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Missiology and Mary in South America

When you put together the prosperity gospel and false teaching about spiritual warfare together in a poor environment, you create a hell of a mess.

A couple of days ago, Chris Howles posted a comment suggesting that I post something about mission thinkers from other parts of the world who have influenced me. Coincidently, on my friend Timothy Halls’ blog, I came across a set of videos from Validir Steuernagel who (as you can tell from his name!) comes from Brazil. Over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself reading a lot of stuff by Valdir and one chapter of my thesis cites him numerous times. His radical thinking about discipleship and the implications of following Jesus challenges Western Evangelicalism in a way that is far from comfortable.

I’ve not watched all of the videos yet, but I’ve very much appreciated the ones that I have and will be working through the rest over the next few days. I realise that not everyone will want to watch seven hours of video, but at least watch the first one. If you are involved in mission work, then you probably should watch all of them.

Just one quote; which I think is a zinger

When you put together the prosperity gospel and false teaching about spiritual warfare together in a poor environment, you create a hell of a mess.

The official blurb says:

The School of Intercultural Studies Presents: The 2008 Missiology Lectures “Missiology and Mary in Latin America: The Southern Church & a Fresh Mission Movement” Featured Speaker: Valdir Steuernagel Respondents and Panel Speakers: Desiree Segura-April, Juan Martinez, Bryant Myers, Lisseth Rojas-Flores As the Southern Church becomes the new phenomenon of our times, the mission movement follows the same path. As fresh air blows into the mission movement from the South, the global Church must explore how the expansion of the Southern Church is impacting the current mission movement. Our keynote speaker, Valdir Steuernagel, came to us from Curitiba, Brazil and is World Vision’s Vice-President for Christian Commitments. He is a sought after speaker and author in the area of theology, missiology, and the Latin American Church and has spoken extensively throughout Latin America, Europe, and the US. As a writer he has published mostly in Portuguese and Spanish and his latest article is entitled “To Seek to Transform Unjust Structures of Society,” published in “Mission in the Twenty-First Century: Exploring the Five Marks of Global Mission” edited by Andrew F. Walls and Cathy Ross.