Charlene Pauw reports on a message delivered by Indian Christian thought leader Vishal Mangalwadi during the Christian Leaders Forum SA’s first quarterly online prayer meeting for 2023 on March 29
The guest speaker at our recent Christian Leaders Forum SA online prayer meeting, Vishal Mangalwadi, is a prominent social reformer, political columnist, Christian philosopher, writer and lecturer. He has been described by Christianity Today as “India’s foremost Christian intellectual”.
Vishal is from India but currently lives with his wife Ruth in the USA. He is the author/co-author of 25 books, most notably, The Book that Changed Everything: The Bible’s Amazing Impact on Our World, and, The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture.
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His dynamic video series Truth Matters is easily accessible on YouTube and I highly recommend that churches and small groups work through the material with their congregants. Vishal has also been interviewed by Jordan Peterson of The Daily Wire and collaborated with him on his Logos and Literacy documentary.
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However Vishal Mangalwadi’s biggest effort is now going towards what he calls “The Third Education Revolution,” a global movement that he pioneers. Much of what he shared with us at the Christian Leaders Forum meeting was centred on this concept.
In South Africa there are strong Christian movements for revival and transformation. It is the focus of fervent intercession, discussion and collaboration among Christian leadership. However, one gets the sense that we are so immersed in the turmoil of our situation that it is difficult for us to map a coherent way out of the mess we perceive.
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We are, in a sense, sometimes “issue driven” and reactionary to our environment. There is also frustration, since we have good leaders and often good direction, but there is a breakdown in mobilising churches and congregants to recognise and follow national strategies.
The benefit of having Vishal Mangalwadi address us is that he has intensely studied eras when societies were effectively transformed by the Bible and education on a big scale and one of his focus areas with The Third Education Revolution is to conceptualise how this type of change can be stimulated in the present and future.
In a way, being one step removed with a more neutral perspective might be beneficial to the South African conversation. In Psalm 119 David speaks repeatedly about God’s precepts, statutes, ways, truth, laws and testimonies. Here, it seems. David implies that we must proactively build the infrastructure of our lives and societies by focusing our meditations and efforts on these things and not predominantly be reactionary to our environments. Similarly. Vishal Mangalwadi’s strategy is a proactive, principled and Bible-centred one.
Vishal covered the following topics:
- Universities have become a source of darkness to the West.
- Africa has become a centre for Christianity but Africa’s leaders go to study at Western Universities where they get influenced by this darkness
- Can Africa break free from some of the ideas that have poisoned the institutions of the West and paralysed the Church of the West?
- What are some of these destructive ideas and their origin?
- How does The Third Education Revolution equip and mobilise The Church / Christians to come out of escapism mode and gear up for proactive battle mode?
- What is already happening in Africa — especially Uganda?
- What does the third education revolution model look like?
- Why is reclaiming the space of education a key and effective strategy for stimulating Christian revival and transformation of nations and societies?
- What were the first and second education revolutions and what does the third education revolution hope to achieve?
- Vishal Mangalwadi advocates for the comprehensive training of the mind, heart and spirit of every believer and wants to revive the principles of the kingship and priesthood of every believer that revolutionised Martin Luther’s era.
You can view Vishal’s full presentation, which was entitled The Battle for the Soul of Africa, below:
The Christian Leaders Forum will work on bringing the book, The Third Education Revolution, into South Africa and will continue to encourage SA Christians and Church leaders to explore the ideas detailed in the book. And we will see how we can collaborate with Vishal Mangalwadi and the third education revolution.
If you are interested in pre-ordering the book, The Third Education Revolution, please email cpauw@ae.org.za
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