While our vision has not changed, our next term of ministry will see some notable adjustments. Since we first began discussing a move to Costa Rica in 2002, both ESEPA and UWM have encouraged me to pursue doctoral studies in New Testament for the long-term effectiveness of our ministry in Latin America. Both feel that the second term is the most natural time to do such studies. Recently I was delighted to learn that I was accepted to the University of St Andrews, Scotland. St Andrews is regarded internationally as one of the best places to study the New Testament. Not only do I count it an enormous privilege to study with world-renown scholars such as Bruce Longenecker (my supervisor), Richard Bauckham and Christopher Seitz, I also look forward to making contacts with current and future theological educators from that part of the world that may have an interest in sharing their resources to help build theological institutions in Latin America. Networking aside, the other major advantage to doing PhD studies in Scotland is that I will be able to finish within three years (compared to the five to six year average in the United States).
My PhD research will deal with the nature of suffering in the New Testament. My interest in the subject comes from my paradoxical experiences while ministering in this part of the world. While giving a class in Cuba, I witnessed that suffering is a way of life for Christians who are not only bearing hardship along with their compeers because they don�t have the basic necessities of life, but who also deal daily with social ostracism and discrimination in its many forms simply because they marked 'Christian' on their identity cards. This discrimination has intensified in the last six months and many who have visited the island of late have noted that it has taken a noticeable toll on pastors. What does the New Testament have to say to these Cuban Christians? What do they have to know and believe in order to not just survive but thrive under their current situation? Where is God in all of this? Since much Evangelical scholarship and theology has come out of the West where this sort of persecution is not a normal part of our experience, very little has been written on the subject in English, let alone Spanish. My research will hopefully contribute to formulating a comprehensive Christian theology of suffering and persecution, one that will be a source of strength for pastors and Christians living under extreme cases of social ostracism and systematic, governmental persecution.
I intend for my research to also address the other side of the paradoxical reality of Latin America. For while many suffer in this part of the world, Latin America, and especially Costa Rica, has also become the cradle for the damaging and heretical theological movement known as the Prosperity Gospel. At its core, the Prosperity Gospel promises that if you will sow faith seeds (give money to designated, anointed Christian leaders) you will reap material, financial wealth. Suffering, in this framework, is the result of our own sin and lack of faith. We do not have, because we do not believe. We suffer, because we have not sown. Super faith leads to super success. It only takes a little imagination to understand the damage this movement has caused to a large number of people who have given all of the little they had in the hopes of getting a healthy return on what they have sown in faith. I hope that my research will also equip me to better engage with people who have suffered from this theological movement, as well as enable me to speak in a profoundly informed and prophetic manner against such damaging teachings.
No comments:
Post a Comment