Reflections from Limuru

The impatience of prophets

The Global Christian Forum, according to Father John Mathews of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in India, "has set the standard by which future ecumenical dialogues will be measured."

A European church official, chatting off the record, did not find the event quite such a distinctive milestone. He intimated that the Global Christian Forum reminded him of regular meetings held in his country among leaders of communities ranging from Pentecostals and evangelicals to Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches. These informal times of sharing go intentionally unpublicized, and trust has grown in the course of private conversation. The global process that has been developed in five regional conversations leading up to this week’s forum, he suggested, is part of a phenomenon that is already present in the Christian world.

Even if the forum should come to be seen as the start of a new chapter in the quest for unity in Jesus Christ, a number of other chapters have gone before and will bear reviewing. As evangelical leader and Kenyan host Judy Mbugua said in her welcoming remarks on Tuesday, true vision sees the past, the present and the future.

Professor Cecil M. "Mel" Robeck of Fuller Theological Seminary in the U.S.A., introducing participants to the history of the Global Forum process, gave a good deal of credit for the concept to the World Council of Churches and its former general secretary Konrad Raiser who sowed a germ of the idea with the WCC central committee in 1995 and saw the adoption of a forum proposal at the WCC’s 1998 Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe. Robeck was much too modest concerning his own role in enabling – over a period of decades – new contacts and relations between the long-time member churches of the WCC, the Roman Catholic Church, evangelicals not associated with the WCC and his own rapidly growing tradition of Pentecostalism. It must also be noted that the Vatican, in the form of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has been a constant and enthusiastic partner in "lengthening the ecumenical table".

An interesting sidelight on the form of this dialogue appears in Gideon Goosen’s "Bringing Churches Together: A Popular Introduction to Ecumenism", first published in 1993 with a second edition dated 2001. The author, a professor at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney, describes various traditions of bilateral and multilateral dialogue that grew up over the 20^th century. He rehearses the suggestions for improvement offered by Orthodox churches which were critical of a "convergeance" approach to differences in theology. Goosen makes a differentiation between a "western", discursive, intellectual theologizing based in rationalism – cutting across the lines of western Catholics, Protestants and evangelicals – and an "eastern" tendency characterized by "more importance given to the mysterious in matters of faith". Then Goosen continues:

The Pentecostals reflect again a quite different approach. They are more at home with oral and narrative theology; they give great emphasis to testimony and spiritual experience as validating truth; they also place great value on the exercise of spiritual gifts and would like theological exchange to take place in this context rather than in the abstract, rational atmosphere of concepts.

The tentative steps that have been taken by the Global Christian Forum, and the call to persevere lodged in the message being sent from Limuru to the world’s Christians, have obviously been influenced by this pattern that Goosen identifies as Pentecostal. Where will it lead?

Michael Kinnamon, newly elected general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., posed several key questions regarding the fruits of dialogue in an introductory chapter for "A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1968-2000" (published 2004):

Should the emphasis be on commitment to the fullness of Christian communion (which requires the patience of saints), or on manifestation of the koinonia that is currently possible (which requires the impatience of prophets)?

Is the unity of the church, so central to the ecumenical vision, a fellowship based on agreement or a fellowship of those who are unlike and not necessarily agreed? Even those who favour the former understanding might well disagree on whether the agreement required is a matter of doctrine or of socio-political commitment – or both. This tension is by no means new, but it is also by no means resolved.

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On the mountain, fire and smoke

The "Message from the Global Christian Forum to Brothers and Sisters in Christ Throughout the World" has been approved in plenary, and a Salvation Army band is playing "Every Time I Feel the Spirit" outside our window. A bonfire is being prepared in the courtyard for a closing celebration of the new and renewed relationships realized at the Global Christian Forum. It seems likely that the event will come under criticism in some quarters for having invited so many organizational leaders and so few people from the pews. But an essential element in this event was the way in which leaders demonstrated that conversation across confessional and cultural lines is not merely permissible but to be actively endorsed.

This dynamic between leaders and followers reminds me of a wonderful story in Gideon Goosen’s "Bringing Churches Together". On a visit to Ireland…

I asked an elderly Roman Catholic parish priest of quite a large country town how ecumenism was doing in his parish. He said something to the effect that ecumenism was being attended to, but mainly by "the high-ups", by which I took it he meant the bishops and theologians. "Here", he added with a sigh, "we only have a handful of Protestants, and they are interested in nothing." I went away from the encounter slightly scandalized by his snap judgment on Protestants and wondering whether anyone had actually asked the handful of Protestants about their interests.

One of the great strengths of the Global Christian Forum is that those present began by asking one another to describe their own interests, their own beliefs, rather than launching into characterizations of their perceptions of others.

Bring out your dead

For the second day in a row, the featured morning speaker came from the Pentecostal tradition. Cheryl Bridges-Johns of the Church of God (based in Cleveland, Tennessee, U.S.A.), a pastor and seminary professor, took as her topic “When East Meets West and North Meets South: The Reconciling Mission of Global Christianity”. Death and rebirth appeared as recurring themes in her remarks. 

Related New Testament citations were assumed rather than quoted, so the image was initially introduced from her experience of farm life: “When a calf is born, the birds of prey gather to see whether that which is being born will survive.” The same is true when something new is being born of the Spirit. Christians know this well enough from the gospels (“…although,” she added, “we do not usually dress children as Herod’s hit-men in our annual Nativity pageants”). 

The first pair of texts, when quoted, came from the 3^rd Assembly of the World Council of Churches held some 46 years ago:

            The World Council meeting held in New Delhi in 1961 articulated a vision
            of unity of Christians “made visible as all in each place who are baptized into
            Christ Jesus”.

That sentence was apt enough in the context of the Global Christian Forum, but the speaker proceeded to stress the same assembly’s prescience in its vision of where the quest for unity would lead the churches: 

            A point made at the New Delhi assembly is worth noting: “the achievement of unity will
            involve nothing less than a death and rebirth of many forms of church life as we have
            known them… nothing less costly can ultimately suffice.”

Her argument in regard to the immediate future of global Christianity, she explained, was based on three assumptions concerning the work of God in the world today:

            *   “the old mainstream ecumenical paradigm is dying”, 
            *   “Christianity as a whole is thriving, especially in the majority world”, 
            *   “the gifts present in the global Christian movement, when kept in the hands of Christ, are adequate for the task of reconciling the world to Christ”.

For many in the old-line churches, particularly in the western half of the northern hemisphere, it is natural to be overwhelmed by beloved but dying institutions that have been accustomed to gauge their strength in terms of numbers, status and authority within their cultures. For these Christians, it is easy to lose sight of the unprecedented expansion of Christianity in the “majority world” of the global south and parts of the east.

For the most part, the impression presented was upbeat. Old ways are dying, something new is being born; ultimately, despite the birds of prey circling overhead, we as Christian are protected in the Holy Spirit.

But along the way, the lecture reported more than a little of “the stench of death” surrounding “the old mainstream ecumenical paradigm”. For those of us employed by mainstream ecumenical organizations, this sounded like something less than good news.

One wonders if there really is a longstanding ecumenical paradigm? The WCC has undergone regular change, in significant ways, over the six or seven decades since it began its process of formation. Nothing in the modern ecumenical movement has had the staying power of, say, the Councils of Nicaea or Trent which established systems of orthodoxy and church order that lasted for centuries. But if the WCC is taken as a “paradigm”, major changes have occurred as large numbers of Orthodox churches joined and engaged the council, as newly independent churches in newly independent nations came into full membership, as the Second Vatican Council and its Decree on Ecumenism bore fruit, as the East-West divide of the cold war era dissolved, as inter-religious dialogue takes on an air of increasing urgency. And so on.

Along these lines of thought, I found it interesting that a lecture about the impact of the global south on Christianity as a whole contained stringent criticism of the WCC’s 1966 world conference on church and society “as an example of a move away from classical Christian teaching in favour of human revolution and liberation.” That conference was the first major World Council gathering that insisted on equal representation of southern churches. The resulting changes in direction for the WCC were widely experienced as a painful time of death and rebirth.

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Responses to the week’s lectures

When groups reported Thursday afternoon on their discussion of lectures at the Global Christian Forum, some disappointment was expressed in the lack of formal responses to the speakers. For example, some participants felt strongly that a lecture by a US professor describing churches of the south should have been followed by equal time for organized commentary from one or more members of the churches she was analyzing. To some degree, this regional imbalance in the programme is explained by the last-minute cancellation on the part of lecturer Lamin Sanneh, an African professor currently on the faculty of Yale University. 

Group discussions also produced pleas from some Pentecostal, evangelical and Orthodox participants that the movement toward Christian unity find a word to describe itself other than “ecumenical”. For too many people in too many camps, these participants asserted, “ecumenism” has taken on negative connotations. At the moment, no clear alternative has been proposed. 

A defense of continuing ecumenical structures came from Catholic Bishop Brian Farrell of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, advancing arguments that would have seemed overly defensive if spoken by a representative of the WCC or one of its member churches.  

In an afternoon panel discussion, Bishop Farrell vowed that the Roman Catholic Church is “totally committed to Christian unity”, and that the Catholic response to the Global Christian Forum is an emphatic “Yes!”  

“We want to be a part of any sincere effort toward that goal,” he said. “When Christians are divided, the preaching of the gospel suffers.” Visible disunity among the followers of Christ “openly contradicts the will of God”. 

But Bishop Farrell concluded: “Effort is necessary in many areas.” While the Global Christian Forum shows great potential, Catholics also remain dedicated to “other instruments of dialogue” that have borne fruit over the decades. Chief among these instruments is the tradition of dialogue that has developed in the Joint Commission on Faith and Order administered by the WCC, as well as in a network of bilateral dialogues among world communions of Christians. “In a significant way,” Farrell said, “this forum is the fruit of those other instruments.”

Wednesday 07 November 2007

The summit and the field

One senses a development of relationships occurring here, but is it sustainable development? A community is being formed across traditional barriers, but is it a sustainable community? 

“This is a fine opportunity for church leaders”, a French evangelical pastor told me over morning coffee, “but what difference can it make in the field? Where I come from, many members of my flock have had terrible experiences with the Catholics. If I go back and say that I have been enjoying the company of Roman Catholic leaders, and finding areas of agreement with them, some of my own people will reject me.” 

This is the crucial question for all summit meetings of church representatives. They gather face-to-face over several days, or in a series of meetings spread over months or years, and in time they come to a sense of spiritual fellowship that allows for agreement on hard questions. But how is their spirit of communion to be extended beyond the confines of this grouping that has shared a common experience, so that their agreement may be endorsed “on the ground” or “in the field”?   

Today’s principal speaker at the Global Christian Forum was Wonsuk Ma, a Pentecostal missiologist who teaches at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. He reminded us of real life on the ground as he described his upbringing. At home in the Korean countryside, his mother, a convert to Christianity, took him to worship in their village’s only, Presbyterian, congregation.

            My family’s move from a small town to a nearby city was also a move
            from a one-church community to a many-church setting. In the new city,
            by my mother’s choice, we all moved to a very small Pentecostal church
            under a woman pastor. In Korean society this is by no means a respected
            congregation even among fellow Christians. This “weeping church”, so
            aptly described because of various emotional expressions freely displayed,
            was where desperate youths, mothers and families came to weep and find
            hope for life. Even my Christian uncles (on my mother’s side) urged us to
            get out of this “cultish and indecent” church, where nonsensical claims of
            healing and miracles were regularly made, not to mention the controversial
            “speaking in tongues”. But my mother weathered the years of hardship, and
            this time criticisms from fellow Christians were added to the struggles with
            non-believing in-laws and other family members. I used to think that we
            needed to overcome “the world”, but this time I found that we also had to
            overcome our fellow believers!

He added that this early hostility from members of mainstream churches shaped his attitude toward them. As a young adult, he embarked as a missionary: 

            By the time my wife and I were deeply involved in tribal areas in the
            northern Philippines, my Pentecostal denomination was the biggest
            and strongest, and still is the fastest growing. When we opened a church
            in a deep mountain village some years ago, one existing “liberal” church
            simply died, and we praised the Lord for his wonderful work. We thought
            that Christ’s “full gospel” had finally arrived in this place… As most
            zealous missionaries from “new” (or “southern”) churches would do, we
            were busy trying to evangelize everyone, including other Christians…

            My “evangelize-everyone” attitude began to change when I started meeting
            wonderful new friends who dress and worship differently than I do. After all, 
            I found that I must look quite strange to them as well… I also noted that,
            from diverse orientations, common expressions of the Holy Spirit bring
            together God’s people for celebration….

            My own experience of working with various church traditions in mission
            settings suggests that common commitment to mission is another platform
            where church unity can be experienced. This still leaves a legitimate place
            for a structural effort to create church unity.

Wonsuk Ma describes the relationship between Pentecostals and the modern ecumenical movement in terms of “two siblings who never met each other”. Pentecostalism is often traced to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906, while today’s ecumenical movement looks back to the formative influence of the Edinburgh missionary conference of 1910. Professor Mel Robeck of Fuller Theological Seminary once spoke of the “irony” inherent in these parallel histories: 

            Two of the twentieth century’s most significant developments, the formal
            ecumenical movement and the vigourous Pentecostal movement, have
            developed in almost total isolation from one another. Yet each has been
            reluctant to acknowledge the activity of God in the other.

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Understanding each other’s background and priorities

Wonsuk Ma believes that mission is the primary calling of all Christians, in “the prophethood of all believers” introducing “the lost” to Jesus Christ, “the best thing that can happen in life”. 

But, just as traditional Protestants often have misinterpreted Pentecostal beliefs and practices, the reverse tendency has been known. As Wonsuk Ma launched a critique of the World Council of Churches’ approach to Christian unity, he acknowledged that he was no expert on WCC history. Nevertheless, he offered this observation from his perspective as a strong advocate of mission: 

            The WCC was born out of a missionary movement which recognized that
            church unity is an integral part of, or prerequisite for, mission. To an outsider,
            it is an unfortunate development that the WCC should have been a mission
            body with the ecumenical unit under its wing. To be truthful to the original
            idea, church unity should have been explored always in the context of mission,
            but in reality, mission has been truncated into the discussion of church unity.

Although many critics may agree with the thrust of this complaint, the historical analysis oversimplifies the genesis of the World Council of Churches and its inauguration nearly four decades after the Edinburgh missionary conference. A more immediate outcome of Edinburgh 1910 was the founding of the International Missionary Council following the First World War. The IMC’s purpose was to coordinate its members’ endeavours in world-wide mission and evangelism. The WCC came into being later, with an agenda derived from predecessor associations concerned with “faith and order” conversations (on unity, doctrine and authority in the church), “life and work” (public policy, social ministries and domestic mission), world peace and international affairs, as well as movements of Christian women, students and other laity. As its name makes clear, the WCC was conceived primarily as a council of churches, not a mission agency. Letterheads of the IMC and the WCC proclaimed that each body operated in association with the other, and a joint coordinating committee was chaired by John R. Mott, but the WCC was formed to address matters apart from those that dominated the life of the IMC.

It was only at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s that the IMC was merged into the WCC. A common complaint in those and subsequent years was that mission and evangelism were being hidden in the shadows of the WCC’s other interests. Harvey Hoekstra crystallized this complaint in his book title, “The World Council of Churches and the Demise of Evangelism”. In the 1970s, evangelicals launched a movement based on the Lausanne Covenant, vowing to take up crucial aspects of mission and evangelization that they felt the WCC was neglecting. 

In discussion of Wonsuk Ma’s presentation, Monsignor John Radano of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity rose to offer another interpretation of the relationship between mission and church unity: “In the Faith and Order dialogues” coordinated by the WCC but involving more traditions than those in membership of the World Council, including Roman Catholicism, “we engage in theological dialogue on church unity for the sake of the church’s mission.” Radano suggested that a commitment to mission is intrinsic to the churches’ work in a plethora of disciplines. There remains room for discussion of different Christians’ definitions of “mission” and their ranking of priorities in the life of the church. 

Wonsuk Ma spoke positively of ecumenical awareness of the benefits of Pentecostal participation in recent WCC assemblies, and especially of a WCC-sponsored mission conference in 2005:  

            Its latest Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens is another case in 
            point: its theme was “Come Holy Spirit, Heal and Reconcile”. The presence of 
            Pentecostal Christianity in the gathering was evident not only in the plenary speeches,
            but also in the workshops and worship programmes. The creation of a more neutral and
            new space such as the Global Christian Forum is an indication of this growing
            awareness.

He conceded that this event is a modest step, yet it does allow for a reunion of formerly estranged siblings: “Occasions like this have the potential to foster… an authentic ecumenicity by combining open koinonia, Spirit-filled worship and diligent learning to discern what the Lord is doing in different Christian communions.”

Tuesday 06 November 2007

A vision of unity

In her welcoming remarks to the Global Christian Forum, the Rev. Judy W. Mbugua of the 70-million-member Association of Evangelicals in Africa offered a comparison of human "sight" with the "vision" offered by the Lord. "Sight", she began, "sees problems, but vision sees potential." She added, "Sight sees the present. Vision sees the past, the present and the future."

Participants in the forum seem keenly aware that they are balanced between the past and the future, struggling to realize the potential of this moment. Today the approximately 240 representatives of diverse Christian bodies listened to greetings and words of encouragement from their African hosts and members of the organizing committee. Then they were split into eight groups of 30 for morning and afternoon sessions on "sharing of faith journeys and faith communities". Every participant told his or her own story. This approach, based on personal testimony, is a departure from traditional forms of ecumenical dialogue that focused on sacraments, systems of doctrine and different churches' structures of authority.

Reports from the eight groups revealed a number of common factors. Stories of coming to personal knowledge of Jesus Christ often featured the contributions of parents, grandparents and other mentors, often in the family but also in schools, mission agencies and churches. They also described loving relationships rooted in the love of Christ. One group reported that all its members emerged from the sharing sessions "overwhelmed" at their "powerful discovery" of the depths of faith expressed by members of institutions and associations that some had regarded with grave suspicion. In coming to know one another better, they worked past the hype induced by confrontation.

However, it was easy to see problems that remain. The Rev. Bruce Clemenger of Canada said that his group had found that "ecumenical" is understood as a negative term by certain members, while "evangelical" has become offensive to others. Mutual distrust was evident at first, at least in theory. The group was grateful, he continued, that the strategy of this forum is "to begin with fellowship… rather than trying to build a new kingdom." Whatever issues may stand between one tradition and another, "we have discovered a shared passion, and that becomes the context for our discussions."

The recurrence of references to friction between "ecumenical" and "evangelical" may indicate a particularly sore spot in inter-Christian tensions. The topic was usually, but not always, sounded in the accents of North America – either by someone who might loosely be deemed "Protestant", or by a group's reporter quoting one of its evangelical or other Protestant members. To some degree, concentration on intra-Protestant disagreements left unexamined flashpoints in relations with Catholic or Orthodox positions. In recent few decades, and particularly in the cultural politics of the United States and nations under its churches' influence, sons and the daughters of the Reformation appear most eager to express animosity towards one another.

It is scarcely original to suggest that this dynamic, a descendant of the unbridled "party spirit" of which Paul accused the Corinthians, has something to do with the decline of church membership in the North Atlantic region. It also offers a witness to the world that is all its own. As Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, observed in remarks to the forum, "Too often, those to whom the church tries to bear witness point to the ills within the church itself."

The personal testimonies at the Global Christian Forum aim at finding a way past the labels we attach to others, on which division and distrust are so easily built. As one participant put it, the process of sharing over a period of hours "opened up the people behind the badges" listing each person's organization or church and country of origin.

Two examples of personal testimony stand out from today's plenary presentations. Mel Robeck of the Assemblies of God, a professor of church history and ecumenics at Fuller Theological Seminary in the US, told the story of his involvement in the search for unity. It came, he said, as the result of a direct calling from the Lord, which he resisted when he first heard it in 1983. Only after the appeal was repeated by the Lord three times was Robeck willing to risk the discipline of his own church by suggesting closer engagement with ecumenical bodies.

And Samuel Kobia, current general secretary of the World Council of Churches, spoke of his parents, first-generation Christians converted in revivals that swept Kenya and neighbouring nations during the colonial era. His father eventually became a charismatic street preacher and decided to leave a lot of the family's land for the building of an Assemblies of God church. "He called me, as his eldest son, to ask what I thought of such a bequest," said Kobia. The Methodist pastor and ecumenical leader replied, "Father, what can I say to this news but 'Hallelujah!'?"

Wesley Granderg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America, moderating this afternoon's group reports, looked back over the sharing of personal testimony here and in each of the five regional forums that preceded this enlarged gathering in Nairobi. "I think our experiences in these groups," he said, "have broadened the circle of those whom we can remember in our prayers."

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Voices unheard

A bulletin is circulating at the Global Christian Forum describing "Edinburgh 2010", an upcoming, "polycentric" observance of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference's centennial. Many church historians identify Edinburgh 1910 as the starting point of the modern ecumenical movement. In the bulletin, a series of bullet points distinguish activities planned for 2010 from the earlier event. One line asserts that "the participants in 2010 will… show a better gender and age balance." And indeed, Scottish photos of that critical moment do show cluster upon cluster of aging men clad in black.

However the seminars and celebrations may shape up in 2010, the gender and age profile of Nairobi 2007 remains overwhelmingly male and "distinguished". Explanations are offered based on the relatively few leaders of major Christian bodies who are women (and the relatively none who are young), but these arguments bring to mind the words of one reporter whose group acknowledged that most of us have engaged in "the rationalization of our disunity". If "unity in diversity" is a concept to be favoured, a lack of age and gender diversity such as the present instance must be recognized as an act not only of discrimination but of deliberate disunity. As in the case of all sin, absolution will demand a change of heart.

Similarly, one of the groups of 30 noted that there are few participants in Nairobi drawn from populations of Indigenous People. Direct experience of injustice and oppression can add new dimensions of insight, vibrancy and advocacy in the sharing of faith. The group entered a plea that this oversight in the invitations be remedied in future.

The limits of dialogue

"Limited or no connectivity" has been a frequent diagnosis pronounced by our computers as we try to access the Internet this morning. Is the phrase an omen for the impending Global Christian Forum? Or can we yet hope for clear means of communication, and even cooperation, as outcomes of this convocation of assorted traditions of Christianity? 

In its literal meaning, the on-screen warning describes our state of minimal "connectivity" to inform us that access to a newly installed wireless link is temporarily insufficient for communication. So we wait in hope, for a more opportune moment of dialogue. 

Figuratively, the words reflect the hesitation and anxiety expressed as representatives of churches and other Christian bodies gather on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya to spy out the land for potential common ground. Is this the right moment for clear connections to be realized? 

Richard Hamm, an organizer of the broad-based Christian Churches Together (CCT) in the U.S.A., speaks of the "churches together" phenomenon - and by extension, this experiment with a similar sort of global forum - as "a postmodern strategy of networking" meant to bring Christians closer to one another despite long-standing divisions. Avoiding the 20^th-century structural demands and programmatic agendas of councils and conferences of churches, this new approach begins with personal testimony and the building of relationships in which Christian men and women of varying backgrounds may assess how much they have in common. Thus, the participants' list includes representatives of theologically conservative and charismatic churches and movements that have not sought membership, or even observer status, in either the World Council of Churches or a national conference of churches.

Still, as the Nairobi forum has been planned, there has been reluctance on the part of some supporters of world and national councils and alliances to risk firm policy statements and public activism for the sake of opportunities for informal sharing of personal witness and individuals' faith journeys. After decades of ideological and political confrontation among church-related groups, there is also nervousness among some planners that participants in even so preliminary a stage of dialogue will be met with condemnation within their own communities for having associated with groups deemed deficient in the sincerity - or orthodoxy- of their faith. 

Expectations of this event range from optimistic to bleak. In ecumenical circles, sentiments are expressed which start, "We may be witnessing a moment that history will mark as…"; alternatively, one hears remarks that begin, "I very much doubt that the meeting will…" One communicator summed up the potential of Nairobi 2007 in this way: "It is part of a series of conversations that could lead to something." At this moment, that seems a fair summary. 

The idea of the Global Christian Forum began to take on a defined shape in the first half of the 1990s, with diverse proponents taking up the theme. In recent years, preliminary meetings and regional conversations have paved the way for this largest such gathering to date. Will the present discussion, organized on a world-wide scale, provide critical mass for a continuing forum of some sort? Or will this meeting come to the conclusion that our state of connectivity is limited, at best? By Friday afternoon, we shall know more.

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Let me offer a word about the communicators' lot at the end of our first day on the scene.  

The "Bamboo Lounge" at Jumuia Conference and Country Home, Limuru, is our base of operation. Twenty kilometers outside central Nairobi, this centre is one of six such properties owned by the National Council of Churches in Kenya. Alas, the Bamboo Lounge is one room too far from Jumuia's brand new WiFi zone. In order to connect with the web, one must carry a laptop from the lounge into the adjoining lobby, onto the veranda or to the quiet of one's room. 

Even when WiFi is operating well, Internet service is slow and sporadic. Online graphics, especially photos, exponentially reduce the speed of uploading and downloading. Or they would reduce the speed, if we were able to upload or download much of anything at all. And yet, in the developed cities of the global north, it is a tenet of the professional communicator's guild that websites should be highly visual. We need to formulate a digital application of Lord Acton's maxim, somewhat along these lines: Technological developments tend to divide; a reliance on northern technical standards divides absolutely. 

One European evangelical, queuing at the Jumuia "business centre" to buy time on the discouragingly time-consuming wireless network, recalled a mission conference he once attended where a presentation was given on the potential of the Internet for evangelization. When the northern presenter allowed time for general discussion, an African participant arose with this question: "If slow works for us, why is fast better?" 

But I am writing for a website. And so this transmission awaits the wee hours of the morning, when the rate of use on a rural, overtaxed and narrow bandwidth at last may allow for a successful interface. Otherwise, we shall resort to the good, old-fashioned fax and the duplicate keystrokes of a collaborator back home.

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