanzania and adjusting to a new place in it. Elliot is too, and I suspect it’s even bigger for him because the ratios of his life are more dramatic. When we returned to Australia last year, he’s lived 85% of his […]
I don’t know if there are stages, but after my initial impressions our real re-orientation began, and learning about a new place too. It’s all mixed in together. Here are ten observations 5 weeks in. We are not as tired this time. During our first year in Tanzania, we were pretty […]
Meet Jesus at uni 