Mombasa: The Ferry [part 2]

In Mombasa, we stayed with a pastor named James. He lives on the south coast (since the city of Mombasa is on an island). To get from the south coast to Mombasa the only way is the ferry, which runs 24 hours a day. Cars and trucks are charged, but people ride free. And there are a LOT of them...

Mombasa [part 1]

My class schedule this term is rather light. I have two classes on Monday, and then one class for the rest of the week. The week before midterm break, one of my professors left for a conference. So I had no class from Monday until the Tuesday of the next week. Naturally, I decided to go to Mombasa, the Kenyan vacation destination of choice. I went with my friend Vincent, who until recently lived across the hall from me in Q (he is currently being temporarily relocated due to flooding in his room).

It is a pretty sweet place.

Are Evangelicals About to Collapse?

We read this article for systematic theology. I'm curious what you all think about this. I invite your comments.

The coming evangelical collapse
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.
By Michael Spencer

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

Or, if you would prefer to read the original blog posts:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts

Pikipiki

Last week I bought myself a pikipiki. It’s a Focin, 125 cc, and seems to work well. I was told it gets 55 kilometers to the liter, which would roughly translate to 125 miles to the gallon. Not bad. As this is Africa, this not just me getting a motorbike, but the whole community, so there have been about 10 to 15 people that have helped me get it started, joked that all their future transportation needs have now been met, offered suggestions on where to park it, checked out the features, and so on. Not to mention the hordes of children that descended also, climbing on it, feeling around, trying on the helmet, even taking the key at one point. It's nice to have other people also invested in your life!

The issue of safety may have occurred to some of you, so rest assured that I am taking things very slowly and am also very terrified of Nairobi traffic. I've been out practicing twice so far, going slow on the dirt roads behind the campus, and getting a feel for everything. It will be a long time before I take passengers or venture into high traffic scenarios. It is frustrating still taking matatus places when I have transport but I want to be careful. Of course, I'd appreciate any prayers for safety!

This is my parking spot, right by my building to discourage theft.

Africa Let's Worship

About a week ago there was a group of us from NEGST that went to an annual event called Africa Let's Worship. Its a worship service that goes from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am. Its big, about 10 to 15 thousand people big. We went 2 hours early to get seats, and by around 9 the church it was held in filled up and no one else could get inside. Thousands more were in tents outside the church.

I really enjoyed it. It was certainly high energy, and had quite a bit of technical trouble, including the power going out and the entire church going pitch dark, but it was a lot of fun. It was also very reverent at times, and we lots of time for prayer. We didn't stay the whole time, but left at 1 am. Next time I think I'd like to stay longer.

Alpheus and John as we were holding down the seats.

Somalia: A Libertarian Paradise

For those in America that feel government is starting to do too much, there is a place where the government does nothing at all. I thought the video was pretty funny.

http://humanitarianrelief.change.org/blog/view/come_to_somalia

Here is an example of an article extolling the benefits of the Somali situation:

http://mises.org/story/2066

(for some reason the link doesn't show up on this one, you have to copy the address)

You want me to bring what?

Coming back to America and then returning to Kenya can be a somewhat stressful experience, I have found. For those of you unfamiliar with such an experience, here is a list of the things I have been asked to buy in America and then bring to Kenya with me (usually with no money down and an unspecified repayment in the general future):

- 7 laptops
- 3 digital cameras
- jeans
- shoes
- weights (the little magnetic ones you add to dumbbells)
- water filter part
- Hebrew textbook
- 1000 CDs
- an entire suitcase of textbooks for the bookstore
- credit cards (but I'm not buying these, just bringing them)

If I were to have brought all of those things back with me, if would have been roughly 200% of my total luggage allotment and would have cost around $3000. I am bringing back 3 laptops, 1 digital camera, the water filter part, the Hebrew textbook, and the credit cards. That's a bit more manageable. I must say, my favorite request was the 1000 CDs. It came less than a week before I leave for Nairobi...