Beeson Podcast, Episode #653 Dr. Diana Stinton Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney. I’m coming to you in the midst of World Christianity Week at Beeson Divinity School, an annual week of lectures on the work of God and state of the church around the world. Our guest today is Dr. Diane Stinton who is serving this week as our key note lecturer on World Christianity. Dr. Stinton is the Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Mission Studies and World Christianity at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. She’s an expert on theological work in the global south. She taught for many years in Kenya, where she helped launch a master’s program in African Christianity at Day Star University. And a master’s program in World Christianity at Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. Welcome, Dr. Stinton, to the program. >>Dr. Stinton: Thank you so much. It’s good to be with you. >>Doug Sweeney: We’re looking forward to letting our podcast listeners get to know you a little bit. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you’ve become a researcher and a scholar in the subject of World Christianity? >>Dr. Stinton: Sure. Thanks so much. Well, I was born in Angola in West Africa and I would say into a family with a very broad view of God’s Kingdom. I was only there for about five years. My folks were in medical missions there. And I was the youngest of six kids. So, when my oldest brother reached high school we moved back to Canada when I was just starting kindergarten. So, I’ve grown up in Canada, but I think God definitely planted seeds during those early formative years, because ... yeah, it’s funny, out of all six of us kids I’m the one who kind of caught the African bug, so to speak, and I’m the one who ended up returning for the longest periods of time and just have felt really, really at home in Kenya – though it’s across the continent, just really felt at home there. So, I grew up in Canada. Wonderfully rich church background in Calgary, Alberta – very involved with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. That was very formative in going to camps and through those growing up years I just had a sense that, a yearning to go back to Africa when the time came. So, anytime I could research at school, it was always something to do with Africa. So, I got trained in education. I taught for a couple of years in junior high school in Calgary. And then I went out the first time to Kenya with African Inland Mission and taught for a couple of years in a girls high school out in the rural area. And just absolutely loved it. I got hooked on the people and the place. And so I then went to Regent College. I knew that I wanted to study theology at some point. So, in the mid ‘80s I went to Regent as a period to get theologically equipped myself and also to prayerfully discern whether God was calling me back to Kenya longer term. And if so, in what capacity. So, one year became two years at Regent. I loved my studies there. I was focusing on World Christianity and spiritual theology. And at the end of that period I felt like God just really answered prayer above and beyond what I could have imagined. And so I went to Day Star University in Nairobi. They allowed me to teach New Testament Studies half time and then work in the chaplaincy half time, which is wonderful. It was the first time they had had a woman serve in the chaplaincy. And there was a wonderful African pastor who was the Head Chaplain. I came on as the Assistant Chaplain. And just had marvelously rich years of study and in the classroom and life with students beyond the classroom and all kinds of discipleship and evangelistic activities. So, through those years I became aware that much as I loved my training at Regent and respected the wealth of tradition that I had learned about history and theology there, and biblical studies, I just found that there were questions that would emerge in my context in Kenya that I hadn’t necessarily considered before from my background. So, I became aware that I needed to learn more about African Christianity. So, I ended up returning to Regent doing a ThM in the area of biblical spirituality. And during that time I was praying that God would lead me to ... that there would be an African evangelical theologian who could help me with that process of translating all the wealth of what I had learned in the last ... but for active ministry in a place like Kenya. So, by God’s grace I met professor [inaudible 00:05:23] in Nairobi and to my surprise he offered to supervise me for my PhD research. And so I had just, yeah, a wonderful privilege of studying under him and Andrew Walls and others in Edinburgh at the Center for Non Western Christianity. So, in that sense it was taking my background in biblical studies and in spiritual theology and my experience in Kenya and all of those seemed to just coalesce together in this somewhat new field of World Christianity that just seemed a good fit for a number of reasons. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, it occurs to me, we should get you to help us explain to our listeners what World Christianity is. It’s a field of study that really has come together during our adult lifetimes. On the one hand, people hear “world Christianity” and they can maybe intuit what we’re talking about. But on the other hand it can sound like a vast subject to study. It seems, just listening to your story, that you sort of fell into it with special interests in particular parts of the world and contextual theology. I don’t want to front load the question too much but what is world Christianity? And how does someone like Dr. Diane Stinton become an expert in this thing called world Christianity? >>Dr. Stinton: Well, thanks. I might pause and say I’m not sure that I’m an expert in world Christianity. I think those who truly have competence in world Christianity I could count on the fingers of one hand. (laughs) Because it is ... it is so massive. I mean, on the one hand it has everything to do with God’s Kingdom in the world. So, it is as vast as that in the galaxies. Because it concerns creation care and just all manner of human and creaturely existence. In a slightly more focused way, I think what it is, is more recently it’s been coalescing as a field of the history of Christianity, recognizing that with the shift of Christianity from the North Atlantic to the majority world today, there’s more and more focus on what is happening in some of these southern, or majority world regions. And so in doing that, it’s a broad field and the terms and methodologies and things are still contested. But essentially, it’s a combination of the history of Christianity, contemporary theological developments, and missiological developments. Of course, all of those being undergirded by continued studies in New Testament, in scripture. So, it’s a broad field and it takes on a lot of different shapes. But in a word, that’s what I would say. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. What would be examples of some of the classes that you would have taught, maybe in Kenya and in Vancouver, other parts of the world? >>Dr. Stinton: Yeah, thanks. Well, here at Regent College in Vancouver I teach an introductory course in World Christianity in which we try to tackle this mammoth beast of what is it and how do we study it. And then I teach seminars on ... for example, one is called Faces of Jesus: Perspectives on Christology From the Majority World. And so what we’ll do is go continent by continent and focus on how we are all studying and yearning to know the one person of Jesus Christ. But how has Christology manifested itself, for example, in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, in [inaudible 00:09:05] among the ethnic minorities here in North America? So, the idea is not to set up a dichotomy at all between Western and majority world Christologies, but simply because so much of the curriculum has already focused on the developments within Christology in the West, this course intentionally seeks to just focus on other authors and movements and developments in other parts of the world that we might not otherwise look at. So, that’s one course. I do the same thing on majority perspectives on spirituality, Christian spirituality. And then the most fun courses I do are what we call Go Global courses. Prior to the pandemic, when I relocated from Kenya back to Canada in 2010 somewhat unexpectedly I was loving my teaching at Regent, but I felt something like a matchmaker where I’d be in Vancouver teaching my Regent students and thinking, “Oh, I wish you guys could meet these folks in Africa.” And then I’d go out to Kenya and say, “Oh, I wish you guys could meet my international students in Vancouver.” So, by 2013 we launched what we call the Go Global courses where I’ve been able to take a group of international students from Vancouver – no expectation that they have ever read anything in African theology or been to Africa, but we go out for about a two week period and I put them together with students. And we do a course together on African Christianity. So, because Regent is focused on the three overlapping spheres of the academy, the church, and the world, we designed the course along those lines. So, it is based in African International University and we’ve had a lineup of about six lectures or so from leading theologians, men and women, different Christian traditions, different nationalities, coming in to lecture the students. Often they’ll have read these theologians before they speak, but they can now interact with them personally. And then we do it in tandem with the church that I’ve attended. It’s actually a church movement now called Nairobi Chapel. And it’s many, many daughter churches throughout Nairobi and across Kenya and Africa and the world. So, we do it along with that and we spend time with some of the church leaders and seminars, and hear from them about some of the realities on the ground in terms of church ministries. And then we also go out to see a number of site visits. So, while in class we’re talking about themes of justice, reconciliation, liberation – whatever these theological themes are. But then the question is, okay, where do we see these taking shape on the ground? So, we’ll go out and see those who are working with the marginalized – refugees, children at-risk, at-risk youth and spend some time in the informal developments to see some of the ministries that are taking place there. As well as going down to downtown Nairobi and talking about marketplace theology and what are professional Christians in Nairobi called to within the gospel of Christ? So, we do as much as we can within the couple of weeks, but really what I love about it is just the synergy of having the African theological students right in class and doing life together with our students for those few weeks. So, praying together and eating together and playing together and having lectures and discussions and going out to see churches and site visits. It’s just deeply, deeply rich. And last night we had a bonfire and [inaudible 00:13:00], the barbeque out in Nairobi and we sit outside around a fire and hear one another and what this experience has meant to students. And it’s just so moving to hear the impact upon them. Not just those from Regent who come to visit, but also the African students. They come from a range of countries. I remember, for example, some of them saying, “We’re used to interacting with people from Europe and people from North America. [inaudible 00:13:31], they’re used to us.” But they hadn’t spent that kind of time with Asian students from Korea, Japan, China. And they said, “We had no idea that we had so much in common with our Asian brothers and sisters.” So, that kind of thing is just, yeah, it’s been really rich and exciting. >>Doug Sweeney: That sounds exciting. A lot of times at seminaries like ours when we talk with people about things like the need to learn from brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world everybody is open minded and open hearted about it, but people wonder, “So, how would that change the way I think about spiritual theology or Christology?” Just to take a couple of examples that you’ve written about. Aren’t all good Christians everywhere around the world kind of thinking the same thoughts about these things? Or can we grow by listening to one another across not just time but across space culture as well. So, here’s a question somebody who’s written about spiritual theology, taught about it a little bit, and tried to learn from African voices – what do we learn from them about spiritual theology that helps us because it’s a little bit different from what we’re used to? >>Dr. Stinton: Well, thanks. Yeah. Again, I think when we’re dealing with anything to do with the gospel, the person of Christ, our experience of spirituality, there is always the unity of the gospel. There’s one God and Father, Lord Jesus Christ. There’s one baptism. So, we are all entering into this one Christian faith. But we are experiencing it within our separate contexts. And our experience is inescapably shaped by our context – be that geographically, be that our gender or culture, there’s so many things, our experience that goes into making us who we are. And so I think the very fact that God meets us individually and we experience God individually and communally within our particular context means that we discover things about Christ and the spiritual walk that come alive in our context in ways that are not unique, but perhaps distinctive. So, for example, as you know, here in the West much of our Christianity over the ages has had philosophy as a key dialogue partner, say, in our theology. And so we have been deeply shaped even in modernity, say, by the European enlightenment, for better and for worse. And so for those of us it’s like the fish in water – you don’t realize what your worldview is until you meet the other who might see things differently. And then you think, oh really, but I always understood this? And it can be just a broadening experience where we gain further exposure and we grow in that process. So, you’re asking for specifics. I think what struck me in spending time in Kenya, I mean, you heard about, yes, these people of the majority world are more communally oriented than we are. Huge generalization. But by and large there’s real truth to it. And so they’ve compared Descartes saying, “I think, therefore I am” in our development of our individualism and our autonomy and self reliance that we pride ourselves on here in the West. Well, life in Kenya is very different. Blessedly so. (laughs) And so I think you begin to experience an interdependence in a way that it’s not impossible but it’s more difficult here in the West. So, I think the communalism comes through much more strongly. I probably heard about Ubuntu Theology, [inaudible 00:17:21] says, “I am because we are. And because we are, therefore I am.” So, it’s not up to me to construct my own sense of individuality and assert that and live that out. But I can rest in knowing that my sense of who I am, my person, only has meaning in relation to others around me – family, community, traditions that I have been a part of. So, I think even that can be freeing and very enriching. Other things like sometimes we’ve fallen prey to a lot of dichotomies in our thinking and in our experience. So, here in the West we’ve had this massive worldview dichotomy between, say, the physical or material world and the spiritual world. And it’s hard not to see the world differently when that’s all we have ever known. But when you live in another culture where that doesn’t exist, or at least not to the degree that it has now ... of course there’s global cultural flows ... things are changing by all means. But to live among people and to pray among people who don’t necessarily see the divide between the physical and the spiritual world – it’s all one world. And we are the ones who erect these false dichotomies. Or the dichotomies between, say, faith and life, or faith and work, that somehow faith is something we do over here. I think the whole sense of life in Kenya, in African tradition more broadly, is holistic. It has to do with community, with work, with prayer. I mean, they had to word for “religion.” It’s simply their way of life. And so whether it’s the birth of a baby or the passing of somebody into death, it encompasses the whole cosmos, the whole creation. And it encompasses all of the generations. So, it’s not just me here and now. But our community is made up of those who have already gone beyond, those who are here today, and those who are yet to come. And so it just gives you a different perspective on all kinds of issues that is just deeply enriching. So, I think, yeah, if we don’t engage with what God is doing around the world, I think we can end up with a pretty anemic experience of faith, needlessly. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s a great point. And the church history teacher in me loves that African perspective about our relatedness to those around us and those who have come before us. The ways in which they shape us and help to make us who we are. Well, you’ve written a whole book about African Christology. Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology. I’ve been using it for years, actually, as I read and learn more about majority world theology. Is there an example or two you might sort of pull out of that book that helps us think about how serious brothers and sisters in the Lord, God fearing people, bible believing people, who live far away from us in a different cultural context might teach about Jesus Christ himself differently than we’re used to getting taught about Him here? >>Dr. Stinton: One of the distinctive images that really comes to life there is Jesus’ healing. So, I don’t know about you, but when I get sick I don’t instinctively pray as the first course of response to that. I generally just take my Advil or whatever it is that I’m suffering from. But I think given the context there and the pervasiveness of illness, not just physical illness as well as the resources, they just naturally look to Jesus more quickly than I think I would, or many other Western Christians. And then they experience Jesus’ healing touch. Again, not simply physically but the whole person – emotionally, spiritually, healing the land, healing the community, healing division. Africa has just had ... I’m making broad statements but even in Kenya there have been so many difficult situations to begin with. The post election violence and that kind of thing. How do you pray for Christ’s healing upon peoples that are just so torn apart by ethnic hostilities? So, there are some very real issues where Jesus enters the scene through his people and I think ministers in some very powerful ways. There are other images that are more controversial. For example, you may have heard Jesus being proposed as ancestor. That remains controversial for lots of reasons. But if you look at what an ancestor means in indigenous African thought, and you think about that analogously for what Jesus does within the person and the community, how he manifests the kind of life that the ancestors would previously have provided, the physical life and care in the community and the wisdom of tradition, the teachings – so much of what they would formally have looked to for their ancestors, they now find fulfilled in Christ. So, they distinguish him. He’s not one among many ancestors, but he is ... they’ll call him “The Greatest Ancestor.” “The Proto Ancestor.” He’s the one who is above all human ancestors. And where ancestors used to be just for one particular ethnic group or another, he is ancestor over all of humanity. And so what does that speak to situations like the genocide or other situations of ethnic tensions within Africa? It can be a very powerful image for drawing people together in the unity of faith in Christ. But for others, for various reasons ... we won’t get into all of them, but it’s still controversial. Others would say, no, that doesn’t adequately acknowledge his divinity, even if you separate him as proto ancestor, the greatest ancestor. There’s still concern that in upholding humanity and the divinity of Christ that it’s not adequately reflecting his absolute sole unique divinity. So, it will continue to be a controversial image, but clearly it is one that is meaningful to millions of African believers. >>Doug Sweeney: Help us with this notion of globalization, Dr. Stinton. Here again, I bet a lot of our listeners feel like, yeah, I think I pretty much know what that word means. But when scholars like yourself use it, what are you suggesting that it means about our connectivity around the globe? And what I have in mind is the question – is it changing some of the realities we’re discussing here? Are we becoming more alike because of globalization? Or is globalization simply helping us to appreciate each other’s differences better than before? What difference is it making on Christianity? >>Dr. Stinton: Wow, that’s a massive question. And yes, I think we can’t deny the power of globalization just in terms of the global flows that are now occurring around the world in information, in material, in economics, politically, we are just so much more interconnected now than we used to be. What was the saying that when Michael Jordan gets a haircut in the States, the following morning you’ll see the boys in Kenya wearing the same haircut. (laughs) >>Doug Sweeney: That’s amazing. >>Dr. Stinton: Yeah. The global exchanges of music, of culture, of food, of clothing, you name it – our worlds are intersected. The news ... the way you open your phone and you immediately know what’s happening around the world in ways that we simply didn’t decades ago. So, I think it’s for better and worse. In some ways it has potential for drawing us together. And there is this great movement towards homogenization. This assumption that the more nations around the world have access to these global flows, the more homogeneous we all become through especially the internet. But then you’re also seeing the resistance to that because the global flows go both ways. It’s not only if you like modern Western life that is now the McDonald-ization of the world. But it also means that local peoples who have suffered for example from ... I think of Kenya, where the years of bringing in used clothing from the West almost demolished the textile industry in Kenya. But now there’s a resurgence of the local as well. And so people are taking an increased pride in their own national identities, in their foods, in their cultures, in their sports, in whatever the case may be. And they, too, are offering this to the world. So, that, too, can be a very beautiful thing. But it can also have its shadow side, for example, the resurgence of nationalisms all over the world, not just in the majority world. But what we’re witnessing. And the xenophobia and the prejudices and some of the divides that are coming up in our world today in ways that are really very, very serious. So, globalization can have its positive effects, but it can have its very dark side as well. I think it was Roland Ronald that coined the term “glocal” and called for this awareness and living out in the sense of the global needing the local. Hopefully in healthy and constructive ways so that you maintain all the wealth and the riches of who you are locally. You engage meaningfully with the global, but without necessarily adopting everything that can be very detrimental in the local scene as well. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s very helpful. Let’s try to open a window for a minute here for our listeners onto the teaching you’re doing on campus with us this week. You gave a wonderful sermon in chapel this morning called, Encountering Jesus at the Well: Opening New Perspectives on Wisdom and Witness from John 4. I believe tomorrow you’ll give us a lecture called, From the Magnificat to the Blue Marble: Reflections of World Christianity. The title is intriguing. What do you want to say to the students here at Beeson this week? What are you trying to communicate among us? >>Dr. Stinton: Well, I think what I would want to communicate is that I think we are living in the most exciting moment in all of history. When you look back at where God has brought this little band of disciples who discovered that Jesus was the Messiah and how the faith in Jesus has traveled around the world and across time and enriched so many peoples, and now we come to this moment in time with ... I think of it as kind of an upside-down kingdom, which is what I’m going to be developing in the lecture tomorrow ... these huge reversals that nobody could have conceived of. The massive rise in Christianity in the majority world. It’s not simply about numbers. It’s not a numbers game. It goes so much more beyond that. But the fact that people are coming to Christ and it’s having such a significant impact on lives, on communities, on churches, on nations. And so I just wanted to invite all of us in this moment with all of these exciting developments taking place to, in a word, just expand the borders of our tent and not stay with simply the Christianity or the faith that we have known, but to be open to learning from what God is doing among us. It’s not simply a matter of going overseas to some exotic place. The world has come to us. And so now it’s just going to the grocery store and meeting people who have come from literally every region of the globe and hearing what are their stories and how has God been working in their part of the world? I just think I would want to encourage students simply to be and to become the people that God is calling them to be. And to be open to what God is calling them to in ministry. Be it right here in Birmingham, or the furthest ends of the world. Just to have eyes to see and perceive who Jesus is in our midst today and what he is doing among his people globally. It’s an exciting moment. >>Doug Sweeney: It sure is. Well, Diane, I hate to say it, our time is drawing nigh. And we always like to end these interviews on a more personal edifying note. You’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve been teaching in Kenya. You’ve been teaching in Vancouver. You’ve been lecturing in a variety of places. But I imagine you’re still learning things that are new each year. What are you learning new these days? What is God teaching you these days? As a veteran professor of World Christianity? >>Dr. Stinton: Well, thank you so much. And I think I mentioned that I share this role between teaching World Christianity but serving as the Dean of Students as well. And so I think what is striking me the most these days is what I was speaking about this morning in terms of just the deep prejudices and polarizations that are taking place in our midst, in our families, in our communities, in our churches, in our colleges. There are a lot of forces at play in the work that are creating and fostering these divisions and these painful separations between us, among us. And so I think witnessing some of these things but just wanting to see how Jesus is raising up new people who are able to cross the divides, as I was speaking about, and just truly to seek a deeper understanding, awareness, to really extend the love of Christ to the other however frightening that might be. Yeah, I’m just moved by that and by, yeah, when I see some of my friends. I just took a few of my class to a field trip to [inaudible 00:32:33] Society, which is a ministry in Vancouver that’s run by a couple of Regent alum who are providing housing and support to refugee claimants from around the world. And just how moving it is to see these people who are so bitterly traumatized; coming to a new country, understandably fearful, don’t know the system, don’t know anybody here, and to have a place that would just literally open their doors to provide housing and practical emotional support, help them through the legal system, help them through the medical system, help them find schools for the kids, help them with the language. Simply be to them the kind of hospitable caregiver that Jesus would be in that situation. I’m loving seeing some of these developments. In the afternoon we took them to look at [inaudible 00:33:29] working in the area of creation care. So, just seeing some of these new ministries that are expanding our horizons for what the gospel is and what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our world right down to what we eat, where we shop, how we teach our kids ... it’s an exciting moment. So, I would say those are some of the areas that I’m learning in these days. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s wonderful. You have been listening to Dr. Diane Stinton. She serves as Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Mission Studies and World Christianity at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. She’s here this week giving our World Christianity Focus Lectures. We’re grateful to you for this marvelous gift of time. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in. We love you. Thank you for praying for us. We say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.