Review on “Makeshifting the LMS: Strategies and Tactics in the Digital Classroom” by Eric C. Smith

Posted on by kheevun

This is a review I wrote to complete an online course:

Smith uses Michel de Certeau’s theoretical framework to outline the situation of online pedagogy. The Learning Management System (LMS) is depicted as the overarching structure (“strategies,” according to de Certeau). It has caused much uneasiness to theological educators who are transiting from traditional, non-digital classroom teaching. Smith outlines various shortcomings of LMS which affect the quality of teaching. Among them the lack of a sense of engagement, LMS’ potential over mediation, and the teachers feeling controlled by technology. Contrary to the common belief that digital classroom is an equalizer, the experience of LMS users is also determined by their technological, social, and economic background. Smith then proposes examples of “makeshifts” by using what Certeau calls “tactics.” Unlike the overarching structure, tactics are used to maneuver the structure and make it work for the users. In the case of LMS, Smith proposes the tweaks of user interface, method of delivery, use of forum, and the use of a hybrid of compensating tools. For those who are looking for a way to “survive” LMS in their institution, having been asked to use it, Smith’s paper offers the following. First, Smith is sensitive to the psychological state of educators who are struggling with LMS. This paper acknowledges their plights and offers help. Secondly, Smith’s use of Certeau’s framework is helpful, as it gives a clear overall picture of the situation, pitching the LMS on one side, and the educators on the other. They are described as entities within a same system. Educators should use “tactics” to navigates themselves through the waters of the strategies set by the LMS. Finally, Smith helpfully provides some real life examples on how makeshifts are made by educators to “game” the LMS, effectively making LMS work for them.

Smith’s paper can be found here:https://www.ats.edu/…/2019-theological-education-52-2.pdf

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Useful Resources for Mission at the International Bulletin of Missionary Research

Posted on by kheevun

The April version of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research has a number of interesting articles. Articles are available for free at the website after your subscribe to its email newsletter. Among articles which are relevant to faith, culture and mission in the postmodern context are:

1. Emerging Adults and the Future of Missions by Rick Richardson

In his introduction:

Several recent studies have focused on emerging adults in the United States, considering the spiritual and religious lives of high school teens (ages 14–18)[1] or of twenty-somethings (ages 19–29).[2] Two works helpfully draw out the implications of this research for the spiritual formation of high schoolers and of twenty-somethings,[3] but so far little attention has been given to the implications this research holds for mission. It is evident that shifts in the emerging generation (especially twenty-somethings) will have profound consequences for the recruitment, formation, training, deployment, and retention of the next generation of missionaries and thus for the shape and sustainability of mission itself, as this generation will practice it. What do we know about emerging adults, and what are the implications for the future of global mission?

I start by exploring two broad interpretive ideas that enlarge our understanding of the spiritual lives of today’s emerging adults. Then I examine more closely the cultural and social forces that have shaped the spiritual and religious trajectories of teens and twenty-somethings. Finally, I draw out implications for cross-cultural mission in the twenty-first century.

Read the full article

2. “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct”: Thinking Back and Looking Ahead by Indunil J. Kodithuwakku K.

Though it may not be the chief purpose of the author, this article depicts the typical postmodern phenomenon of the increase of sub-cultural groupings manifested in the form of various religious entities struggling to find an identity in the postmodern multi-religious and pluralist context. The author highlights the need for proper Christian witness in the midst of religious tension.

Read the full article

3. Evangelization and the Tenor of Vatican II: A Review Essay by Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder

This is a book review for Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization by Ralph Martin

Excerpt of the review:

‘The focus of this book is an investigation as to why contemporary Catholics, despite encouragement from Vatican II and from Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, evidence a certain hesitation or lack of enthusiasm for evangelization and ad gentes missionary work. Martin argues that such evangelical lethargy is due to two causes. The first is a lack of attention to the teaching of the Council on the urgent necessity of mission, despite its teaching “about the possibility of salvation outside the visible bounds of the Church, or of Christianity” (6). The second is a “culture of universalism” or “practical universalism” in Catholicism that presumes the salvation of all humanity (196).’

Read the full review

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Understand the Context to Better Understand the Message

Posted on by kheevun

In the end, most of us would agree that life is not all that easy to understand, that the messages we receive from within and from others and from God are not always clear. As the Apostle Paul famously said; ‘Now we see in a mirror dimly (one translation has ‘in a riddle’)’, always remembering that mirrors in the ancient world gave a very distorted image. It is partly that all our messages are filtered through to us by our language and culture, but even more because we are fallible and sinful creatures. This last compounds the situation. Our proneness to error means that our cultures are also fallen. We cannot appeal to them as some sort of infallible divine appointment. In truth we are fallible human beings living in equally ‘broken’ cultures and yet depending on those cultures for the ‘translation’ of the messages about life that we receive. No wonder we are in a mess. If this is true there are at least two important consequences. Those who claim they have absolute certainty should be treated with caution. It is right that we should be suspicious. When it comes to divine messages, for example, the Apostle Paul has a distinctly ‘suspicious’ approach. ‘Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said’, he says to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:29) or again, writing to the Thessalonians, he encourages them to listen to ‘prophetic utterances’ but he also asks them to ‘test everything’ (1 Thessalonians 5:20,21). The second consequence, and the more important one for this book, is that it follows that the more we study and understand the context, the better we shall understand the message. If messages are mediated to us through our cultures, a process that colours and even distorts the message, we need to examine the culture in order, so to speak, to undo the damage, and ‘straighten out’ the communication.

Ingleby, Jonathan (2011-12-12). Naming the Frame (Kindle Locations 49-64). Wide Margin. Kindle Edition.

The above are an excerpt from the book Naming the Frame which explains the need for us all to seriously consider the context of where we do our mission or ministry. We should neither think we know it all, nor do we relegate the importance of contextualisation to simply a matter of methodology. Contextualisation is more than that, for a better understanding of the context should result in a better understanding of the message of the gospel.

Seldom do we have books which focus solely on defining the context in mission studies. We often hear of contextualisation, but Ingleby expertly clarify the contemporary context in which contextualisation of our theology and ministry would take place and urge us to be honest with the reality we are in, while taking pain to contextualise our faith to the context of the present culture.

I am still reading the book so a full review of the book is not possible at the moment but I will share the brief content of the book below:

The first part of the book includes some definitions on ‘Living in Context’: Living, Reality, ‘World’ as context, Contextualisation, The Context of Contemporary Culture, Globalisation, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism,  Migration/Movement, Place, Environment: the ‘green’ context, and ‘Community and government’.

The second part of the book deals with the ‘Context of Faithful Improvisation’, touching the topics of: Bible and theology, History and tradition, The context of other faiths, The Context of Personal Growth, Understanding ourselves, Relationships, Career choices and guidance.

The Third section of the book looks into the ‘Context of Christian Ministry’: The Church’s Identity, Church Growth, Christian education,  ‘Witness, dialogue and translation’, Mission, Miracles and the ‘supernatural’,  The Context of Injustice, Prisons, The Workplace, Racial and Ethnic Tension, War,  and Families.

Why are the “Modern” Churches Declining in the Postmodern age?

Posted on by kheevun

      

Excerpt from my MA dissertation:

[Today,] the culture has changed so much that while the world in general has abandoned or reacted toward over-rationalised ways of thinking and lifestyle, the highly rationalised church, which Drane considers an example of being successfully contextualised to the previously dominant rationalised worldview, is left behind and finds it hard to follow the change.1 The following paragraphs will serve to depict the severely ‘modernised’ church.

By applying the concept of ‘McDonaldization’ on the church, Drane laments the over-rationalisation of the church which makes the church no more than just another modern system that adhere to the industrial standards of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.2 The sense of community, mission, ministry and theology suffer great loss in the midst of this uncritical adaptation, or rather, unconscious assimilation, of rational system,3 resulting in decline in church attendance.

Drane believes the church has lost its members not only to secularity, but also other new spiritualities.4 So the loss is not due to a lack of faith or spiritual interest by the general population but due to the postmoderns’ rejection of dogmatism and rationalisation.5 The modern church’s tendency of teaching and conveying faith through the abstract and rational propositions has become a hindrance to proper communication in the postmodern era, which advocates a holistic approach.6 Dialogue/point of contact can become increasingly hard because of differences in communication mode – rational vs. holistic.7 In other words, a typical modernist evangelism may not work as well as evangelisation where word is supported by witness and worship. (I argue, elsewhere in my paper that ‘evangelisation’ as understood by the Roman Catholics in general emphasises word, witness and worship, while ‘evangelism’ – a popular term used primarily within the Protestant circle emphasises only ‘proclamation’ of the gospel, i.e., only ‘word’) The ‘objective, analytic, and reductionist virus’, according to McLaren, has reduced the Bible either to superstition or mere doctrinal propositions.8 Thus serious spiritual searchers find that the ways in which the church worships and witness fall short of their ideal of holistic understanding of life and in addressing their deep spiritual needs.9 Furthermore, the very meaning of or reason for attending church has become redundant. Since other parts of their life are also rationalised and mechanical, there is no reason to allow this to be repeated in church, where one is asked to perform a limited number of tasks repeatedly, with their humanness abandoned.10 This, when combined with the ‘secular and scientific viruses’ which focus more on facts than value, causes the church to be seen as lacking in values, purpose, meaning, mission, passion, wisdom, faith and spirit.11 As such, the ‘witness’ and ‘worship’ are thus left out. Furthermore, the church’s focus on efficiency in manufacturing spiritual products to serve the need of the consumerist believers12 implies that faith can be objectified and packaged into various pedagogical units in fast-food manner. Thus spiritual growth is often portrayed as how much ‘spiritual knowledge’ one consumes. As a result spiritual growth can be rationally controlled and predicted, ‘manufactured’ by the church – the ‘purveyor of religious goods and services’.13 So eventually, this results in churning out selfish followers with little emphasis on ethics, albeit having ‘consumed’ much knowledge and facts.14 So the modern, rationalised church has lost its witness and quality. All these distance the church from the postmoderns as it is perceived that the church is so closely associated with the modern enterprise that when people are increasingly sceptical towards modernism, they find it necessary to reject, at the same time, the ‘modernist’ church.15 This presents the church with two problems. On the one hand the church has failed to engage the postmoderns, and on the other hand, people who are becoming more sympathetic towards postmodernity will gradually leave the church; hence the need to look into inculturating the modern church with postmodern culture.

p.s. You may find a short article here helpful for an understanding of mission in a postmodern North America here.


1 Drane 2008, 5-7.
2 Drane 2000a, 28ff, referring to Ritzer, G (1993) The McDonaldization of Society (Thousands Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press).
3 Drane 2000a, 18-33.
4 Gibbs & Coffey 2001, 171, 173.
5 Drane 2008, 5; McLaren 2006, 174, 179-180; Newbigin 1989, 213.
6 Drane 2000, 113-114.
7 McLaren 2006, 166ff, 177ff; on the church becomes unintelligible since modernity see Hunter 1992, 21-35.
8 McLaren 2006, 201-202.
9 Drane 2000, 12.
10 Drane 2000a, 31-32; McLaren & Campolo 2003, 118.
11 McLaren 2006, 202-203.
12 The Consumerist Virus – citing Guder, D.L. (1998) (ed.) The Missional Church: The People of God Sent on a Mission (Grand Rapids: Eedrmans), McLaren 2006, 204; McLaren & Campolo 2003, 11-12; Gibbs & Bolger 2006, 92.
13 McLaren 2006, 204.
14 Ibid., 202-203.
15 Ibid., 27-29.

Drane, J.W. (2000) Cultural Change and Biblical Faith: The Future of the Church – Biblical and Missiological Essays for the New Century (Carlisle: Paternoster Press).
Cultural Change & Biblical Faith

Drane, J.W. (2000a) The McDonaldization of the Church (Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd).
The McDonaldization of the Church: Consumer Culture and the Church’s Future

Drane, J.W. (2008) After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry, and Christian discipleship in an age of uncertainty (Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd).
After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry, and Christian Discipleship in an Age of Uncertainty

Gibbs, E. and I. Coffey(2001) Church Next: Quantum Changes in Christian Ministry (Leicester: IVP).
ChurchNext: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry

Gibbs, E. and R. Bolger (2006) Emerging Churches (London: SPCK).

McLaren B.D. and Campolo, T. (2003) Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-controlled Church Neutered the Gospel (Zondervan).
Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel

McLaren, B.D. (2006) Church on the Other Side (Grand Rapids: Zondervan).
The Church on the Other Side

China and the Christian Impact

Posted on by kheevun

China and the Christian Impact

Excerpt from ‘A Conflict of Cultures’, the Review of: China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures
Jacques Gernet – Cambridge University Press, 1985, by J.S. Cummins:

Translating and closely analysing contemporary Chinese material, Gernet show that it was not merely clerical squabbles, doctrines, rituals or customs which separated missionary and potential convert. The twain were unable to meet because their respective world-pictures differed radically: the Chinese mind-set, for instance, rooted in concepts from the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, found literally inconceivable Christian ideas evolved from the Graeco-Roman- Judaic-Scholastic mental world. And vice versa. The literati, by and large untroubled by metaphysical anxieties, showed keen interest in Ricci’s technology, moral tracts and memory exercises (see History Today, December, 1985) but laid aside with contumely his religion and his Tridentine ‘Ptolemaic’ theology.

Would love to read this book. The above shows that there is an area which students of inculturation should look into – the definition of ‘mind-set’, its relation with language (and vice versa) and how these affect evangelism. If China is having a revival today – how are the barriers of ‘mind-set’ and language overcome? Perhaps inculturation doesn’t work at all if worldview (mind set and language included, philosophy) is to be separated from culture (behaviour)?

Traditionally people ‘blame this first ‘Failure in the Far East’ upon the Jesuits’ ‘narrow-minded’ co-workers, the friars, whose machinations, we read, misled nine successive popes into denouncing, and finally prohibiting the Jesuits’ ‘China Strategy’, thereby destroying the plan to convert Asia.’ But the review highlighted how the author of this book opined that the mistake was Ricci’s as he failed to notice that the key barrier is not cultural (hence Confucianism) but philosophical (Taoism). A more scholarly review from The Journal of Asian Studies summarises the author’s view succinctly: ‘He doubts that many of the early seventeenth-century literati-converts were “really” Christians, because they were so insistent on reconciling Christianity with Neo-Confucian notions; they were attracted to the Jesuits’ behavior and moral rigor, not to Christian doctrine.’ (China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures. by Jacques Gernet; Janet Lloyd, Review by: Daniel H. Bays, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 114-116)

I will try to find a copy of this book!

Review of ‘Pagan Christianity’ at Amazon

Posted on by kheevun

I have finally written a short review for Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices at Amazon. It is published in full below:

Good Summary but needs to Look Deeper and Wider!

This book is a good resource for anyone who wonders why and how some of the current practices in the church which are not directly mentioned in the New Testament have into being. This book is arranged systematically and in general clear and well written. However, it is still lacking in a number of ways.

Firstly, the author(s) seems to be judging these so-called pagan practices without taken into consideration of biblical theology. For example, one would wonder if Old Testament metaphor of the shepherd can be totally neglected as the role of the modern pastor is examined. The author has completely disregard the above when he criticises the modern role of the pastor, taking into consideration only the New Testament text. (A helpful book to compensate this is Shepherds After My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible (New Studies in Biblical Theology)).

Secondly, the book fails to take into consideration of the fact that contextualisation of the Christian faith is ‘the way it has always been’ in the course of history. A casual study on Bosch’s Transforming Mission or Lesslie Newbigin will help to inform us this. Though not perfect, but the following quote more or less capture the missional dimension that is missing in this book – ‘Christianity is, sociologically speaking, certainly one religion; it is the ancient paganism or, to be more precise, the complex Hebrew-Hellenic-Greco-Latin-Celtic-Gothic-Modern religion converted to Christ more or less successfully.’ (Elwood, ed. What Asian Christians are thinking, 361 as quoted in Jones, Wainwright, Yarnold.Sj, (eds) The Study of Spirituality OUP, 1986, 555). The author fails to see that New Testament was not written in a cultural vacuum and we today cannot live apart from our culture.

Thirdly, limited by his own preferred ecclesiology and background, the author writes with much in favour of the Anabaptist and home church tradition (which are also cultures). Though he has by at large kept the balance he has occasionally allowed this bias to cloud his judgement. Thus some of his conclusions are harsh. For example, he has maintained that churches are not supposed to have a large building but has not consider the paradigm shift typical of the modern cell church where the large building is never considered ‘the church’ but a gathering of all home cell group (churches).

So although the author’s points are clear he would have done better by highlighting the dangers of some of these practices in diluting true Christian values without making harsh but inaccurate criticism of others. Nevertheless I have enjoyed reading this book and find it helpful as a general resource for anyone who is interested in critically evaluating church practices of today. If you would like to have a list of allegedly ‘pagan practices’ in the church look no further. However, I would recommend it only to those who are already aware of the shortcomings I mentioned above. If you have no idea about the three weaknesses above I suggest you look them up before reading this book.

Revivalism = Pagan Christianity?

Posted on by kheevun

My previous review on Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices highlighted the need for works like this to be aware of the cultural context of the historical period involved before making any judgement. One of the mistakes in which ‘Pagan Christianity’ made is to draw conclusion on the effect of the revivalist movement in the 18-19th century America without providing a balanced view. Viola mentioned in ‘Pagan Christianity’ that ‘Frontier-revivalist’ movement has contributed to the emergence and acceptance of individualism within the church. In his own words, ‘the goal of the Frontier-Revivalists was to bring individual sinners to an individual decision for an individualistic faith. As a result, the goal of the early church – the mutual edification and every-member functioning to corporately manifest Jesus Christ before principalities and powers – was altogether lost.’

Firstly, I am not sure if the early church has a single goal of mutual edification, or in fact there is more to a church than merely corporately manifesting Christ before principalities and powers. Secondly, it was the Reformation and then the emergence of Enlightenment and America Independence which set cultural context in which these revivals occurred. The churches in America by the time of Finney were under tremendous challenge from various ‘secular forces’, namely Enlightenment philosophies (some of which later were grouped and generalised as secularism) and were losing their members. Influenced by the need to find an identity after the American Independence, believers embraced the new American ‘popular democracy’, fuelled by an Enlightenment sentiment of appeals to self-evident truths, inalienable rights, and equal creation of all.1 If there were ‘principalities’, they were colonists, who were no more. Meanwhile, they have already accepted the Reformation belief which call each individual to come to salvation by personal faith. The very reason revivalism thrived during that period of time is due to its ability to relate to the people at that time. Finney’s methodology, for example, is the very language that Enlightenment thoughts speak – mechanistic, purposeful and causal. If there were laws governing the physical world, as demonstrated by Newton, there will be ways which governs the making of revival. As much as the means of revivalism – or man-made methods used to create revivals – is questionable, its motive, and subsequently success in engaging a whole generation of Americans to the matters of faith, should not be overlooked. Instead of seeing the revivalist’s method as overwhelmingly pagan, perhaps we could also see it as a form of contextualisation suited for the ‘mission field’ of a new Enlightenment-infested, individualistic age. 1. Noll, M.A. (1992) A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 148.

Institutional Church = Pagan Christianity?

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Ben Witherington shared Howard Snyder’s review on Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola here. I find Snyder’s review helpful . He pointed out that there are three approaches to church history: 1. the “traditional orthodox” approach, 2.the “secret history of the faithful remnant” theory and 3. the “renewal movement view.” Snyder mentioned John Wesley’s renewal attempt within the Anglican church as an example of the ‘renewal movement’, which he sees as the preferred solution compared to the ‘secret history of the faithful remnant’, which Viola prefers, where the institutional church is often regarded as corrupted and true Christianity is seen as carried in history by remnant groups. Of course the opposite of the ‘remnant’ theory is the ‘traditional orthodox’ view which sees the institutional church and its progressive development as a natural development of authentic Christianity and Constantinianism is viewed as a victory for the church.

I would like to respond to both the book and Snyder’s review from the perspective of mission, in particular from the inculturation point of view. I will make some quick attempts here to offer alternative views on the issues of ‘pagan’ practices within the church which Viola seems to suggest for the church today to do away with.

First, I am surprise that Augustine of Hippo and his ecclesiology, especially that was expressed in his confrontation with the Donatists, was not mentioned – neither by Snyder nor Viola! Augustine made some important points regarding the church when debating with the Dontists. Dualistic or Platonic as it may seem, Augustine argued (especially later in his ‘City of God’) for the validity, authenticity and authority of the institutional church, while acknowledging that the institutional church and its ministers are not perfect. Though the debate was much more complicated and involves a lot of theological technicalities, especially on the issue of sacraments, it serves as one of the earlier if not the earliest debate on the authenticity of the institutional church and its ministers.

Secondly, I agree with Snyder, who helpfully sees that the whole issue is about  ‘the nature and practice of the church’. Now there is still a difference between the ‘church’ and ‘Christianity’. The other term which one will think of, which is related but not equivalent would be the ‘Kingdom of God’. Again Augustine linked the kingdom with the church as a means to defend his high view of the institutional church. If we are talking about the church (ecclesiology) let the discussion be on the people or ‘group of people’  who are Christians.

Now that is where I think both the book and the reviewer fall short. None noticed that if we are talking about church – we are talking about the universal and the local church. In each case we are talking about people, and when people is involved culture is involved. It would be better to evaluate ‘Pagan Christianity’ with a larger view. From the mission point of view, the so-called ‘pagan practices’ mentioned in the book are just ‘pagan practices’ in the Western church. Constantinianism was a triumphant victory of Christianity successfully converting not just the individuals but the culture of the time. Since ‘Christianity’ has archived such victory, the ‘church’ or the people groups were then happily Christianising everything in their daily lives. These people were not living in a cultural vacuum. Now zoom out and consider the mission situation and we will see that when the Chinese or Indians converted to Christianity, they do not abandon all that is in their culture.

For instance, language is a a key element of culture. Do we abandon our language and adopt Hebrew and Greek so we could ‘fully’ appreciate  authentic Christianity? We all can imagine how a Chinese, an African and a Westerner would understand the word, ‘Lord” quite differently – each according to his or her cultural understanding. Feudal Lord for the Westerner? Does it exist in the history of China (the word ‘Lord’ is translated as ‘master’, not ‘lord’ in Chinese Bible) and Africa? The is no escape of having to face the trouble of cultural difference when one is in mission field. Hudson Taylor has to dress and speak like a Chinese to relate to the Chinese. Now when the Chinese converted, what do we expect them to change? The same happened when Constantine  and others ‘converted’ to Christianity – ‘what do I do with my clothes, my language, my habits, my hairstyle, my furniture, my pets, my buildings, my life?’ Stripe everything and live like John the Baptist? Even Jesus didn’t do that! Viola did his research in the book and one should rightly doubt Constantine’s conversion, but besides that, I wonder how much would the most powerful man in the Western world then be able to theologically reflect and take time to contextualise his faith?

The other problem which I sense when observing the church, especially the modern church, is the insufficiency in Theology of Creation. Viola traced the development of the church architecture, and highlighted how ‘pagan’ they are. However he failed to see how art was ‘redeemed’ for the worship of the creative God. Human beings are created to be creative by the creative God. Architecture, in particularly church architecture is a way people at different times, bound by their cultural circumstances, expressing their feelings towards God. If any house church today arrange their seating in a certain way or sing songs creatively we fall into the same category.

In conclusion, while Viola’s research and ‘Pagan Christianity’ has been helpful in many ways, it is clear that they suffer from what Snyder calls fallacious syllogism – ‘It holds that because much church practice is pagan in origin, therefore such practices should be jettisoned.’ Instead, as Snyder pointed out, the whole issue of Contextualisation needs to be taken into account. The very fact is that, we do not live in the New Testament times! The Western church is as such because it went through a process of interaction of faith and culture. It may need to further undergo more contextualisation for the postmodern world but lest we are able to consider the issue as a matter of culture we will never be able to progress.

Made to Stick

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From my previous blog:

One of many books that I value highly is ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath. You can find its excerpts here. They were also interviewed in the 2009 Global Leadership Summit organized by Willow Creek Community Church.

Their idea matches the format of the Revivalists in the nineteenth century America, where concreteness, emotion, stories and to a certain extent, unexpectedness played a part in shaping the ‘new measures’ of revivalism. A particular case would be Lorenzo ‘Crazy’ Dow who delights in unexpectedness. Applied to preaching, this can be used to distinguish a revivalist from an ‘old school’ (as per Finney’s definition) preacher. Today, such difference is evident between charismatic preacher and his more conservative counterparts.

Finney’s Revivalism

Posted on by kheevun

I am working on McLoughlin’s ‘Modern Revivalism – Charles G. Finney to Billy Graham’. As I am writing an essay on Charles G. Finney, referring to this book is inevitable. It is interesting to see some different views from McLoughlin in this book, compared to Iain H. Murray’s excellent work – Revival and Revivalism. McLoughlin’s account of Finney is much more positive compared to Murray’s. He stressed the role historical context played in shaping Finney’s revivalism, while Murray tends to focus more on the split among the Presbyterians as a consequence of Finney’s influence. The best book for reading pleasure is Stuart Piggin’s ‘Firestorm of the Lord’ which deals more directly with the issue of revival and revivalism. The definition of revival and the difference between revival and revivalism are discussed in all three books, with Murray’s being a history account, while Mcloughlin looks at the larger American context of its revivalism, and Piggin includes more pastoral concerns.

Revival and Revivalism: Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858