Matt and I returned from our trip to South Africa Saturday morning. Here are four final, completely unrelated thoughts:

1) According to one pastor with whom we spoke, that battle for the gospel is on two completely different fronts. Among much of the White population, the battle is against secularism, postmodernism, epistemological authority, and the same things we're battling in the West. Among much of the Black population, Scripture is treated as authoritative among many. The battle is against (i) ATR (African Traditional Religion, e.g. ancestor worship) and (ii) Charismatics a la Trinity Broadcasting Network (called "The God Channel" in S.A.) and prosperity gospel. Talk about two different battles--both postmodernism and TBN!

2) One of our African hosts reprimanded our the pastors we were teaching about not finishing their food but leaving an entire plate on the table uneaten. At first, Matt and I thought, "Why is he taking them to task about not eating their food?" On the airplane home, I was reading a book on the African concept of ubuntu, which explained that in African Traditional Religion, people will often leave out plates of food for their deceased ancestors. Huh. We now suspect our host may have really been telling these pastors who struggled w/syncretism to stop following their old ways. Chalk it up as another lesson in cultural differences?

3) Ubuntu, the Zulu word for "humanness," is an African concept that goes back thousands of years, but has been popularized since the end of apartheid by the likes of Mandela, Tutu, and others. It's the idea that we can only be human through other humans. It promotes the community over the individual. Unfortunately, it can also promote relationship over truth, because (based on my reading), whereas an ubuntu-driven worldview can admit of a belief in God, it seems to be fundamentally humanistic (man-centered).

4) A friend recently attended a concert in which the conducter began by turning to the audience and telling them he envied anyone in the audience who was about to hear the symphony for the first time. In our second conference, it became increasingly apparent that we could not take for granted a biblical knowledge base among a number of the attendees. So along the way we rejigged and took the attendees through important passages of Scripture. And they were hungry for it! Imagine introducing a pastor to Paul's speech to the elder's at Ephesus in Acts 20 for the first time. We felt grief and joy all mixed--grief that all of them had not received more training, and joy at being able to point some of them to parts of  of God's Word for what seemed like the first time. "Hey, check out this treasure over here!" You could hear the awes and gasps.