Jim Harries
Jim Harries, (PhD University of Birmingham, UK) originally from UK, has lived in Siaya, western Kenya, since 1993 (previously, since 1988, in NW Province of Zambia). Jim is the chairman of the AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission); he encourages people to do mission and development work using indigenous languages and resources. Jim believes that context is important to scholarship. Hence he communicates important contextual impacts on understanding arising from contemporary Africa. His primary work, in addition to research and writing, is bible teaching using African languages (Luo and Swahili) especially with indigenous churches. Jim is adjunct faculty at William Carey International University in California.
Jim is particularly occupied in promoting vulnerable mission (vulnerablemission.org):
Alliance for Vulnerable Mission Purpose Statement
Vulnerable mission aims to encourage cross-cultural workers to follow the humble example of Jesus, who demonstrated His vulnerability in part by living like the Jews of His time and place. Examples of humble vulnerability include but are not limited to carrying out ministry in culturally appropriate ways, refusing a high-status position, learning a local language, and avoiding the use of imported resources in favor of local ones.
Introduction to AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission)
The AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) seeks to encourage wider use of mission and development strategies that depend on locally available resources and local languages. These strategies are “vulnerable” in the sense that they do not have fringe benefits built into them, deliberately or otherwise. They will therefore fail unless or until there is strong local confidence in their spiritual or developmental value. The missionary or development worker will allow them to fail rather than prop them up with outside money.
“Vulnerable mission” may be seen as part of the movement toward contextualization of the Gospel of Jesus, which we regard as the theory of many and the practice of few. We would like to see more people take the risks of contextualization and vulnerability in order to reap the rewards that only come to those who value local resources and invest in local languages. If local tools seem slow or weak by comparison with foreign money and English (Spanish etc. – European language), then we say with a wise missionary of long ago, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10) While vulnerable mission may not be the only biblical approach to mission, it deserves much more attention than it has been getting. Let’s talk.
Safeguarding Statement
I believe that all people are valuable and worthy of both respect and care, because they are made in the image of God. I believe that God is the defender of the vulnerable and that the Lord Jesus cares for and values all children.
I believe I have a responsibility, before God, to care for children and vulnerable adults I come across and to protect them from harm. I recognise that this harm may be intentional or unintentional, may come from a parent, another adult or child, or even from the child’s own actions.
This safeguarding policy is designed to reduce the risk of harm to children and vulnerable people with who I come into contact.
We expect every individual to be treated with dignity, care and respect. All should earnestly strive to protect vulnerable people from harm and seriously address concerns and safety issues, which may include physical harm, sexual harm, emotional harm, self-harm and neglect.
Any concerns: please contact [email protected]
Phone: +254721804282
Address: PO Box 932 - 40610
Yala
Jim is particularly occupied in promoting vulnerable mission (vulnerablemission.org):
Alliance for Vulnerable Mission Purpose Statement
Vulnerable mission aims to encourage cross-cultural workers to follow the humble example of Jesus, who demonstrated His vulnerability in part by living like the Jews of His time and place. Examples of humble vulnerability include but are not limited to carrying out ministry in culturally appropriate ways, refusing a high-status position, learning a local language, and avoiding the use of imported resources in favor of local ones.
Introduction to AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission)
The AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) seeks to encourage wider use of mission and development strategies that depend on locally available resources and local languages. These strategies are “vulnerable” in the sense that they do not have fringe benefits built into them, deliberately or otherwise. They will therefore fail unless or until there is strong local confidence in their spiritual or developmental value. The missionary or development worker will allow them to fail rather than prop them up with outside money.
“Vulnerable mission” may be seen as part of the movement toward contextualization of the Gospel of Jesus, which we regard as the theory of many and the practice of few. We would like to see more people take the risks of contextualization and vulnerability in order to reap the rewards that only come to those who value local resources and invest in local languages. If local tools seem slow or weak by comparison with foreign money and English (Spanish etc. – European language), then we say with a wise missionary of long ago, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10) While vulnerable mission may not be the only biblical approach to mission, it deserves much more attention than it has been getting. Let’s talk.
Safeguarding Statement
I believe that all people are valuable and worthy of both respect and care, because they are made in the image of God. I believe that God is the defender of the vulnerable and that the Lord Jesus cares for and values all children.
I believe I have a responsibility, before God, to care for children and vulnerable adults I come across and to protect them from harm. I recognise that this harm may be intentional or unintentional, may come from a parent, another adult or child, or even from the child’s own actions.
This safeguarding policy is designed to reduce the risk of harm to children and vulnerable people with who I come into contact.
We expect every individual to be treated with dignity, care and respect. All should earnestly strive to protect vulnerable people from harm and seriously address concerns and safety issues, which may include physical harm, sexual harm, emotional harm, self-harm and neglect.
Any concerns: please contact [email protected]
Phone: +254721804282
Address: PO Box 932 - 40610
Yala
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (34)
Uploads
Papers by Jim Harries
Timothy Larsen's article is as follows: Timothy Larsen, “British Social Anthropologists and Missionaries in the Twentieth Century,” On Knowing Humanity 8, no. 2 (July 2024).
Timothy Larsen's article is as follows: Timothy Larsen, “British Social Anthropologists and Missionaries in the Twentieth Century,” On Knowing Humanity 8, no. 2 (July 2024).
This presentation examines the principle widely known in educational circles, that one should know one’s students, interculturally between the West and Africa. Because a teacher is a translator of knowledge who seeks to aid the learning of his students, I call this ‘translating into the known’. To impart education while not knowing your students, I consider to be ‘translation into the unknown’. African people’s use of English, and Western people’s desperate efforts to undergird waning secular presuppositions, forces both to communicate into the unknown. A case study is used to illustrate the problems that result. This case study considers the contrast between the sacred and the holy in relation to biomedical practice, with respect to healing. This topic is chosen because of its pivotal importance to human thriving. Pragmatic reasons underlying preferences for communication into the unknown are shown to be at the root of much intercultural confusion. Stemming the confusion requires overt acknowledgement of the impact of Christianity on Europe’s history. Serious efforts should be made at laying a foundation for comprehension of well-being in Africa that goes beyond imitation and a search for short-term benefits.
This was a lecture designed for presentation at a North American seminary, until covid-19 put paid to 'live' travel.
BBC Reports on Coronavirus in Africa
Reflection: My Dilemma in East Africa Related to Covid-19 Personal reflections by Jim Harries on life in Africa during the pandemic.
Dying of hunger or falling ill: Africa's dilemma facing the coronavirus Some thoughts presented in the Kenya media.
India coronavirus: The 'mystery' of low Covid-19 death rates why are covid-19 death rates so low in India?
Non-Covid Virus Content
Orthoproxy: Ethical Storytelling in Cross-cultural Engagement - by M. Andrew Gale
WEA launching free online journal by Bruce Barron
Reflection: Covid-19: an analysis from an East African Perspective.
BELOW ARE NOT PEER-REVIEWED SHORT-ARTICLES BY JIM HARRIES
Covid-19. Three Old Men Sat on a Bench discussing the insistence that greedy ghosts be fed bounteous portions of fresh beef
Why Scientists shouldn’t be leading the way out of the Coronavirus crisis: 10 reasons from Africa.
Covid-19 and revenge on the dead / dependence on the dead in Africa today.
The Covid-19 pandemic with respect to Africa, in historical-economic perspective
A Snapshot of Life in Africa in Covid-19 Times
Chapter 2: I was struck by the contents of a sermon in 2010 at a church in Kenya. It was presented in the Luo language and translated into Swahili. The categories being employed by the speaker were, in terms of Western language(s), especially English, incongruous. This is despite their apparently tallying with four very ordinary English words; money, hope, fear, and love. Correct comprehension of what was being said required me to draw on learning I had achieved impressionistically, i.e., insights I had picked up “subjectively” through sharing life with Luo people over an extended period. I could not easily quantify or even outline these insights, that certainly had no objective origins.
Chapter 3. This short chapter imagines Africans as dairy farmers and Westerners as sheep farmers. Contrasting two different husbandry practices clarifies differences that may be less clear-cut between cultures. Thus the folly of the use of one language across cultural difference, i.e., use of Western languages in Africa, is exposed.
Chapter 4. The notion that literacy might be of other than religious / esoteric value (being a product of Protestantism) raises questions regarding its contemporary spread, and the extent to which literacy may still be considered inherently religious / esoteric. This chapter proposes profound implications arising from consideration of this, arguably, contextual difference between Western and non-Western Englishes.
Chapter 5. Many scholars producing academic writing on Africa quickly learn to beware the “sin of generalizing”—which is essentially to assume that diverse African peoples have things in common, that are not found in the West. Such prohibition of so-called “generalization” is used to maintain an apparent universal direct relevance of Western scholarship in Africa.
Chapter 6. This chapter contains a fuller articulation of a greater number of arguments that seek to qualify today’s prohibition of generalization. It thus renders both African communality, cultural facets of people’s lives that are similar across Africa, and the work of the gospel, visible.
Chapter 7. A general invisibility of translation has, in recent decades, popularized the incorrect assumption that profound bodies of interconnected knowledge that affect the whole of life, can simply be transferred wholesale from one language to another. Because information is always domesticated into its target language and culture, a process that requires a very profound knowledge of that target, translation from unknown to known, must always be prioritized over that from known to unknown. The impact of this vitally important principle being these days largely ignored is potentially catastrophic!
Chapter 8. Human satisfaction is often supplemented by the suffering, failure, or even death of others. This is metonymically represented by the shedding of blood. The rejection by modern thinking of “traditional” logic—that sees shedding blood as healing—has transformed African solutions to coronavirus into fake news. This chapter explores implications of this kind of transformation.
Chapter 9. Conventional Western and modern ways of considering and evaluating Africa are faulty. This chapter points to the nature of such faultiness, such as the expectation that use of English can be adequate and helpful for delineating indigenous African categories. The chapter draws on work of the late French scholar René Girard as the basis for a proposal regarding how to make sense of what is unconventional.
Chapter 10. Drawing heavily on insights from René Girard, “aggression” in African worship (shouting, screaming, noise in general, aggressive dancing, and so on) is connected to a desire for cleansing by imitating the lynching of a witch. When correctly focused as a reenactment of Christ’s death on the cross, this kind of activity should be understood as being a means of bringing healing / cleansing.
Chapter 11. This chapter explores theology as an alternative to rainmaking as foundation for leadership in Africa. Some peculiarities of African styles of worship appear to arise from rainmaking traditions, to which adherence to the Bible should be a marked improvement.
Chapter 12. While Bible translations are these days prolifically being produced, production of associated study texts in indigenous languages has to date proven stubbornly difficult. This chapter articulates such difficulty—and how to overcome it—with reference to Study Bible production.
Chapter 13. This chapter suggests that largely unrecognized sleight of hand has contributed to, if not formed, today’s logic in the West, that has many accepting the bogus straw-man category of “religion.” Once defined and accepted, “religion” can be considered no more than a primitive relic, and condemned! Associated historical naivety is denying people a knowledge of Christ!
Chapter 14. An impassioned plea is made for the reader of this chapter to cease being hoodwinked and misled by contemporary secular society, when it is evident that all that humans do is “religious,” including the roots of secularism itself.
Chapter 15. That African people might believe that God can protect them from the coronavirus might seem incredible in the West, but is very normal in parts of the continent. This coronavirus case study, written in 2020, considers numerous important ways in which policy makers must take African people’s belief in God seriously.
Chapter 16. Was pre-colonial Africa peaceful, healthy, and prosperous? Today’s problems in Africa are often blamed on colonialism, modernity, and even Christianity. Pre-colonial Africa, though, was not free from fujo (a Swahili term meaning destructive mayhem). This chapter draws heavily on the work of the late Tanzanian novelist Euphrase Kezilahabi, interpreted through a lens of long-term close living and exposure to East African people.
Chapter 17. Compulsory church attendance was once widespread in Europe. This historical requirement makes up part of the history of the contemporary West. Contemporary deploring and mockery of the notion that perhaps “religion” should be enforced at government level may or may not be appropriate in today’s West, but mocking the role of government in “religion” may not be helpful for some in the non-West. Such disparaging of government involvement can be considered “evil” if it results in a wanton depreciation of something that carries many important benefits to human society.
Chapter 18. The West is adamant that racism is wrong. It rarely considers, however, the foundations on which its opposition to racism is built. One such foundation I here critique, is secularism. That is, the assumption of normality to which racism is considered antagonistic, is secular. The power of the West is such as to spread this assumption globally: African people must be treated as if they are secular, wherever they are! This conceals the religiosity of African people, in the interests of not being racist.
Chapter 19. Digging a little into the nature of some indigenous African categories of thought related to the English concept of emotion, reveals ways of identifying what Africans mean by “poverty.” Comprehensions of African terms frequently used to translate English terms like that of poverty may seem, from a secular vantage point, to be out of this world! Amongst other things, exploration of implicit indigenous African categories of thought and understanding reveal English comprehensions of African ways of life, and the concomitant prescriptions for action, to be compromised by their own illogicality.
Chapter 20. “Vulnerable” approaches to majority world people, as defined in this text, permit an otherwise largely unmatched deep level of cultural comprehension. This chapter considers the implications of such an approach’s revealing that world religions, considered by many to have some kind of objective existence, are reifications of the meeting of non-Western ways of life and Christianity. The implications of this nature of world religions are explored in this chapter.
Chapter 21. How one uses language is key to on-the-ground ministry. Asking questions for which no answers are available or admissible reveals one’s ignorance. Language can reflect truth, or it can build truth. The availability of funding can create its own truths. Telling the truth about Africans can be interpreted as theft if the truth would result in a potential donor not supporting a project. Telling the truth to Africans about how people live in the West can generate envy. Some truths are plainly untranslatable.
Chapter 22. Well-connected Western missionaries carrying out ministry drawing on access they have to outside resources, and their mastery of the globalized language of English, build on what is not locally available. All too often this, unhelpfully, forces them to minister through saying, “do what I say,” rather than “do what I do.”
Chapter 23. While “guilt” may be an unpleasant feeling, this chapter points to ways in which it is much more desirable than are either fear or shame. The chapter explains, in relation to evident characteristics of many contemporary African communities, how Christianity is appreciated for moving people from fear of ancestral revenge, and from fear of shame, to guilt, for which they can be forgiven.
Chapter 24. It may not be helpful for talking to jump ahead of action. Verbally declaring something to be the case, before it actually is the case, may deter those who are preoccupied into making it the case from their endeavor. So use of Western languages that presuppose open altruism can delay adoption of open altruism by African people.
Chapter 25. This chapter is a study of the amazing love of God in intercultural context.
The author is interviewed about the book here: https://youtu.be/mCJazxisaWk
Another interview with the author: https://youtu.be/6ZNWZys3ZsE and https://youtu.be/mCJazxisaWk
Available on amazon.co.uk here: https://tinyurl.com/r44b73n
Available in the USA here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1913181642
Available over kindle internationally.
Available from publisher: https://www.faithbuilders.org.uk/product/how-western-anti-racism-harms-africa-and-how-we-can-do-better/
An academic review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14769948.2022.2039857
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8RGPESHYFDPHVV58T4JJ/full?target=10.1080/14769948.2022.2039857 (50 free copies available)
Another academic review: http://ojs.globalmissiology.org/index.php/english/article/view/2775/6878
Another review:
https://www.academia.edu/127884177/Comment_on_How_Western_Anti_Racism_Harms_Africa_and_How_We_Can_Do_Better_by_Jim_Harries_Chichester_Faithbuilders_2021_206_pp_12_ISBN_978_1_9131_8164_2
Basic information:
This book addresses a highly sensitive topic. The book has a simple goal: to demonstrate how anti-racism in the West, perhaps unintentionally, is undermining the cultures and the development of sub-Saharan African peoples, especially by concealing the work of and need for the Gospel.
Western secularists like to think that secularism is universal, and that there are a number of religions. This text advances the position that there is one God who gave us the Gospel, who is universal, and that there are different ways of life, including that of secularism.
What the West rarely seems to consider is the effect that today’s anti-racism has as a result of making it taboo to assume people to be not-secular. It thus renders non-Western understandings of people’s lives illegal or illegitimate and delegitimizes non-Western people’s understandings of themselves. For African people, to be honest about yourself can mean being racist in Western eyes.
Undermining other people’s efforts (especially in Africa) at working out their own future, by classifying their own view of themselves as racist, is a way of constantly stalling whatever plans Africans make for themselves. This leaves everyone dependent on Western charity.
Drawing heavily on my personal experience as a British native living in East Africa for over thirty years, I propose a response to this threat to non-Western sensibilities, as far as the West is concerned, from the perspective of “vulnerable mission.” That is, I propose that some Western individuals should engage in close, long-term identification with African peoples, mediated through African languages, and that they resist the tendency to seek to purchase power over Africa by means of outside funds or influence. This kind of exposure by Westerners to non-Western cultures, I believe, will in due course reveal the folly of some types of contemporary anti-racism.
Book Review of African Heartbeat: A Novel
March 9, 2018
Beth Snodderly
This book review was originally published in the William Carey International Development Journal. One of the key themes in the book being reviewed, dependency, has been a frequent theme in the journal Ralph Winter founded and edited, Mission Frontiers. Glenn Schwartz was a frequent contributor on that theme and one of his earlier articles, “How Missionary Attitudes Can Create Dependency,” has a lot in common with some of the themes this novel illustrates.
In his novel, African Heartbeat and a Vulnerable Fool, WCIU adjunct faculty member Jim Harries gives the Western reader an opportunity to vicariously experience an immersion in African cultures with all the confusing realities. It is based on true stories and events, and takes place in the fictional African country of Holima.
Presenting “novel” concepts in fictional form is a good way to get past peoples’ initial resistance to some of the “vulnerable mission” thinking Jim Harries has been trying for years to get across to Western mission agencies and workers. The descriptions of the people and surroundings are compelling. Through interesting dialog and circumstances we learn about the dilemma of a white missionary, Philo, wondering if he should do things the African way along with the humble acknowledgment that he doesn’t know the answers. Many interesting adventures illustrate the African way of life in contrast to the missionaries’ comfortable, more luxurious lives.
Compelling stories enable readers to discover for themselves numerous cultural misunderstandings. Among the difficult issues raised in the narrative are the problems with the use of English instead of African languages, style of punishment, sustainability of capitalism in Africa, African vs. Western leadership of institutions, sense of time, foreign money and gifts, different ways of reasoning, understanding of land, work ethic, the reasons for poverty, what is poverty, Western assumptions that do not fit the cultural context, witchcraft, exorcism of demons, “what is truth?”, dependency, outside resources, the possibility of development, and problems caused by Western generosity,
This book would be a good resource for prospective cross-cultural workers to help them be aware of what they are “going to meet up with” (p. 165). Order information for the book, published in the UK, is located here.
This will be a three-day residential conference. It will be held in September 2021 in the English country house at the attractive rural location of the UK’s premier missionary training college, near Ware in Hertfordshire.
Outside Christian workers who build on foreign presuppositions in work amongst indigenous communities can, especially when foreign funded and using outside languages, be interpreted as riding roughshod over indigenous sensibilities. True empowerment of local people requires getting alongside them. This necessitates vulnerability to their position and context. Such vulnerability can best be achieved if one shares the Gospel using indigenous languages utilising local resources.
Sana sana Kenya, tuna makanisa yaliyoanzishwa bara hii ya Afrika, ambayo hayawategemee Wazungu kwa mali au maarifa. Uhusiano na makanisa hayo yanaweza kutusaidia kufahamu jinsi ya kuujenga msingi usiokuwa na utegemeo/tegemezi wa nje na usiofaa kwa kanisa la Afrika.
Wamisionari wazungu wengine wanahitaji kuhimizwe wafanye huduma zao kupitia lugha na utamaduni wa wale wenyeji ambao wanajaribu kuwafikia na injili.
Lengo la mwalimu pia ni kwamba ajifunze kutoka kwa wanafunzi kulingana na uzoefu wa muda mrefu walio nao wengi wao.
If this article is a correct representation of anthropologists’ faith in the man-made dualistic distinction between natural and supernatural, real and unreal, mind and matter, and other elements of Cartesian thinking, then we should be very alert to ways in which anthropological work can mislead.
Dr. Jim Harries lives out his faith in Christ among a people he dearly loves, serving humbly and wholly. His deep respect for African ways and his commitment to the African church community resonate in his writings. This particular work can be easily misunderstood, as it addresses controversial intercultural issues pertaining to race and racism, using contemporary terms which are defined and understood differently by persons with opposing views on the subject. The title may, in itself, be off-putting, but begs for serious engagement. Harries is neither a provocateur nor zealot. However, he speaks boldly and honestly against what he considers an insidious and harmful ideology.
Deumert, Ana & Storch, Anne & Shepherd, Nick, (eds.) 2020, Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics: Knowledges and Epistemes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Although what contributors have written is diverse in its own way, they all run up against, and respond to, the same blind spot. Knowledge of the 'missing blind spot' enables, according to this reviewer, a simple response to most of the issues raised, and unveiling of the mystery that both puzzles contributors, and provides their 'ammunition'.
"This is why Reynolds can consider the ‘cult of normalcy’ to be a “moral evil.” By prompting us to flee from our vulnerabilities (such as the ability to not only ‘suffer the other’, but also to truly love them), encouraging us to purchase recognition, the cult of normalcy seeks to deprive us of the very relationships, including relationship with God, that are the stuff of life, of true value, genuine welcome, faithfulness to one another, commitment in the face of adversity and so on; even of life to eternity."
This review of chapter 6 of: Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, 2016, Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. London: Routledge and Francis Group engages this process.
This review of Simonse’s book is designed for a missiological readership. The book could also be of great value to people concerned with the Southern Sudanese context. It throws much light on indigenous ethnicities and their internal and external relationships, extending back over two centuries. It is a worthy ground-up advocacy for the ongoing relevance of Girardian thinking.
I’d be interested in comments on what I see as ‘work in progress’ trying to unravel an important puzzle!
Anayetaka nimtumie tafsiri mzima, aniandikia hapa: [email protected]
Is Education a time-bomb?
Holding Out
Phenomenal
You’ve denied me a wife!
The Gap
Cognitive ‘Science’ is Theology; ‘scientists’ renege on heliocentrism.
https://missiology.org.uk/journal_alliance-for-vulnerable-mission-01.php
To receive for free, write to [email protected]
To see promotional video, go here: https://youtu.be/jDfPqCCg46o
Conference: Missionaries: aliens, providers, or fellow travellers?
(UK. 8th to 11th December 2019)
Should the majority world be the target of patronage from rich missionaries?
Outside Christian workers who build on foreign presuppositions in work amongst indigenous communities can, especially when foreign funded and using outside languages, be interpreted as riding roughshod over indigenous sensibilities. True empowerment of local people requires getting alongside them. This necessitates vulnerability to their position and context. Such vulnerability can best be achieved if one shares the Gospel using indigenous languages utilising local resources.