#dmingml Christianity is often perceived as a Western colonial import to Africa, and yet it is more African, than Western! his fact is not commonly known or accepted.

I’ve travelled to the African continent five or six times, and have always been intrigued by the diversity of rich cultures, languages and geography. Of course, going to a Game Reserve and seeing the Big Five is also an amazing experience! But this attractive tapestry would be incomplete if we ignored the extreme poverty, lack of resources, disease epidemics, and the atrocities and devastation caused by its civil wars and political corruption.

While this description seems dramatic, it is indicative of the internal conflicts a person experiences when they visit. Paul Collier’s book, The Bottom Billion, addresses some of the contributing factors as to why some of the poorer countries are unable to get ahead, and he certainly doesn’t lay the blame purely at Africa Corporate (or who Oden describes as “The Global South”), but also at the feet of the exploitive, capitalist Western world.

I have just commenced a summer semester of study with George Fox University, and was assigned a book to read called, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, by Thomas C. Oden. Early in the book he sharesabout the phenomenal growth of churches on the continent and that the Northern continent – primarily America and Europe – are beginning to wonder if the future of Christianity lies more to the south of the equator (10). In fact,sociologist, David Barrett projects that the burgeoning Christian population in Africa will grow to 633 million in 2025.

I must admit that I was a little intrigued by the title and was reminded that my cultural understanding of Africa and experience of being Christian is heavily influenced by a predominantly Western mindset. Of course, this is one of the key points of Oden’s book, that Christianity is not a “white man’s” faith at all, but actually more native to Africa than even Islam.

Western arrogance would perhaps argue against Oden’s claim that Christianity’s historical roots were heavily African for fear of losing their status as the world’s intellectual and religious mentors. Drawing on a significant body of historical texts and documents, Oden states that Euro-American theology has entirely overlooked “the literary richness of the distinctive ancient African Christian imprint on the intellectual formation of the Christian mind” (57) including having ignored “the close engagement of early African Christian teaching with indigenous, traditional and primitive religions in North Africa.” (58)

Crucial African influences includes the shaping of the idea of the university, the role in integrating the two Testaments, the formation of Christian dogma, the fostering of a method of ecumenical and conciliar decision making on contested issues, spiritual formation and establishment of monasteries, and the gradual integration of classical Christian scriptural interpretation into the language and premises of Neoplatonic philosophy (a philosophical and religious system of thought developed in the Roman Empire) (55).

From Oden’s research, he reveals that Africa was not only one of the early voices of Christianity and that it was indigenous, but that the ancient African theology of the first millennium played a key role in the formation of Christian culture and provided a critical interface for people in Africa and Asia who’s religious beliefs were rooted in Judaism and Christianity. Because it played such a decisive role in shaping European and Asian theology Oden encourages African scholars to rediscover their heritage and appreciate it for its value rather than see intellectual Christian development as predominantly Western or European. This is at the core of Oden’s hypothesis: that much intellectual history flowed south to north, something that is rarely acknowledged.

In much the same way that Oden encourages African scholars to rediscover the important role Africa played in the development of intellectual Christian thought, I find myself being more cognizant as to how my own cultural context and experience of faith has been influenced by Western thought – both religious and secular, sometimes giving it greater shape and richness while at other times challenging its core and eroding the heritage on which it was established. One thing is certain, while my faith can rest comfortably in a culture of Western tolerance and indifference, for many of my friends in Africa they have no such luxury.

#dmingml