Some years ago, I used the phrase "situational physics," to describe the devolution of destruction, that followed upon African civilizations, after losing their prior preeminence in physics, in mathematical mastery upon the earth, to latecomers like Greeks, Romans, Muslims, others.
Today, intuitive affirmation of that refractive notion was buttressed from my reading of the following:
"When moral relativism puts on the face of being absolutely true, then ironically it proves itself to be neither true nor absolute . The incrimination is dismissed as myth. The atoning work of God on the cross becomes lost in situational ethics. Tolerance of evil becomes a virtue.
"African orthodoxy is now returning to its wellsprings of classical exegesis. This is happening equally among wide varieties of traditions of Christian memory: Coptic and charismatic, progressive and conservative. They taste the kindness engendered by classic orthodox understandings of Scripture and apostolic truth. As they do, they are discovering that they have at times been betrayed by modern church bureaucracies long accustomed to ideological biases and fixations on political power, and willingness to conform to passing cultural whims. Hence permissive ecumenism no longer can pretend to be the exclusive bearer of ancient ecumenical teaching. It lacks penitence and humility."
P. 116, "The Opportunity for Retrieval," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND: REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2004).
"Early Christian views of universal history arose more directly out of this African Christian history than Europe. This is documented in the Western literature on the meaning of human history. Africa produced the greatest texts in early Christianity on the interpretation of universal history. The African writers were very early in addressing it systematically and thoroughly. Major African reflections on the whole course of human history are seen in the African writings of Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Lactanius, Tertullian, and Origen. All these preceded the synthesizing historical work of Eusebius, who took their sources and made them available to the churches of the East and North in Asia and Europe. Without Africa, Eusebius's library would be very thin.
"This pre-Eusebian tradition of African historical observers became the predecessors of the even more influential Augustinian understanding of universal history. Augustine drew together these African and Mediterranean sources in the most sophisticated and complete way in his magnificent work on the 'City of God.' Through Orosius, Prosper, and Salvian the Augustinian interpretation of universal history would be disseminated throughout early medieval Europe.
"The growing vitality of African independent Christianity today is not simply about the privately emotive, charismatic, or the here-and-now work of the Holy Spirit. It also embraces 'the history of the Holy Spirit' at work over the millennia in Africa. African Christianity is grounded in this concrete and palpable sense of redemptive suffering in history. As in the incarnation of the Son, the Spirit works in and through the flesh."
P.120-121, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND by Thomas C. Oden (2007)
Saturday, October 15, 2016
HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND, EXCERPT....
Some years ago, I used the phrase "situational physics," to describe the devolution of destruction, that followed upon African civilizations, after losing their prior preeminence in physics, in mathematical mastery upon the earth, to latecomers like Greeks, Romans, Muslims, others.
Today, intuitive affirmation of that refractive notion was buttressed from my reading of the following:
"When moral relativism puts on the face of being absolutely true, then ironically it proves itself to be neither true nor absolute . The incrimination is dismissed as myth. The atoning work of God on the cross becomes lost in situational ethics. Tolerance of evil becomes a virtue.
"African orthodoxy is now returning to its wellsprings of classical exegesis. This is happening equally among wide varieties of traditions of Christian memory: Coptic and charismatic, progressive and conservative. They taste the kindness engendered by classic orthodox understandings of Scripture and apostolic truth. As they do, they are discovering that they have at times been betrayed by modern church bureaucracies long accustomed to ideological biases and fixations on political power, and willingness to conform to passing cultural whims. Hence permissive ecumenism no longer can pretend to be the exclusive bearer of ancient ecumenical teaching. It lacks penitence and humility."
P. 116, "The Opportunity for Retrieval," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND: REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2004).
"Early Christian views of universal history arose more directly out of this African Christian history than Europe. This is documented in the Western literature on the meaning of human history. Africa produced the greatest texts in early Christianity on the interpretation of universal history. The African writers were very early in addressing it systematically and thoroughly. Major African reflections on the whole course of human history are seen in the African writings of Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Lactanius, Tertullian, and Origen. All these preceded the synthesizing historical work of Eusebius, who took their sources and made them available to the churches of the East and North in Asia and Europe. Without Africa, Eusebius's library would be very thin.
"This pre-Eusebian tradition of African historical observers became the predecessors of the even more influential Augustinian understanding of universal history. Augustine drew together these African and Mediterranean sources in the most sophisticated and complete way in his magnificent work on the 'City of God.' Through Orosius, Prosper, and Salvian the Augustinian interpretation of universal history would be disseminated throughout early medieval Europe.
"The growing vitality of African independent Christianity today is not simply about the privately emotive, charismatic, or the here-and-now work of the Holy Spirit. It also embraces 'the history of the Holy Spirit' at work over the millennia in Africa. African Christianity is grounded in this concrete and palpable sense of redemptive suffering in history. As in the incarnation of the Son, the Spirit works in and through the flesh."
P.120-121, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND by Thomas C. Oden (2007)