Global InSights

2017 ScholarLeader of the Year

From the Margins, For the Margins: Athena Gorospe

Fifteen years ago, Athena Gorospe gave a devotional in which she called her audience – wealthy American Christians – to be downwardly mobile. That morning in Pasadena, she argued that we should recover “Jesus’s concern for the marginalized, the invisible people.” Athena has dedicated herself to this plea – and to practicing what she preaches

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Global InSights

Kei Hiramatsu

The Silence of God: Beyond Triumphalism

Last month, Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Silence opened in theaters, invoking difficult questions among Christians regarding what it means to have faith. It spurs me to reflect on how Japanese Christians have perceived suffering, and how we as believers are called to respond to this inevitability. In many cultures, suffering and weakness are rarely discussed. When people do

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Global InSights

Yacouba Sanon

Lament: Expressing Your Suffering to God

Suffering is the daily lot of many of the world’s Christians, particularly those in Western Africa. Unfortunately, churches give little heed to this reality in most Sunday services. Behind this lies a barely concealed apprehension Christians have with regard to the proper stance to adopt toward suffering. In the following reflection, I explore lamentation as

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Global InSights

Maqsood Kamil

Religious Extremism in Pakistan: A Christian Response

Introduction Since 9/11, hardly a day goes by without some religiously motivated act of extremism. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, religious extremism worldwide claims nearly 100,000 Christian lives annually. Since the 1980s, Sunni Islamic extremism has been on the rise in Pakistan, where the tiny Christian

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Global InSights

Azar Ajaj, Brent Neely

Redeeming the Time: The Refugee Crisis in Europe

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.— Ephesians 5:15-16 (NRSV) The Crisis More than three years have passed since the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” a term that symbolized hope for the people of the Middle East. However,

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Global InSights

Ayman Ibrahim

Do Muslims & Christians Worship the Same God?

Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue often raises the question: Do we worship the same God? The answer is usually colored by the preferences, presuppositions, or theological-doctrinal understanding of the individual. In this essay, I affirm the complexity of this question, explain some of the challenges, provide arguments Muslim and Christian scholars voice, and offer an understanding to

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Global InSights

Cesar Lopes

Theology from Below

While we generally welcome theological differences stimulated by the cultural context, discussions that address the socio-political dimension of life often cause discomfort for evangelical believers. In my context of Latin America, we take contextual realties quite seriously. With an approach to theology that is “from below” we bring the questions of society to the truth

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Global InSights

Ara Badalian

A Wounded Memory: The Church in Iraq Today

The Iraqi people have experienced a deep wound. Since 2003, national unity has been torn apart, creating an irreparable fissure in what was probably a superficial unity within the country. After 2003, Iraq developed a system that consolidated democracy along sectarian, religious, and ethnic lines, deepening fragmentation and benefitting only the ruling elite. The system

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Global InSights

Evan Hunter

Love Calls for Solidarity

Love calls for Solidarity. Loving one another includes especially caring for those who are persecuted and in prison for their faith and witness. If one part of the body suffers, all parts suffer with it. We are all, like John, “companions in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus” (Revelation 1:9,

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Global InSights

2014 ScholarLeader of the Year

God’s Call to Return Home: David Kasali

After completing his PhD in New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1993, Dr. David Kasali returned to the faculty at Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology, where he later served as President for eight years. Following the devastating war in his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, David and his wife Kaswera

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