It’s been a wee while since my last round up of blog posts on the Bible and Mission, so here goes with another bunch of links:
This week’s first offering comes from Mark who has posted a nice little piece on Reading the Bible With the Global Church (I should declare a conflict of interest on this one).
On the subject of missionaries and mission life: Simon has posted an interesting quote on Becoming the Ideal Foreigner while Telling Secrets has a fascinating list of the countries which receive the most missionaries – probably not the ones you were expecting. Jamie the VWM had the temerity to question the concept of short term mission trips and was rewarded with a huge number of comments (many of them very silly) for her trouble. I’m not quite sure why Jamie got such a strong reaction, she didn’t say anything that hasn’t been said many times before – though rarely with her style! On a similar theme, Good Intentions Are Not Enough has a repost of an article on Hug-an-Orphan-Vacations. I’ll give a short quote from this one:
While the appeal for volunteers to help at international orphanages may sound real, any orphanage that allows a steady stream of volunteers to interact with the children are not putting the needs of the child first and may in fact be preying on well-intentioned but ill informed foreigners.
Antony posted an interesting article on mobilising the lay mission force, while Russell Moore takes a hard look at the question of Immigration and the Gospel.
On the more theological front, the Bible and Mission Blog has an article on Babel and Cultural Enrichment (another declaration of self-interest required here), and also links to the IBMR which has an edition dedicated to Mission and the Environment and to the latest Lausanne Theology Working Group Papers.
When I speak to church or student groups, they are often surprised at the extent to which Bible Translation can be an overt political act. The blogging parson has notes on a lecture about the translation of the KJV which gives an excellent illustration of this principle (if you are interested in this theme, I go into it in more detail in a lecture which can be downloaded here). This week saw the anniversary of the great Bohemian champion of vernacular religious expression, Jan Hus who is celebrated in differing style by the Wycliffe UK Blog and the Beaker Folk.
A link, which doesn’t quite fall under the rubric of Bible or mission, looks at the dreadful way in which one European country continues to dominate and subjugate African countries. It makes sickening reading, but don’t miss it.
I’ll close this week with Ed Lauber’s tribute to a Kenyan colleague and friend who recently died in a road accident.
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