exile

I come to this issue as a legal immigrant in this country.

Let me describe to you the immigration process as my family has experienced it. We arrived with temporary visas. It took two years to gain permanent, legal status or a Green Card. After this long, difficult and expensive process, we are now described as “legal resident aliens.”

Even the fact that it is called alien is significant in this regard. Our experience in this country, and we come from Australia which is so similar, we come with the English language, with the support of a large community, with the benefit of lawyers who have helped the process along, is that it is a tough process.

How hard must it be for someone without English as a first language, without support structures, coming from a completely different culture, to arrive and deal with the legal and administrative challenges, not to mention the human challenge of adjusting to a new culture?

The Bible and Global Trends in Christianity- by Ian Lawton (www.christ-community.net )

Jos is a province in Nigeria. Between 2000 and 2005, 50,000 people were killed or expelled through inter-religious fighting. Conflicts between Christians and Muslims, such as that in Jos, are mirrored across Africa and Asia. It’s a trend that is defining global Christianity, as more American evangelicals find their networks in Africa and Asia. It’s also a trend that reveals the double edged role of the Bible; both as justification for political agenda when read literally, and as a potential agent for global healing when read as life affirming myth.

Consider these emerging trends:
1. In 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians representing 10 percent of the population; by 2000, that was up 360 million, or 46 percent of the population. That is the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in the history of religion. All denominations have been growing, and Anglicanism in particular. The worldwide Anglican Church is going to be overwhelmingly an African body in the near future.