Under the Baobab Tree

December 1, 2006

International Partnerships

The picture on the video screen was striking: Desmond Tutu, sitting in the chapel where he prays each morning, in a posture of prayerful solitude. It was a beautiful scene, but what made it so striking was that it came at the end of a significant lecture at Duke Divinity School by Tutu’s biographer and colleague, John Allen. Allen’s excellent biography is entitled Rabble-Rouser for Peace, and his lecture focused on Tutu’s extraordinary life.

Students, staff and faculty alike were struck by the intersections of Tutu’s consistent, faithful prayer life and his courageous commitment to social justice. One student commented that “Tutu’s life shines as a light in a time of darkness,” while others noted how moved they were by learning more of the details of Tutu’s biography and the contours of his commitments.

We were privileged to co-host Mr. Allen for a visit while he was at Duke, a further expression of our close ties with South Africa. His account of Tutu’s life was stimulating, and over meals with students, staff and faculty he offered poignant perspectives on the church’s witness and failures during the apartheid era, the importance of courageous leadership, as well as comments about the challenges and opportunities facing the church in sub-Saharan Africa today.

One of the reasons John Allen’s visit went so well is that so many members of the Divinity School community have been to South Africa as a part of our partnership with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. Several of our current students have spent a summer doing field education in South Africa; almost 100 Divinity School students, staff, faculty and friends have gone on “pilgrimages of pain and hope” that are organized and led by Tiffney Marley, Director of the Office of Black Church Studies; and several of our faculty have spent one to two weeks teaching there at John Wesley College (the Methodist seminary near Pretoria). In addition, we have been blessed by South African presence at the Divinity School: faculty such as Peter Storey teaching classes each year on the church struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, extended visits from students such as Smanga Kumalo and faculty such as Neville Richardson, as well as shorter visits by several South African bishops and ministers.

These relationships mean that a visit such as John Allen’s have an impact far beyond a single lecture about another area of the world. The South African church’s struggles and hopes, griefs and joys, challenges and opportunities have become part of the landscape of conversations about Christian ministry in the Divinity School. We have been blessed to be challenged by exemplars of courageous and faithful leadership, even as we have also been compelled to reflect on similarities and contrasts with the church in the United States’s struggles and hopes, griefs and joys, challenges and opportunities.

Over the past decade we have emphasized the development of strategic international partnerships as a part of Duke Divinity School’s mission. We have long had wonderful academic exchanges of faculty and students with universities in Germany and England, and in the mid-1990s a strong multi-faceted relationship was developed with the Methodist Church in Peru. Building on that relationship in Peru, we identified South America and sub-Saharan Africa as two places where we would seek to develop longer-term strategic partnerships. Our hope was that, by concentrating developing more comprehensive relationships among students, staff, and faculty with a few areas, we would be able to deepen our engagements and learn more from each other.

That strategy is bearing fruit. In South America, we now have field education placements in both Peru and Brazil, and faculty, students, staff, and friends travel each year to Peru during spring break and on a pilgrimage of pain and hope to Brazil every other year. Our relationships in South Africa have extended up the continent to stronger ties in Uganda and Rwanda, where we now have field education placements as well as pilgrimages of pain and hope. We also have a relationship with the Renk Seminary in the Sudan, where faculty and graduate students have offered biblical instruction. We have been fortunate to host visits by two Anglican bishops in the Sudan at Duke as a part of this relationship. And in mid-November, the co-directors of our Center for Reconciliation, Chris Rice and Emmanuel Katongole, convened a major gathering in Kampala of 38 Christian leaders from the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa (Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo) who are focused on ministries of reconciliation.

As I sat listening to John Allen lecture, reflecting on my own travels in South Africa, my study of the land, and the many friendships that have been forged through the partnership, I reflected on the significance of international partnerships for the mission of Duke Divinity School. Their importance extends far beyond the significant realization that Christianity is a global reality; they also provide a powerful lens that helps us re-focus our own assumptions and experiences, offering blessing and challenge as we seek to be faithful in our own Christian witness in whatever contexts we find ourselves. The comments by our students about John Allen’s visit give me hope that they understand why prayer and social witness are inextricably joined, and that they will be inspired to be courageous and faithful ministerial leaders in their witness to the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As always, if you have stories about Duke Divinity School to share, please be in touch by emailing Chris Brady, special assistant to the dean.

See you soon, under the baobab tree.

The baobab tree serves as a meeting place for many villages to discuss community matters, relate the news of the day, or tell stories. Baobabs are a protected tree in South Africa, and they are said to be “World Trees” or “Trees of Life” by many of the cultures on the African continent.