Hannah Rasmussen is the Acquisitions Editor at Oasis International Ltd. She grew up in Tanzania and Kenya as a missionary kid. She studied English and Sociology at Macalester College in Minnesota (USA). Through leadership opportunities in campus ministry and a church internship, God called her to ministry. She was also an editorial manager on the Africa Study Bible.
She has written several articles, and the books: Good News about Gender: A Bible Study for Young Adults and Faithful Servants: The Legacy of Virgil & Ruth Rasmussen.
She spoke with Church Times’ Gbenga Osinaike on the Africa Study Bible at a conference of writers in Ghana organized by Media Associate International. Find below
What is Oasis International Limited about?
Oasis International Limited is a Christian publisher of books for Africa and Africans. It is also the Publisher of The Africa Study Bible. Our fundraising is done in the US. But we work in Anglophone Africa majorly. We are committed to discipleship by publishing African voices. We do this by engaging Africa’s most influential, most relevant, and best communicators for the sake of the Gospel. We also cultivate local and global partnerships in order to publish and distribute high- quality books and Bibles. We create contextual content that meets the specific needs of Africa with the aim of transforming lives and giving Africa a global voice. Our goal is to satisfy Africa’s thirst for God’s Word.
Why concentrate your efforts on Africa?
Our founder, Elliot used to work with Tyndale Publishing House in international distribution and he saw that there were many barriers accessing Christian books and Bibles when he travelled to various countries in Africa. That was how he got the passion to fill that need. That is why he started the organisation. There was originally some work in the Caribbean way back in the early days. But Nigeria is one of the earliest places we found bookstores to help Christian publishers come up.
Is it that he felt Africans did not have access to good books or that the books were not authored by Africans?
There were a lot of imported contents and a lot of logistics and bureaucracy to get good books in Africa. He wanted to deal with some of those challenges. That was his original motivation.
So you publish for African authors basically?
Our aim is to publish what is relevant to the needs of leaders in Africa and Africans in general. We want to also elevate African authors to participate in the global conversation in the church. The best way to do this is to promote the works of Africans.
The Africa Study Bible seems to be your flagship product. What is it about?
The Africa Study Bible is the most advanced biblical resource to date in the world. There are over 350 contributors from 50 countries. They wrote from the point of view of application. They deal with the issue of how we apply the Bible to our lives within the Africa milieu. We have a variety of different features in the Bible. But the main text is the Bible. We used the New Living Translation for our translation because it is quite readable and accessible. We have a full-page spread which includes application notes to apply to the reality we might face as Christians in Africa. We have stories from which we can value traditional wisdom and relate them with the Bible. We have the touchpoint portion of the Bible which are areas that speak to Africa. The notion of sacrifice which is a common practice in Africa for instance has a parallel in the Bible. If you come from such background, you can appreciate how the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross relates to the African world view. Africans can understand why sacrifices were made in the Bible. We have a lot of other relevant themes that are relevant in the African context. We also have notes which give us a quick overview of doctrines.
To what extent then, does the African culture correlate with the Bible from the compilation of the Africa Study Bible?
Every culture is a reflection of a God-created element of God’s design for humanity and also the fallen nature of man. There are so many values in African cultures. There are a lot of biblical stories happening in agricultural context, communal nature of Africa, context of other religions, belief in the future realm. Some of those are similarities that are in Africa which the West has lost. These values enable Africa and indeed those in the other parts of the world to see the Bible with fresh eyes.
Some people believe missionaries who brought the gospel to Africa did not contextualize the gospel when they brought it. Do you agree with this view?
I think that it is difficult for somebody who has not been in a different culture to actually know the differences they are bringing. It is somewhat inevitable that you will bring your own culture when you go somewhere because the only way you know the gospel, is in a culture. The gospel does not exist outside of a culture.
Jesus did not exist imaginarily. He was a Jew. He was in a culture and a historical context. But I think the problem is when you don’t have the humility to acknowledge that up till now this is what you know and that what you know may be in conflicts with what others know. Will you listen to that perspective and learn from it or will you insist that your views are the best. That is where the problem comes. When missionaries are not willing to learn from the existing culture, it leads to some problem of some sort. When they insist on that in a proud way, they can leave a very negative legacy of more of their own culture rather than how the gospel fits into the context of their host community and what they can learn from them.
Is the study Bible, then a way of contextualizing the gospel?
Yes. Because people from across the continent wrote about issues of the Bible from their own cultural context. So we can learn from their context and get a richer view that the church needs about the gospel.
Are there issues within the African context that are anti-Bible, how did you address this in the Africa Study Bible?
We all have areas we are deviating from scriptures. One of the issues we identified and addressed quite clearly in the compilation is the notion of going to diviners and other gods to get what you want in life. The Bible is very clear that it is wrong to trust other gods. We brought that out in the study Bible that we can’t trust in charms and diviners. There are a few other areas that conflict with the African culture that we have to make the stand of the Bible known.
In Africa, people consult herbalists and they are given objects to help in their quest for a solution. We also have a similar parallel among evangelicals who use faith extenders. How will you react to this?
The issue is addressed in the Bible. I won’t be able to address it in this interview. I know about it, but I won’t do justice to it the way it is addressed in the Africa Study Bible.
How relevant are Africans to the Christian faith?
We talk about the history of Christianity, but nobody talks about all the Africans who contributed to the growth of Christianity. That is why at the Back of the Africa Study Bible, we have a timeline on the history of Christianity in Africa. The portion is titled, God’s work in Africa.
Africans were part of the early church. Christianity arrived in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century. By the end of the 2nd century, it had reached the region around Carthage. Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo. In the 4th century, the Aksumite Empire was Christianized, and the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia followed two centuries later. Tertullian propounded the doctrine of the trinity.
We have quoted the original works of these people in the Bible. People don’t remember them but we have remembered them now in the timeline to show that Christianity did not come to African through the white people, it is not an import. It is part of our heritage even before some of those traditional religions. I can be Christian and African and appreciate that the Christian faith is a better expression of my culture. The growth of Christianity in Libya, Ethiopia in the first century was phenomenal. The Christian faith is something we can be proud of as our heritage. Some of the greatest theologians were Africans. Many of them lived a thousand years before Martin Luther the reformer and some of the other celebrated fathers of faith came on the scene. Early martyrs of the church were Africans.
So in essence Africans lost the gospel at a point?
The truth is there has never been a time the gospel has not been in Africa. North Africa used to be the stronghold of Christianity before Islam came and wiped out Christians. It was in DRC and some Portuguese speaking African countries. But then, some parts of the continent lost it for some time until the missionaries brought it back to Africa. All these are illustrated in the timeline of the Africa Study Bible.