DanSheffield

admitting failure -- international aid

Brilliant TED Talk from Calgary with David Damberger who worked with Canadian development agency Engineers without Borders...

Unfortunately the scenario he paints about non-faith-based development work is also true among the many 'novelty' Christian development projects that are popping up all over the world as North American Christians think they "solve the developing world's problems" with some donor aid and a couple short-term mission trips.

 

Randall at Wesley Studies Symposium

Tyndale Seminary is going to be hosting the Wesley Studies Symposium March 13, 2012, where I will be presenting a paper on my research project from a couple years ago -- Herbert E Randall, Holiness Movement Church missionary to Egypt. My article on Randall was published last year in the Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. 

"Rev. Herbert Edward Randall (1865-1938) served as the founding missionary of the Holiness Movement Church in Egypt (1899-1906), participated in the early stages of the Pentecostal movement in Canada (1907-1911) and then returned to Egypt as a Pentecostal missionary (1912-1938)."

"...Randall went on to play an instrumental role in the 'baptism in the Spirit' of Aimee Kennedy at Ingersoll, ON in 1907 [later Aimee Semple McPherson, flamboyant founder of the International Foursquare Church] and served as a ministry colleage alongside the founders of Canadian Pentecostalism [in particular R E McAlister]..."

churches helping new Canadians settle

Great story about my friend Joseph Seidu and Crestview Park Free Methodist Church in Winnipeg; featured in Winnipeg Free Press.

evangelical growth attributable to immigration

At the recent annual meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society in Edmonton, Feb 24, 2012, sociology prof, Dr Joel Thiessen from Ambrose University College in Calgary presented a paper entitled: "Christianity in Multicultural Canada." He had a lot of very useful data to share. One little piece he shared was this:

Among Canadian evangelicals, over 17% are foreign-born and nearly 71% of those immigrants came to Canada since 1971 (Bramadat and Seljak 2008: 440). In fact, evangelical numerical growth is not attributable to conversion as much as it is to immigration, particularly among the Chinese community in Toronto and Vancouver (Guenther 2008). This has led to a vibrant subculture of Chinese evangelicals in Chinese-specific congregations and multicultural congregations, as well as theological training aimed at Chinese evangelicals. Taken together, some may suggest that Christianity in Canada is reaping the rewards of its foreign mission movement during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. As Bramadat and Seljak (2008: 5) remind us, “To meet a first- or second-generation Canadian of African descent who is in fact a third-, fourth-, or twenty-fifth-generation Christian, reminds us of the global reach of Christianity.”

 

Cost-effective compassion

CT has a great article -- "Cost-effective compassion: the 10 most popular strategies for helping the poor." The author, Bruce Wydick is a professor of economics at U of San Francisco, and active in a micro-project in Guatemala (you have to read to the end of the article to hear what he is doing). He polled 16 development economists: "I asked them to rate, from 0 to 10, some of the most common poverty interventions to which ordinary people donate their money, in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar."

1. Get clean water to rural villages (8.3)

2. Fund de-worming treatments for children (7.8)

3. Provide mosquito nets (7.3)

4. Sponsor a child (6.9)

5. Give an efficient wood-burning stove (6.0)

6. Give a micro-finance loan (4.2)

7. Fund reparative surgeries (3.9)

8. Donate a farm animal (3.8)

9. Drink fair-trade coffee (1.9)

10. Give A Kid a Laptop (1.8)

For rest of article and commentary read here...

traditional western aid has had its day

Ben Knapen, the minister of international cooperation for the Kingdom of the Netherlands has an interesting perspective on international aid. The Netherlands has an excellent track record of insightful development practices around the world. Here are a couple thoughts from his article in DEVEX...

A third reason behind the disappearance of the old aid architecture is the change in global poverty patterns. To begin with, the number of poor countries is on the decline. The International Development Association, the division of the World Bank concerned with lending money to poor countries, is expected to lose more than half of its clients in the next 10 to 15 years. At present, 68 countries are categorized as “poor”; by around 2025 that number will have fallen to around 36. Most of them will be those tragic places we call “failing states”: Afghanistan, Yemen, Congo and the like.

The idea of spending a proportion of gross domestic product on development aid originated in a world that came in only two flavors: poor countries and rich countries. The aim of development aid was an international and more equitable redistribution of wealth. But the spectacular drop in the number of poor countries shows that the dominant practice of dividing the world into poor countries and rich countries is no longer accurate.

See the whole article here.

Egypt -- alternative reflections

An estimated 70,000 Egyptian Christians gathered on November 11, 2011 for praise, worship, and prayer at St. Simon Church in Cairo while millions around the globe followed the event live on TV and the Internet. This was a significant event: It was the largest Christian gathering in the modern history of Egypt; it brought together, for the first time, all Christian denominations: Coptic Orthodox, Catholics, and all branches of Protestant and Evangelical Christians. The prayer meeting that started at 6:00 PM continued uninterrupted till 6:00 AM the following day!

Canadian evangelical leader, Brian Stiller comments here on this prayer event, as well as the current situation in Egypt.

Tyndale Seminary prof, Dr Wafik Wahba, offers this interpretation of life in Egypt since the "Arab Spring"

This historic day of prayer took place at a momentous juncture considering the current situation in Egypt. Nine months to the date, on February 11, 2011 the former President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, was forced out of office. The January 25th leaderless revolution, that surprised the world, seemed to have succeeded in putting an end to decades of oppression and corruption. However, the following nine months saw nothing but chaos, brutality, and frustration. More than 12,000 people have been detained and tortured by military tribunals mainly for speaking up against the injustices and lack of freedom. Hundreds of people have lost their lives due to the lack of security. Tourism and the economy in general are on a free fall since the revolution. A sense of despair and frustration is gripping the people, especially the younger generation, who stood up against the escalating injustices and paid with their lives demanding freedom and basic human rights. The culmination of this sense of despair reached an unprecedented level on October 9, 2011 when the army brutally massacred 27 Christians and injured more than 300 in downtown Cairo. The peaceful demonstrators, both Christians and Muslims, were demanding basic human rights respecting the establishment of places of worship that were previously destroyed by the government. They took their frustration to the streets in peaceful demonstrations after repeated attacks on churches, Christians, homes and businesses owned by Christians. The demonstrators were run over by military tanks that literally crushed them. This was seen around the globe and was condemned by international governments and human rights’ groups, however, no word of apology was offered by Egyptian officials.

see more of his commentary here

Pinnock tribute at SBL

At the recent meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, evangelical theologian and blogger, Scot McKnight was asked to give a tribute to Dr Clark Pinnock who passed away last year in Hamilton, where he was professor emeritus at McMaster Div College (one of my alma maters). I am, of course, always happy to reflect on the life and work of Clark, who lived in the same neighbourhood where my family lived for several years.

Clark Pinnock and the New Testament: 

A Man on the Move

When I was asked to offer a presentation about Clark’s hermeneutics I thought back to my college days when I bought and read his 1971 book called Biblical Revelation. That book was one of the impulses that made me think of studying at Trinity because Clark taught there, though by the time I arrived Clark had moved on to Regent and then to McMaster. The invitation also made me think of Clark’s “revision” of that book on Scripture in his book The Scripture Principle, which I still think was a courageous book in its day.

for the rest of Scot's post, look here

conscientious objection from FMs during WWI

Came across an interesting historical note in a book published just a couple years ago, Crisis of Conscience: conscientious objection in Canada during the First World War, by Amy Shaw.

It specifically references several Free Methodists who sought to register as conscientious objectors but instead were court-martialed and jailed.

The Toronto Globe reported that one 20-year-old from Housey's Rapids, Ontario, justified his behaviour by referring to the biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill." Furthermore, "he had never seen anything in the Bible justifying revenge, and because he was a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus he refused to take up arms." His older brother also objected saying, "Because the Lord's word tells us to not take part in any of the things of this world, I object to perform any kind of military service."

Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in Kingston Penitentiary, but were discharged in Feb 1919, after the end of the war.

read the clip in google here.

the white poppy in Canada

foreign aid system needs reset

The humanitarian sector is out of balance and dominated by two extremes, Dr. Samantha Nutt,   co-founder and executive director of War Child Canada, argues. Large aid organizations, dominated by expatriate experts, occupy one end of the spectrum, while novelty startups, led by well-meaning but inexperienced celebrities or students and church groups, occupy the other end.

"The space between is rapidly evaporating," she says.

But it's that middle ground, where emergency relief shades into longterm development and where broad social challenges are addressed with respect and consideration for local needs, that real change is found.

"The ultimate goal of aid should be to make itself redundant," Dr. Nutt says. "We need to make an investment in development programming that gives local communities the tools and resources they need to be their own architects of change."

Nutt has just released a new book, Damned Nations

more of this article here...