Missional ecclesiology — what is it?

As a retired missiologist I still take an interest in missiology (for those who don’t know, missiology is the study of Christian mission) and so I took an interest in a new development I discovered about 18 months ago when I found that bloggers who listed “missiology” among their interests also listed “emerging church”, and [...]

Pretoria 4 hours from Johannesburg

I’ve always been puzzled by Americans saying that one place is so many hours away from another, instead of mentioning the distance.
On that reckoning, and today’s experience, Pretoria is 4 hours away from Johannesburg. I left Yeoville at 3:30 pm after teaching a class, and had arranged to fetch my wife from work at [...]

From communist youth to Orthodox monks

Most of us have read in the newspapers and seen graphic images on television of the violence and destruction of the Wars of the Yugoslav succession, when Yugoslavia tore itself apart (often with outside assistance) during the 1990s.
But even in the midst of the destruction, there were signs of hope, as some, at least, pursued [...]

Crazy wandering missionary monk

I found this today in a book I was reading:
Brother Aegidius Pfister was a wandering holy man, a missionary monk, who travelled all over north-eastern Zimbabwe planting churches.
The first challenge in the colonial period began in 1908. In this year a new holy man, different from those who preceded him, made his way north. He [...]

Moral regeneration

South Africa is not the only country that needs moral regneration, it seems.
I don’t much care what these women wore to go to court. It’s what they were in court for that shows that moral degeneration proceeds apace.

Back to original WordPress theme

For a few weeks I tried a different WordPress theme, with three columns, but decided to return to the old one, because so much stuff seemed to be duplicated in the two right-hand columns.
But this one still doesn’t seem to allow trackbacks, so I’ll carry on looking.

May synchroblog –films, video TV

For anyone who reading this who may be interested, some of us are having a synchroblog on film, video, TV etc in relation to Christianity. If you are interested in these topics, have a look here: Notes from underground: May synchroblog – films, TV series etc

Orthodoxy, gospel and culture

In my other blog Notes from underground: The ikon in an age of neo-tribalism I recently wrote about Orthodoxy and Western culture, and now Father Stephen has posted on his blog about the approach of Orthodoxy to Western culture in Reflections on Florovsky.
As Fr Stephen points out, “Florovsky was both a Russian and a true [...]

Worshipping God and Mammon

In several blogs I have been reading recently I have seen comments in apparently Christian contexts where people have advocated what the ancient Russians called dvoeverie — doublemindedness, or double faith. I have seen people asserting, quite strenuously, that paying a living wage is not just unnecessary, but actually morally and ethically wrong. Yet when [...]

Ubuntu and moral regeneration

In South Africa we’ve been having an on/off debate about moral regeneration. A couple of days ago on talk radio — Morning Talk on SAFm, hosted by Xolani (or is it Cwelani? People seem to call him both) Gwala there was some guy saying that we should make spirituality rather than religion the basis [...]