Sunday, December 14, 2008
Conniry #13: "Dana L. Robert ‘s assertion"
13. We observed Dana L. Robert ‘s assertion that “the most interesting lessons from the missionary outreach during the Western colonial era is what happened to Christian-ity when the missionaries weren’t looking, and after the colonizers withdrew.” Be prepared to explain what she meant by that statement and whether or not you agree with her assessment of the modern missionary enterprise.
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Dana Robert believed that Christianity cannot operate independently from the cultures that it operates within. The native cultures that the Missionaries encountered did not assume the old, doctrinal battle lines that their missionaries had encountered and incorporated within their own denominational institutions. Instead, the host culture underwent major changes of its own self-understanding and cultural grounding. They began to ask: What does this faith mean for US here and now? What does it tell us about our own situation?"
ReplyDeleteHence, we might say that Liberation Theology et. al. was a byproduct of these encounters. In many places that are not Western, there are no major battles over the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son, or amongst the Trinity in general, even though these were major issues for the Western Tradition.
It seems that Robert's assessment of movements in this direction were not necessarily a bad thing.
I'll leave it up to my study-buddies to decide if they agree with this or not.
-CL