This essay will suggest that Thomas F. Torrance may be read as a theologian of culture, and that in his writings may be found the clues and resources necessary for the development of a theology of culture that is distinctively Trinitarian. Those resources, in particular, may be found through thinking together his doctrines of God as triune Creator, creation as contingent and the human person as a ‘priest of creation and mediator of order.’ For Torrance these three ideas stand as the basis for ‘the ontological substructure of our social existence.’ This substructure both necessitates and generates what Torrance refers to as ‘social coefficients of knowledge.’ It is these social coefficients of knowledge that bear a striking resemblance to modern anthropological theories of culture, both in their formation and function.
Pragmatic Linguistics Applied to Bible Translation, Projects and Inter-Cultural Relationships: An African Focus
A critique of dynamic-equivalence translation methodology forms the basis for insights intended to broaden the outlook of Bible translators. The same critique is extended from the Bible and shown to have pertinence to contemporary mission activities of the West reaching to Africa. Translation of people and projects is found to need the same attention as Bible translation, suggesting that merely translating the Bible but not theological and other curricula for Africa is problematic. Practical missionary advice based on careful study of the relation between language impact and cultural context related to real-life situations is given, along with reasons why ‘inappropriate’ missions methodologies these days all too often continue.
“Ubuntu” and Mother’s Old Black Bible
In his essay, Amon Munyaneza addresses the individualism and self-interest that pervade contemporary Western and African society. He contrasts the African term Ubuntu, which signifies the interrelatedness of personhood, with the dehumanization and eventual conflict brought on by so-called ‘enlightened’ principles of individualism and self-interest that have been embedded in the modern cultural marketplace. Munyaneza notes that self-interest and the exaltation of ‘choosing for one’s self’ has even infiltrated the church—to the point where churches often resemble supermarkets as much as they do places of worship in their attempts to offer services and products to attract potential customers/worshippers. In contrast, Munyaneza cites the example of his own mother and the truth he learned from countless times reading to her from her ‘old black Bible’. Though illiterate, she understood the truth God communicates though the Bible, the truth of Ubuntu, that our personhood, our humanity, is intimately bound up in our relationships with one another. Munyaneza states his case in conclusion: “…life with one another is more important than our individual or group preferences. Choosing the former over the latter is literally a matter of spiritual life and death.”
I’m Glad My Brother Died
Charlotte Graham begins her essay confessing that she is glad her brother died as an infant. She explains that the place (Laurel, Mississippi) and context (the Civil Rights era) within which she and her family lived, promised nothing but hardship, humiliation, and hatred for blacks like her. She recounts humiliations suffered both by her father and herself, which taught her to devalue herself in order to succeed in newly integrated (yet still prejudiced) schools. Graham admits that she grew to hate whites for driving her to such self-degradation. She traces her transformation from nominal, to genuine, Christian faith through recounting later interactions with people who showed her the love of Christ: including two white teachers in junior college who cared for her as a person and encouraged her talents, as well as Dr. John Perkins, who showed her the meaning of reconciliation through his own ministry. Graham concludes with a brief commentary on Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and the light it shed on America’s cultural transformation since her childhood. Though Graham maintains her opening confession regarding her brother’s premature death, she adds in her conclusion the wish that her father were alive to witness how much things have changed.