Iringa Fall Festival

Today I attended the 12th annual Iringa Fall Festival at Roseville Lutheran Church. This was an occasion for members of the St. Paul Area Synod of the ELCA and Iringa Diocese, Tanzania, to review and celebrate their partnernship.

This partnership involves not only matters of faith and fellowship but also programs in such fields as education, agriculture, and health. Various other synods and congregations across the USA are involved in such programs, with partners across Africa and other parts of the world.

Early in the program today, we heard a recorded message from Bishop Owdenburg Mdegela of Iringa. He recounted the many benefits of the partnership and thanked everyone involved and looked forward to an even brighter future. We also watched a video documentary of the life and work of the late Rev. Dr. Benjamin Ngede, a powerful testimony to a truly remarkable life.

The event drew many participants.There were several guests from Iringa, whom I was delighted to meet. They came from Tungamalenga and Kihesa. I met many people who know me, from hearing me speak in their churches or other venues, or from reading my Africans and Americans book. Some had heard, from Professor Per Anderson of Concordia College, that I was taking LCCT students to Iringa next year.

One of the speakers, Rev. Don Fultz, standing with his wife Eunice in the photo on the left, surprised me by introducing me to the audience, declaring that I wrote a wonderful book. He brandished a copy, urging everyone to read it. At the end of the Festival, I was accosted by people looking for the book. Fortunately, I had some copies.

There were about a dozen speakers, on such topics as Tumaini University, Radio Furaha, Saccos, the volunteer experience, the Agricultural Institute, the Endowment Fund, and Ilula Hospital. There was even a photo contest, and booths with information about these programs as well as Tanzanian items for sale. I saw people wearing Tanzania's kitenge outfits.

Culture and Companionship Retreat, 2009

I woke up early yesterday and drove to the Luther Point Bible Camp near Grantsburg, Wisconsin, to participate in the Culture and Companionship Retreat which I mentioned in an earlier post.

The meeting, a gathering of lay Lutherans and clergy, started slightly after 10 in the morning. It is somewhat interesting that I, a Catholic, have grown so used to interacting with American Lutherans that I feel entirely at home in their company. This is as it should be.

The focus of the Retreat was how we might study the Gospel with people of other cultures. We thought hard and shared ideas freely. We found ourselves wading deeper and deeper into a tangled thicket of surprises and dilemmas, as we explored the question of how our cultural backgrounds shape our understanding of Biblical texts, making it impossible to know what any story in the Bible might mean to people of different cultures. As part of this conversation, I shared the story "Did Jesus Christ Ever Kill a Lion?"

The idea of multiple interpretations, so central in contemporary literary theory, applies as well to the Bible. As is the case with all reading and interpretation, the issues that matter to us as we read the Bible, the aspects that attract our attention and those that don't all have something to do with our cultural background and values. Often that background is the defining principle. No one culture can claim ultimate or sole authority to interpret the Biblical texts and impose that interpretation on other cultures. We must have a dialogue, respectful of our cultural differences, and mindful of the need to hear all interpretations and value them. That is an integral part of the concept and ideal of companionship and accompaniment.

We were a gathering of Christians, but we realized that although we all believe in God, every culture deserves the right to interpret the stories, the language, and the concepts of the Bible in ways that are meaningful to them. Fortunately, that recognition is gaining ground around the world, contesting the earlier missionary idea that sought to convert everyone around a single, mostly Eurocentric intepretation. My own spin on this idea is to refer to folklore, which amply demonstrates how the essential message of Creation, of man's subsequent alienation from the Creator, concepts of good and evil, and so on, appear in the indigenous mythology of people all over the world.

We learned a great deal, challenging the very ideas and beliefs that many of us, perhaps most, had hitherto taken for granted. We thereby laid the groundwork for future retreats, by raising so many questions requiring further reflection.