The main difference I see is the difference between a post-Christian American society and a post-Western Christianity rising in Africa and elsewhere. The one is in decline, at least intellectually, and the other is in spate. The taming of Christianity in North America requires very different tools from those required by the conditions favoring expansion in Africa. Christians are not afraid to go to church for prayer and healing when they are ill, for instance, whereas in North America prayers may be said for people who are ill but only in absentia.
Africans trust God for their spiritual, physical, social, and medical needs; Americans don’t.
Africa is often presented as a place where a more faithful version of Christianity is being practiced. While I have not been to Africa, I have known many Africans in the United States. I have enjoyed knowing them and have found them to be much like American Christians with the attendant struggles faced by most disciples of Jesus.
In hearing the stories of my African friends, I have been impressed by their testimonies of God’s intervention and sustenance in desperate times. However, such stories are not unheard of among my American friends.
Is there a different faith being practiced in Africa? Or, does Christianity tend to thrive in an environment where people place their hope in God? Perhaps the message that Africa has for us is, Trust in God.
Some SOMA folks once told me that when have a Christian gathering in the US, the question to be answered is “Is there a God.” In Africa the question is “Is your God more powerful than mine.” It is a different world view. Jesus defined being wrong as knowing neither Scripture nor the power of God. In Africa they know both.
Pb, I think your point about “different world view” is well taken. Is it possible or desirable for a North American to have an African world view? (Understanding that African culture is not monolithic.) Is the point that North American’s can “find God” in African culture in a way that they cannot in their own?
As Christians in a North American culture that is built upon power and it’s manipulation, are we being escapist in thinking that we are faithful to the gospel and to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by turning to Africa and saying that they have it right and we don’t?
PB: I am confused. In Africa the Christians argue with each other about whose God is more powerfull? Do not they realize that they have the same God? Or maybe they don’t have the same God? What is up with that?
I think they are right and that we have it wrong. As for being wrong see Matt 22:29. They are growing and we are not.
#4 They believe in many gods but they believe the gods have power. That was my point. We live in the 25% of the world population that does not really believe in the supernatural.
I’m a fan of Lamin Sanneh, and this is a striking quote indeed, but I would fine-tune his language a bit. There is a huge difference all right between the dominant forms of Christianity in the Global North and the Global South, but I wouldn’t call America (or even Europe) [i]”post-Christian.”[/i] Instead, I always favor the term “post-Christendom,” which is an important distinction.
It’s not that Christians have totally disappeared and just vanished without a trace from countries with a European cultural heritage (like they have say in Turkey or Tunisia, or other truly post-Christian areas). But the old marriage between Church and State, or between Christianity in general and public life in general, has surely broken down in western societies. And the secularization of western life has been profound and deep. And yes, our attitudes toward sickness and healing illustrate that secular mindset all too well.
David Handy+
Passionate advocate of post-Constantinian Anglicanism
Fr. David,
I think you’re right about the mis-use of the word “post-Christian.” In the article a few days ago in the Guardian that appeared on T1:9 (an article which read almost like Stephen Colbert satire) about what do we well-educated Episcopalians care about the global communion, the author makes a rather unreflective statement about witnessing. She wrote that because the US and UK are in a state of “post-Christendom” there is no need for “witness.” What she means by “witness” becomes apparent immediately thereafter: statements made by church offices. The idea is that because we’re in a “post-Christendom” social-cultural situation (habitus if you want to sound well-read), no one cares about witnessing because no one cares about paper statements. This is a double-whammy in that she assumes that because we’re in a post-Christendom society we therefore aren’t called to witness to the culture (one wonders what informs her public political positions on war, domestic violence, the rights of minorities, world-hunger, and poverty if not her Christian beliefs) and that witness = statements. “Witness” evidently is not standing up to bigots and hate-mongerers even if you’re the only one who recognizes their destructive behavior. Witness is evidently not standing for the poor even if you’re the only one. And here I’m just using moral issues that liberal Christians are ussually involved with because someone like her would likely dismiss outright the same person if he also rejected same-sex marriage and abortion along with the death-penalty and war (which is pretty much a good Catholic position). Who knows how she defines such positions – but they don’t seem to be examples of “witness.”
Now all of those are examples of witness in the west. Witness in the two-thirds world can mean out-right martyrdom. Guess that’s not witness for her — only statements that no one reads counts as witness. This should all make sense when “religion” is equated with showing up once a month to a nice little service, maybe giving a little money here and there, and treating church-life as more of a hobby than being a part of a real community in which you share yourself with others and in which you participate in the absolutely staggering work of Kingdom-Building, the work of New Creation which Christ began on Easter Day.
Re-read this article. It is truly… well… enlightening. Pray that your given a chance to truly witness to the transforming power of Jesus Christ today!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/03/anglican-episcopalian-schism
This quote is a great entrée into trying to tease out some important differences, ones I have lived with most of my life (of nearly 6 decades). Characteristically, # 7 David Handy makes an important distinction, with which I agree, and to which such a tome as Charles Taylor’s [i]A Secular Age[/i] adds considerable weight (irrespective of his particular ‘solution’; the diagnosis is spot on).
Thereafter, I would add this. Not only are “plausibility structures†(Berger) or “the available believable†(Ricoeur) in play culturally speaking. Nor is it a question of simply human trust or faith being somehow stronger in Africa, covering the full gambit of life. While both of these are factors, the key is rather, I have come to the conclusion, in the mystery of God’s Providence through the economy of salvation that it is quite simply ‘Africa’s turn’.
Now; I cannot prove this – no-one may! Yet when we consider the likes of a predecessor of Lamin Sanneh (whose work I hugely respect), the great Kenneth Latourette in e.g. [i]A History of the Expansion of Christianity[/i] might suggest also such a view of Providence. In other words, as and when we pray for either European revival or North American churches’ “witnessâ€, at root we need to also discern – try to discern! – those mysterious Ways of God that the likes of Daniel was greatly privileged to have a glimpse of (no; I am NOT necessarily encouraging our Dispensationalist brothers and sisters at this point, folks!). For then our prayers may better align with God’s Sovereign will. Such a view too, BTW, might assist us re the poor, dear old AC as well!!
Thanks to Calvin and art for supporting the distinction I stressed between “post-Christian” and “post-Christendom.” I appreciated your thoughtful comments.
I would agree with art that it seems that Africa’s time has come. In fact, if Philip Jenkins is right in his admirable, best-selling book, [b]The Next Christendom[/b], it’s entirely possible that much of sub-Saharan Africa is what we might call [i]”pre-Christendom”[/i] by way of contrast with the Global North.
David Handy+
Indeed David! And to push even further the comparison: just as Europe had to contend most seriously with Islam, to its SW and on the East, so too Africa right now is in the throes of a titanic spiritual struggle.
And lastly, just as Luther called upon the churches of Europe to repentance, to see themselves as a righteous, faithful remnant on behalf of the whole of his time in relation to the Muslim forces to their East, so perhaps those who wish to share in engaging with Africa’s evangelisation likewise need to ‘pray and fast’ via Luther’s sentiment as well.
As for present-day Europe and Islamic migrants in most countries (France, Germany, England, Holland) – well; if the take-up of Sharia courts in England is anything to go by, soon the locals will be dhimmis in their native lands! And so Luther’s call might just be the call for the faithful in the dear old CoE too …