Reading Anastasia Boniface-Malle’s thesis about the absence of lament in Tanzanian Christianity exposed for me another plank in the theological foundations of prosperity theology, that is, the idea that God wants you to be happy and healthy, and that for the Christian this kind of victory is within your reach. A key […]
What is the Christian life about? Is it about success, and victory? The emphasis of the Tanzanian church on prosperity often comes from a conviction that God wants wholeness for his people, and brings healing to them by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the blood of Jesus. Or […]
Merry Christmas! We celebrate Emmanuel, God with us. We had a sermon on this at church last Sunday, though it wasn’t initially apparent to me that it was a Christmas sermon. The text was Daniel 3:24-25, about the three young Jewish slaves who are thrown into the fire because they refuse […]
On Sunday, TAFES were doing some deputation at Victory Christian Centre and I went along. VCC is a TAG church and the pastor is a TAFES graduate, has been a TAFES staffworker and continues to be highly supportive of TAFES. The church is a big white closed tent and I […]
Chan relates some of his theology around ancestors and priesthood to African theology as well: “Sometimes dysfunctional pastors are simply tolerated rather than asked to leave for fear of “touching the Lord’s anointed.” Many African Initiated Churches seem to have similar views about their leaders. They reflect the pervasiveness of […]
Chan concludes his book with this contextualized summary of the story of the world: “The trinitarian family — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — purposed from eternity to enlarge the divine family by including humans so that the extended family could live in perfect communion. The trinitarian family is an […]
There are far too many keen insights and penetrating critiques in Simon Chan’s Grassroots Asian Theology to be contained in a few topics or a few quotes but here are a few that stuck out to me. On changing the world “In spite of a lack of theology of engagement, […]
