TO BE FAIR - Contemplations of an Inconvenient Missionary
Description
TO BE FAIR - Contemplations of an Inconvenient Missionary
Here is a response to the revisionist narrative about Christianity and the church in general, and missionaries in particular. Some very ugly allegations have emerged and this response deals with them carefully and comprehensively. The author draw from his well of missionary experience in Africa, to give some perspective to Christian outreach in North America and elsewhere. He weighs it up in a balanced way, admitting that mistakes have been made, but that they tend to be overstated by the revisionist narrative. He point out the exaggeration and sets the record straight, with a broad historical round-up of missionary work. He admits that at times Christianity has clashed with local culture over specific issues, but shows that Christian conversion has never overpowered any culture. On the contrary, missionaries have brought "salt and light" to the nations, far and wide.
More details
Person
Chuck Stephens is a Canadian who has spent, permanent resident in South Africa. He was born and raised in the Belgian Congo, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is 72 years old. He has spent 46 of those years in Africa. He has been a resident in Congo, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa. A seminary graduate, Chuck chose not to be ordained as he felt that his calling was not to be a "father" (in the church) but rather a "brother" (in the community).
Chuck has continued his higher education while actively involved in ministry. He obtained a post-graduate diploma from Regent College in Canada, the an Masters degree in Communications from the Paraclete Institute in Australia, and finally at Doctor of Letter (D.Litt.) from St Clements university in the UK.
But his real education has come from the school of hard knocks. Chuck has served in hand-on rural development work in Angola; in disaster response work in Mozambique; in organization development in Zimbabwe; and in human development in South Africa. He is on the core team of the Desmond Tutu Centre for Leadership, a nonprofit organization registered in South Africa. He loves to quote philosophers such as Confucius who said "Find a job that you like and you won't work another day for the rest of your life". For Chuck, service and witness are a vocation that is cyclical - passing through periods when the cows are fat, and other periods when lean cows swallow up the fat ones. He has lived through this inevitable cycle more than once.
