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This book examines how social change affects the role of the pastor in an African context. Through field study in African churches, author Zawadi Job Kinyamagoha explores how pastors work amid the tensions of rapid social change and suggests how pastors can constructively respond to social change by using it as an opportunity in their pastoral ministry. Contemporary society is characterized by three cultural spheres: the economic sphere, the public sphere, and the democratic or self-governance rule, the realities of which many pastors seem to overlook. Church authorities seem to adhere rigidly to strict principles and rules without accommodating the realities of society. Conversely, a changing society demands that pastors work with the reality at hand, leaving pastors caught between two conflicting tensions: the pressure from church authorities and from a changing social reality. The Pastor in a Changing Society seeks to help Tanzanian and African pastors rethink existing doctrines and practices in order to better respond to the reality of a changing society.
This book examines how social change affects the role of the pastor in an African context. Through field study in African churches, author Zawadi Job Kinyamagoha explores how pastors work amid the tensions of rapid social change and suggests how pastors can constructively respond to social change by using it as an opportunity in their pastoral ministry. Contemporary society is characterized by three cultural spheres: the economic sphere, the public sphere, and the democratic or self-governance rule, the realities of which many pastors seem to overlook. Church authorities seem to adhere rigidly to strict principles and rules without accommodating the realities of society. Conversely, a changing society demands that pastors work with the reality at hand, leaving pastors caught between two conflicting tensions: the pressure from church authorities and from a changing social reality. The Pastor in a Changing Society seeks to help Tanzanian and African pastors rethink existing doctrines and practices in order to better respond to the reality of a changing society.
Religion has played a major role in history, affecting the course of events and influencing individuals. Today one frequently hears the expression "the return of religion" but opinions differ as to how this "return" is to be understood. It is clear that modernity and postmodernity have not meant that religion is dead or relegated to society's backyards. Religion is still of vital importance for many people. It has, to some extent, changed shape but has not lost its legitimacy and attractiveness to broad groups. Religion is public, visible, and has a sought-for voice; but it is also wrestling with extremism, ignorance, and preconceptions. Just like ideologies, religions are capable of activating diametrically opposite traits in humans. It is this dual tension that is implicit in the question mark in this book's title: Mending the World? This book's aim is to help explore whether, how, and in what ways religion, church, and theology can contribute constructively to the future of a global society. In thirty-one chapters, researchers from around the world address the relation between religion and society.
This book provides introductory materials on research methods and report writing that aim at guiding students and researchers towards effective research and reporting of their findings. Unlike the many volumes on research that are mostly theoretical, this book originated in the classroom and grew out of the students' own needs to design and conduct satisfactory research in order to meet academic requirements. It is also designed to help experienced researchers in their research ventures. In fulfilling this purpose, the author uses simple, straightforward language. He also provides appropriate examples and illustrations to enable the reader to grasp the basic concepts of research. The book will prove a useful guide for students and researchers in social sciences and humanities who wish to transform research theory into real and feasible research projects.
Studies in the History of Christian Missions/R. E. Frykenberg and Brian Stanley, series editors/ The World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910 has come down in history as a unique event in the history of the Protestant missionary movement. Brian Stanley s book gives us a full and comprehensive account of the conference, doing so from the perspective of developments in the hundred years since the conference. His study should serve not only as a work of history but also as a work of theological reflection about mission as an ongoing international movement. I welcome this book as an important resource in the church s self-understanding and in its engagement with the world. Lamin Sanneh/Y...
Based on interviews and archival material, this volume examines the different periods in the relationship between church and state in Tanzania from independence to 1994.
American Evangelicals have long considered Africa a welcoming place for joining faith with social action, but their work overseas is often ambivalently received. Even among East African Christians who share missionaries' religious beliefs, understandings vary over the promises and pitfalls of American Evangelical involvement in public life and schools. In this first-hand account, Amy Stambach examines missionary involvement in East Africa from the perspectives of both Americans and East Africans. While Evangelicals frame their work in terms of spreading Christianity, critics see it as destroying traditional culture. Challenging assumptions on both sides, this work reveals a complex and ever-evolving exchange between Christian college campuses in the U.S., where missionaries train, and schools in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Providing real insight into the lives of school children in East Africa, this book charts a new course for understanding the goals on both sides and the global connections forged in the name of faith.
A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative. The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000-year-old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers are better at answering small questions ("Why is this battle boring?") than big ones ("What does this game mean?"). In this book, the game designer Brian Upton analyzes the experience of play--how playful activities unfold from moment to moment and how the rules we adopt constrain that unfolding. Drawing on games that range from Monopoly to Dungeons & Dragons to Guitar Hero, Upton develops a framework for understanding play, introducing a set of critical tools that can help us analyze games and game designs and identify ways in which they succeed or fail.