Papers by Patrick Brittenden
Routledge eBooks, Sep 26, 2023
Liberating Liminality: Mission in the North African Berber Context , 2018
This chapter will take you on a brief tour of the development of Islam in Berber North Africa. Li... more This chapter will take you on a brief tour of the development of Islam in Berber North Africa. Like a good tour guide, I will point out key features along our route. We won’t be able to stop everywhere, but my task will be to remove some of the unfamiliarity most feel as they look out the window through which we observe this part of the Muslim world. I will endeavor to point out the paradox of particularity and universality in Berber expressions of Islam in North Africa.
In the first phase of our tour, Islamic expansion, I will point out some key features in the historical expansion of Islam in this context. The second phase, Berber resistance, will explore the motif of a far-reaching anthropology of resistance amongst Berbers. The third phase, a particular-yet-universal orientation, will point out the tension (sometimes creative, sometimes destructive) between the ‘particular’ and the ‘universal’ in Berber history. In the final and longest phase, I will suggest how a lens of liberating liminality might enable cross-cultural workers to more faithfully and fruitfully perform God’s mission in and beyond North Africa.
This study is based on qualitative research in the field of practical theology. It is a theologic... more This study is based on qualitative research in the field of practical theology. It is a theological reflection on the practices of teaching and learning in the Muslim-background Church of Algeria. It reflects on the development of this Church with a view to ensuring its critically faithful participation in the continuing mission of the triune God. It seeks to explain and evaluate appropriate pedagogy for the development of the Church in the local and universal context of national Algerian identity and World Christianity. The journey of this thesis explores what it might look like to have a nuanced understanding of the indigenous Church as it develops in the cultural, religious and educational context of Algeria. It observes that in multiple ways, the experience of the Algerian Church is liminal. It also identifies the way in which a negative experience of liminality has been an impediment to the development of a coherent Algerian Christian identity, to the Church’s progress and development in Algeria, and to its place in the movement of World Christianity. However, it then moves on to argue how and why this context may be viewed positively, suggesting that the paradox of liminality can be viewed as a positive ‘state’ pregnant with potential for Algerian Christians. It concludes with a proposal for a framework of liberating liminal pedagogy, which is an invitation for the Algerian Church to engage in Christian education and theological training in the context of the Church’s Theo-dramatic performance of God’s mission. This leads to an overall attitude and commitment to continual praxis, which integrates local identity and Christian maturity through a multidimensional cognitive, affective and behavioural training process
Oxford University Research Archive , 2018
This study is based on qualitative research in the field of practical theology. It is a theologic... more This study is based on qualitative research in the field of practical theology. It is a theological reflection on the practices of teaching and learning in the Muslim-background Church of Algeria. It reflects on the development of this Church with a view to ensuring its critically faithful participation in the continuing mission of the triune God. It seeks to explain and evaluate appropriate pedagogy for the development of the Church in the local and universal context of national Algerian identity and World Christianity. The journey of this thesis explores what it might look like to have a nuanced understanding of the indigenous Church as it develops in the cultural, religious and educational context of Algeria. It observes that in multiple ways, the experience of the Algerian Church is liminal. It also identifies the way in which a negative experience of liminality has been an impediment to the development of a coherent Algerian Christian identity, to the Church’s progress and development in Algeria, and to its place in the movement of World Christianity. However, it then moves on to argue how and why this context may be viewed positively, suggesting that the paradox of liminality can be viewed as a positive ‘state’ pregnant with potential for Algerian Christians. It concludes with a proposal for a framework of liberating liminal pedagogy, which is an invitation for the Algerian Church to engage in Christian education and theological training in the context of the Church’s Theo-dramatic performance of God’s mission. This leads to an overall attitude and commitment to continual praxis, which integrates local identity and Christian maturity through a multidimensional cognitive, affective and behavioural training process.
Books by Patrick Brittenden
Movements in Iran and Algeria: The Second-Generation Challenge, 2021
This Chapter 19 - co-authored with Rania Mostofi - in Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple ... more This Chapter 19 - co-authored with Rania Mostofi - in Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations, Ed. Warrick Farah, William Carey (2021) explores the challenge of second generation (children growing up to convert parents) for the movements to Christ in Iran and Algeria. It is an is an invitation to reflect critically upon the faithfulness and effectiveness of movements as they move from the first to the second social and familial generation. explore the various dimensions of the second-generation challenge as it manifests itself in Iran and Algeria. Through this discussion, our aim is to highlight key areas of ecclesial practice that need reviving in both movements so that they are positioned to experience a flourishing multi-generational future. Though our reflections are specific to Iran and Algeria, our hope is that the deliberations offered might also resonate with other contexts.
Christianity in the Maghrib , 2023
This chapter explores the serial movement of Christianity throughout its history in the Maghrib. ... more This chapter explores the serial movement of Christianity throughout its history in the Maghrib. With an emphasis on their socio-political and ethnographic rather than theological dimensions, the author draws out the tensions in the polarity between: centres and margins, the universal and the particular, and between East and West in both Christianity and the Amazigh population of the Maghrib. It presents an overview of the historical and geographical particularities of the Maghrib, the key features of the arrival of Christianity, its growth from being a minority faith to becoming the religion of the empire in Roman times, followed by the story of Christianity’s subsequent decline and eventual disappearance in the late twelfth century. In addition to presenting Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary activity in the Colonial era it traces the presence of sub-Saharan African immigrant Christian communities in the late twentieth century and finally, surveys the development of some indigenous Christian communities across the Maghrib today.
Betwixt and Between Liminality and Marginality: Mind The Gap, 2023
Algeria’s ontological quest is a struggle with its own liminality as a nation; from being a depar... more Algeria’s ontological quest is a struggle with its own liminality as a nation; from being a department of France under the French colonial administration, to an independent nation fashioned in shape of the single party socialist Arab and Muslim nation, to today’s 'tentative' expression of a modern reformed Muslim pluralist civil society. Both French colonial (West-facing) and Arab-Salafist (East-facing) factors have shaped the national identity of Algeria. For over fifty years since its independence the only official narrative binding Algeria’s collective national identity has been the mantra of the FLNs ‘glorious liberation struggle’. Today, the unwillingness of most Algerians to accept the legitimacy of this official narrative is one of the factors behind the recent Hirak protest movement across Algeria. Additionally, the imposed and problematic ‘non-negotiable’ Arab-Islamic centrism upon which the nation’s ontology and teleology was founded, is today, being resisted by numerous different elements of Algerian society.
The presence and growth of the Algerian Church, primarily though not exclusively amongst Kabyles, is challenging the Arab-Islamist formulae of national identity and contributing to the struggle to re-define it. Whilst this formula (or centrism) has been an obstacle to the Church's development, this chapter explores the movement from dehumanising to liberating liminality in Algerian Christian identity. It observes that the liminal state of the Algerian Church mirrors the liminality of Algerian nation identity. Additionally, it argues that the liminality of Kabyle self-expression in the margins of Algeria’s ‘official’ national identity is mirrored the particularity of contemporary Algerian Christianity in margins of Universal Church. Algerian Christians clearly articulate their sense of belonging to a universal Christian Church called to a worldwide mission. However, they are also aware of the particularity of their place as Algerian believers, viewing themselves not primarily as a self-defensive ‘minority’ (a self-negating particularity), but rather as an Algerian ‘entity’ (a liberated and liberating particularity). By its presence and engagement, it is provoking Algerians to re-define old publicly affirmed solidarities and in so doing is taking its place in the liminality of Algeria’s ontological and teleological quest.
Book Reviews by Patrick Brittenden
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Papers by Patrick Brittenden
In the first phase of our tour, Islamic expansion, I will point out some key features in the historical expansion of Islam in this context. The second phase, Berber resistance, will explore the motif of a far-reaching anthropology of resistance amongst Berbers. The third phase, a particular-yet-universal orientation, will point out the tension (sometimes creative, sometimes destructive) between the ‘particular’ and the ‘universal’ in Berber history. In the final and longest phase, I will suggest how a lens of liberating liminality might enable cross-cultural workers to more faithfully and fruitfully perform God’s mission in and beyond North Africa.
Books by Patrick Brittenden
The presence and growth of the Algerian Church, primarily though not exclusively amongst Kabyles, is challenging the Arab-Islamist formulae of national identity and contributing to the struggle to re-define it. Whilst this formula (or centrism) has been an obstacle to the Church's development, this chapter explores the movement from dehumanising to liberating liminality in Algerian Christian identity. It observes that the liminal state of the Algerian Church mirrors the liminality of Algerian nation identity. Additionally, it argues that the liminality of Kabyle self-expression in the margins of Algeria’s ‘official’ national identity is mirrored the particularity of contemporary Algerian Christianity in margins of Universal Church. Algerian Christians clearly articulate their sense of belonging to a universal Christian Church called to a worldwide mission. However, they are also aware of the particularity of their place as Algerian believers, viewing themselves not primarily as a self-defensive ‘minority’ (a self-negating particularity), but rather as an Algerian ‘entity’ (a liberated and liberating particularity). By its presence and engagement, it is provoking Algerians to re-define old publicly affirmed solidarities and in so doing is taking its place in the liminality of Algeria’s ontological and teleological quest.
Book Reviews by Patrick Brittenden
In the first phase of our tour, Islamic expansion, I will point out some key features in the historical expansion of Islam in this context. The second phase, Berber resistance, will explore the motif of a far-reaching anthropology of resistance amongst Berbers. The third phase, a particular-yet-universal orientation, will point out the tension (sometimes creative, sometimes destructive) between the ‘particular’ and the ‘universal’ in Berber history. In the final and longest phase, I will suggest how a lens of liberating liminality might enable cross-cultural workers to more faithfully and fruitfully perform God’s mission in and beyond North Africa.
The presence and growth of the Algerian Church, primarily though not exclusively amongst Kabyles, is challenging the Arab-Islamist formulae of national identity and contributing to the struggle to re-define it. Whilst this formula (or centrism) has been an obstacle to the Church's development, this chapter explores the movement from dehumanising to liberating liminality in Algerian Christian identity. It observes that the liminal state of the Algerian Church mirrors the liminality of Algerian nation identity. Additionally, it argues that the liminality of Kabyle self-expression in the margins of Algeria’s ‘official’ national identity is mirrored the particularity of contemporary Algerian Christianity in margins of Universal Church. Algerian Christians clearly articulate their sense of belonging to a universal Christian Church called to a worldwide mission. However, they are also aware of the particularity of their place as Algerian believers, viewing themselves not primarily as a self-defensive ‘minority’ (a self-negating particularity), but rather as an Algerian ‘entity’ (a liberated and liberating particularity). By its presence and engagement, it is provoking Algerians to re-define old publicly affirmed solidarities and in so doing is taking its place in the liminality of Algeria’s ontological and teleological quest.