I am grateful to Robert Priest who is the president of the American Missiological Society, and was the first reader for my Ph.D dissertation at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for writing the foreword to the book. Dr. Priest has done significant research in related areas as mine and his insight gives an important framework for the book. The following excerpt from A Common Mission is used with permission from Wipf &Stock Publishers.
by David Wesley A recent article in The Guardian questions how efforts to raise funds for Africa such as the recent Band Aid video often portrays the difference between Africans and those giving the funding in disparaging ways. Conducting research that supports A Common Mission led to some unexpected discoveries. One of these was the way that Africans perceived their partners in the U.S. and conversely how those in the U.S. perceived their partners in Africa. Beyond interviews I collected videos, articles and other information in which those in the U.S. described their partners in Africa. Relationships that are heavily dependent on donors affect how congregations frame the ‘other’. Stories that are told and images used for securing funds may frame people in the host country in ways that depict the enormous difference between the donor and the recipient demonstrating bleak situations through the use of pictures that emphasize the extreme poverty. An issue of the Internationa
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