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There are 4 messages in this issue.
Topics in today's digest:
1. Re: E.G White!
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@xxxxx.xxxx
2. Salvation: African Perspective
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@xxxxx.xxxx
3. Cyber Evangelism
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@xxxxx.xxxx
4. RE: Cyber Evangelism
From: Tshivhenga Takalani * Group <TakalaniT@xxxxxxxx.xx.xxx
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:03:08 -0400
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@umdnj.edu>
Subject: Re: E.G White!
Pitso,
Throughout the Old testament God's prophets were persecuted and some of them were killed. Many of them were criticized and ridiculed. Evil men rose up to oppose them. Even Moses, who was the most humble man on earth, had a hard time with the children of Israel. It is therefore not a surprise that there are many that criticize and oppose Ellen White. They called her a liar, a plagiarist and so on. We need to remember that the opposition to E.G White is nothing new, in fact, it seems like the opposition to her and her messages were more greater when she was alive.
How can we know that the prophet is from God?
1. To the law and to the testimony ... , Does her writings contradict the word of God?
2. We need to look at the prophet's life, Was her life in accordance to God's word?
3. We need to look at those who follow her teachings, Are they brought closer to God or away from God.
I believe that all the attacks on E.G White is meant to divert the people's attention from her writings. The Devil does not want people to know the messages that God has sent to His people in these last days. The Devil does not want people to know what is written in the Great Controversy (I consider this to be one of her best books). What if people, at least Adventist, knew what is written in the Great Controversy? The Devil does not even want to think about it.
So, the Devil rose up well-learned men like Desmond Ford to attack not only E.G White but also the foundation of our faith. What are the results of this? The overwhelming majority of Adventists in the West no longer take the SOP serious.
The Devil is happy. If they won't read it, it won't help them.
The people are dying for lack of knowledge because they have rejected knowledge. It's in the Bible!
Watch and pray for the time is near!
Jeremiah
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:49:37 -0400
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@xxxxx.xxxx
Subject: Salvation: African Perspective
Friends,
Here is a thought provoking essay that Pastor Letseli recently submitted to Masabatha Online (www.masabatha.org).
==
Hi Mashudu,
I hope this paper will stimulate further discussions [this paper has some footnotes, and I hope they will
be able to be transmitted together with this text, and if not, please inform me as soon as possible]:
THE EXPERIENCE OF SALVATION IN THE
TRADITIONAL AFRICAN RELIGION.
1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to attempt to briefly study the African way of understanding and
experiencing salvation. This short paper will be limited by the writer's exposure to published material
relevant to the topic at issue, and by the limited number of books and articles in the local libraries. This
work is intended to be comprehensive in future, subject to the availability of pertinent material dispatched
by the publishers.
2. SALVATION IN THE TRADITIONAL AFRICAN THINKING
The Africans have a peculiar and "a blessed way" of understanding and experiencing God and salvation.
The Africans do not perceive salvation as a "concept" or an "idea" or an "abstract term" or something
that occurred in heaven and thereafter transported to the earth, and then locked somewhere between
human ears as is the case in the Anglo-Saxon and Western Christianity.
"Salvation," in the words of Sitiloane, "is a situation, in which harmony and peace prevail in community
life." Notice that "salvation" is not only what happens to or in the individual or between God and the
individual, but it extends to one's community, unlike Calvin's theological concept which excludes and
rejects other communities, and yet favours others as "God's elect." The Afrikaners justified their practice
of apartheid on the basis of Calvin's views.
Could it be that Sitiloane was actually describing "ubuntu" - the Nguni word for the traditional African
experience of encyclopaedic humanness? Dr Neil Macvicar, a medical doctor and a missionary to
Africa, discovered that Africans in general have "a sense of Religion," and that "they believe in the
Unseen, and they are not idol-worshipers." This discovery by an Anglo-Saxon dismisses biased terms
and concepts used to describe Africa in its pre-missionary era, like "dark continent" or "heathen Africa"
or "Africa: A mission field," or "a third world country."
The traditional African finds meaning, identity and existence in salvation, and the ripples of this
experience are felt by his environment (his brothers and sisters). Mbiti rightly describes this experience
thus: "I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am." Nolan has a peculiar way of understanding
and describing the concept and experience of `ubuntu.' Albert maintains that "it (that is, the struggle to
challenge and eradicate apartheid in South Africa) restores `ubuntu' (humanness) and the experience of
being a living member of a body (community of believers)."
Ellen White seemed to have unconsciously captured this insight in a few, bold and emphatic sentences:
"To restore in man the image of His Maker; To bring him back to the perfection in which he was
created." Could it be that this phrase "the image of His Maker" is synonymous to or it is the very quest
for "ubuntu" or the very salvation? Could it be that the experience of salvation among the Africans was
not a western imported commodity to be marketed and sold in Africa by missionary sales-persons, but
that it existed and was rooted in the African social fabric long before the missionary era?
The next logical question would be: Was it necessary for missionaries to evangelise Africa? Were
Africans corrupted or improved by the missionaries' commodities? The African wholistic view of
salvation is based on the fact that "there is no separation whatsoever between religion and life."
Religion is not what Africans study and learn in the classroom setting or lecture-room, or an issue to be
debated or discussed, but what they experience in their day-to-day life. In the traditional African thinking
there is no worldly or secular apart from the religious or sacred. Sitiloane, referring to African religion,
says that "all aspects of life are spheres of divine activity in all its intensity - and one ignores this at one's
own risk."
This means that it is irrelevant to ask Africans `Western imported pluralistic' questions like: "Is it right to
run for a public office? Or "Is it right to participate in politics? Salvation, in the mind of Africans, is not an
event in the remote and immemorial past, but a present "situation," a concrete and meaningful experience
with the Creator.
The question of salvation, among other issues, caused the African Independent Churches to break away
from the missionary Churches because the ideas, doctrines and practices of those so-called mainline
churches conflicted with African religious experience and understanding. Africans were/are interested in
a salvation that could be experienced today, now, and in this life, and did not have to be postponed until
after death.
The traditional African religion is not just oriented to "a land flowing with milk and honey," in "the sweet
by-and-by," but greatly focused on life as it is in the "nasty here-and-now." The experience of salvation
in African religious experience can be rightly illustrated in concrete terms as opposed to western abstract
concepts. The Africans do not only conceptualise their beliefs, but they concretise them, and this African
aspect of religious experience has often been misunderstood by foreigners and missionaries, and
unfortunately labelled, for example, "idol-worship" and many other terms.
In fact, missionaries and foreigners missed one crucial fact about the Africans, that if something or any
belief cannot be concretised in real life situation, it will not fly, especially among the traditional Africans.
The issue among the Africans is not "Is it right?" But, "Does it work?" or "Does it help?" or "Can I
incorporate it in my life-style or make it my day-to-day experience?" Apartheid, both in theory and
praxis, failed not only because "It was/is not right," but because "It does/did not work," especially among
the Native South Africans.
To illustrate or teach the experience of salvation among the traditional South Africans, one needs to point
to a concrete experience. For example, Nelson Mandela would be an apropos figure to illustrate what
Jesus Christ, together with His salvation, is. Nelson Mandela's experience can be rightly described in the
words of Paulo Freire: "When men are already dehumanised, due to the oppression they suffer, the
process of their liberation must not employ the methods of dehumanisation."
The element of humanness "ubuntu" should be maintained. In fact, the means used to bring about
liberation to traditional South Africans must not or was not in itself dehumanising. Nelson Mandela, in the
general traditional South Africans' thinking, lived a life of sacrifice to help his people; he struggled for
what was right; he was tried and prosecuted by the perpetrators of the evil system; he was subjected to
life imprisonment for what he stood for; and he was finally released from prison to be the president.
By now sensitive readers will realise that we were almost discussing the life of Jesus Christ. Nelson
Mandela, among the traditional South Africans, is an embodiment of salvation. He is seen as a figure
which was trying to "restore the image of His maker" in man. The African mind moves systematically
from the known (Nelson Mandela's experience) to the unknown (Jesus Christ's experience), unlike the
Western and Anglo-Saxon mind, which moves from the unknown to the yet most unknown.
This has created a dilemma for the Voice of Prophecy school to articulate the important or imported
doctrines without understanding or intentionally ignoring the way traditional South Africans do and
understand religion (moving from the known to the unknown). Most of the Adventist doctrines do not
receive desired attention and response among the traditional South African Adventists not because they
are not right, but because they cannot be concretised in practical living or they do not have a high "take
home value."
For example, very few people worry themselves about the doctrine of the sanctuary, the very crucial
doctrine that gave birth to and made Adventism distinct. The reason being that the doctrine of the
sanctuary was presented by Euro-centric theologians in a way which gave the impression that salvation is
something which transpires up there in the "mansions above" and cannot be translated to the day-to-day
life. The issue at stake here is not: "Is the doctrine of sanctuary true or right?" But "Does it work for me
today and now?" Or "Can it provide bread to a hungry person down here on earth where life is real?"
This intentional (or may be unintentional) neglect has robbed the doctrine of the sanctuary of its sting,
intensity and importance especially among the traditional South African Adventists.
Maimela has succinctly stated that:
It is obvious that a theory of salvation or atonement which fails to focus attention on what is
objectively and concretely wrong with this world cannot be relevant to the victims of evil
structures who do not need a private, individualistic mystical communion with God but
rather a change in their earthly oppressive conditions of life. Liberation theology believes
that atonement to be real must lead to the transformation of objective realities of human life
and not be restricted merely to private moral upliftment of individuals. For one cannot shut
oneself in the closet door, pray, and make everything right with God, and then in one's daily
life hate, exploit, tear apart one's fellow humans.
In conclusion, there is an under-tone plea that begs and cries for attention in this brief discussion, that of
articulating Theology or Adventist Theology (especially sotereology, especially the doctrine of atonement
or sanctuary) from the way traditional South African Adventists observe and experience it. Traditional
South African Adventists have been crippled by studying Adventist Theology wrapped in
Euro-American Adventist Culture, tailored for theological debates, discussions, but not to speak to the,
as Jan Paulien puts it, "nasty here-and-now."
Tankiso Letseli
tletseli@mweb.co.za
082-925-1740
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 15:25:46 -0400
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@xxxxx.xxxx
Subject: Cyber Evangelism
Dear friends
Few weeks we spoke about the need to reach out to professionals or the so-called middle class.
Here is my suggestion - cyber evangelism.
I suggest that we start a mailing list (and a web site) dedicated to reaching the UN-reached.
Instead of it been a discussion list, it will be a study/sermons list. That means that we will send out a sermon or a study once a week to this list. This will be a like church service since most of them to not attend church.
Every week one of our members (SA-SDA members, especially those who are pastors) will prepare a brief homily to send to this list.
My request to you.
1. Ask your non-Adventist friends, colleagues and relatives if they will be interested in receiving our mails (one mail a week). Send me (masabatha@yahoo.com) the email addresses of those who are interested.
2. Send me your brief evangelistic sermons/ study materials/sermon ideas, in future I will request some of you to handle certain topics.
3. I am also looking for suggestions for the name of this new list/web site
4. Pray for the success of this evangelist outreach program
Unlike SA-SDA, this will be a moderated list, only the moderators will be able to send out mails to this list. The recipients of the mails will have an opportunity to respond to the mails but the response will go to the moderators not to the list.
I guess some of you have heard about cyber weddings, we will ask Pastor Papu to conduct cyber baptisms.
On a more serious note, Here is an opportunity for all us to participate in evangelism. Few weeks ago somebody asked a question on how we can reach our colleagues, here is the answer. All you need to do is to ask for the email addresses of those who are interested. God will do the rest.
If the people won't go to church, then the church must go to the people.
I am very excited about this idea, I believe God will do miracles.
Let's all pray for the success of this outreach plan and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Cyber space.
Go tell it to the mountains* that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Jeremiah
_______________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 07:42:03 +0200
From: Tshivhenga Takalani * Group <TakalaniT@xxxxxxxx.xx.xxx
Subject: RE: Cyber Evangelism
I am excited to hear this news and I think this is the way to go rather than
spend the precious discussing among ourselves(which is of cause not a too
bad thing).
My suggestion for the name would be <Buildbri> for building brick. My
feeling is that as much as we will be preaching to them, they will keep us
on our toes and that will make read more.
"And the lord will return soon"
"The following paragraph is not for discussion but to share the information
with those who could not attend like Mashudu"
Let me reluctantly share the previous weekend's experience I had at the SAU
music festival in Bloemfontein. When looking at the entire proceeding of
the music festival, in my own oppinion it was like a TOC music festival with
three guest choirs (Durban,and two from Namibia. I want to say thanks to
those choirs) otherwise it would have been another TOC music festival hosted
by SAU.
The signs of his coming are more brighter than when we first believed. He is
at the door!
Takalani
-----Original Message-----
From: Mashudu Ravhengani [mailto:Ravhenmj@umdnj.edu]
Sent: 27 September 1999 21:26
To: sa-sda@onelist.com
Subject: [sa-sda] Cyber Evangelism
From: "Mashudu Ravhengani" <Ravhenmj@umdnj.edu>
Dear friends
Few weeks we spoke about the need to reach out to professionals or the
so-called middle class.
Here is my suggestion - cyber evangelism.
I suggest that we start a mailing list (and a web site) dedicated to
reaching the UN-reached.
Instead of it been a discussion list, it will be a study/sermons list. That
means that we will send out a sermon or a study once a week to this list.
This will be a like church service since most of them to not attend church.
Every week one of our members (SA-SDA members, especially those who are
pastors) will prepare a brief homily to send to this list.
My request to you.
1. Ask your non-Adventist friends, colleagues and relatives if they will be
interested in receiving our mails (one mail a week). Send me
(masabatha@yahoo.com) the email addresses of those who are interested.
2. Send me your brief evangelistic sermons/ study materials/sermon ideas, in
future I will request some of you to handle certain topics.
3. I am also looking for suggestions for the name of this new list/web site
4. Pray for the success of this evangelist outreach program
Unlike SA-SDA, this will be a moderated list, only the moderators will be
able to send out mails to this list. The recipients of the mails will have
an opportunity to respond to the mails but the response will go to the
moderators not to the list.
I guess some of you have heard about cyber weddings, we will ask Pastor Papu
to conduct cyber baptisms.
On a more serious note, Here is an opportunity for all us to participate in
evangelism. Few weeks ago somebody asked a question on how we can reach our
colleagues, here is the answer. All you need to do is to ask for the email
addresses of those who are interested. God will do the rest.
If the people won't go to church, then the church must go to the people.
I am very excited about this idea, I believe God will do miracles.
Let's all pray for the success of this outreach plan and the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit in the Cyber space.
Go tell it to the mountains* that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Jeremiah
The King is even at the door!
====
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