Quote :

"Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work. It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God. Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good. I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith. But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing. First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall. At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi. We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission. Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open. This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service. It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught. There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours. [/i]I don't follow this.[/i] I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition. Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders. How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it's there,” he said. To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity. Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates. Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted. And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete. "

Pretty interesting take.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

[Edited on December 27, 2008 at 10:36 PM. Reason : link]

12/27/2008 10:35:58 PM

Quote :

"In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation."

yes, yes it certainly does


http://tinyurl.com/59gkvz

12/27/2008 10:58:23 PM

i put on my robe and wizard hat.

12/29/2008 8:00:00 PM

What a lot of Africa needs isn't PC to say. But it isn't Christianity.

12/29/2008 10:09:36 PM

You weren't going to say napalm were you? Because napalm wouldn't be PC.

12/30/2008 4:12:33 AM

Debating about whether religious aid is good or bad just proves that most people don't give a rat's ass about what happens to Africa. As long as it's food and economic assistance, how the hell can it be BAD? Do people really want to debate about who gives the assistance forever while thousands starve?

[Edited on December 30, 2008 at 4:47 AM. Reason : .]

12/30/2008 4:46:03 AM

The SOLE goal of missions is to make the missionaries feel good about themselves. It has nothing to do with caring about Africa.

In non-fantasy land, countries only make actual progress when locals commit themselves to it. Outsider effort is wasted effort.

12/30/2008 5:55:54 AM

^

12/30/2008 7:08:28 AM

Quote :

"In non-fantasy land, countries only make actual progress when locals commit themselves to it. Outsider effort is wasted effort."

Did you read the article at all?

His whole point is that the Christian missionaries are the only ones bringing the exact change you're talking about - changes in the attitudes, belief systems and ethics of locals.

Quote :

"Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing."

It is not about what motivates the missionaries, or whether they are there to feel good about themselves. He, essentially, states that only the Christian missionaries can have (or are having) real, practical effect in Africa - and it is NOT because of the food or hospitals or other such things. What makes the difference is the spiritual change in the locals they interact with.

Rural african tribalism is not compatible with any form of functional society. Period. And until that changes, nothing will. That is why he says the spread of Christianity and its worldview is so vital, and that the missionaries' spiritual work is what is doing the real good.

And since it's obvious you didn't read it, I'll post a shorter section:

Quote :

"Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates."

[Edited on December 30, 2008 at 9:28 AM. Reason : a]

12/30/2008 9:26:06 AM

What a load of shit. Missionaries have been going to Africa for centuries. Ever heard of a little place called Rwanda? Guess what, African priests, priests!, helped in the slaughter of Tutsis. Not to mention what has already been posted, but not directly said. It's a common occurrence for African Christians to brand others as witches, warlocks, etc and kill or maim them.

The point is, you can bring Christianity, or Islam, or any other religion to Africa, but it will be molded and shaped by Africans and their traditional beliefs and customs, and it won't be what was originally introduced.

12/30/2008 9:31:28 AM

its debatable about how africa got into its current situation of disarray and who is responsible; however, i agree about what was said above in regards to what africa needs at this point and the answer not being PC.

12/30/2008 9:31:54 AM

Quote :

"The SOLE goal of missions is to make the missionaries feel good about themselves."

while I will agree that unfortunately that is the reason a lot of people do mission's work, you are WAY off base if you think that is the SOLE reason for EVERYONE who does charitable work or missions work.

12/30/2008 10:46:05 AM

Quote :

"As long as it's food and economic assistance, how the hell can it be BAD?"

Because much of the food and economic assistance isn't distributed evenly. The very reason we went into Somalia under WJC was to stop Adid from using international aid as a tool to consolidate his power.


Africa's problems have nothing to do with the lack of aid from the outside world. Africa's problems are Africa's to own. That doesn't mean we should turn our backs, but it isn't a function of lack of aid or a lack of resources on the part of Africans but what this article is arguing is that Christianity, while not perfect (I'm no Christian, myself) provides the fundamental psychological and philosophical shift that is required to bring about this change. I would argue that Judaism would also probably bring about that shift. LDS Christianity would probably do the same.

I realize that atrocities have been committed by "priests". They've also been committed by witchdoctors. Are we to sacrifice the good (or at least the better) on the altar of the perfect? That is a question worth asking.

[Edited on December 30, 2008 at 1:13 PM. Reason : there, changed it]

12/30/2008 12:51:26 PM

Quote :

"Africa's problems have nothing to do with the outside world"

bullshit. that's a totally uninformed, myopic view of global economics.

12/30/2008 1:03:37 PM

i would have said pedantic

12/30/2008 1:05:12 PM

^^, ^ Bad choice of words on my part. Africa's problems have nothing to do with lack of aid from the outside world . . .


There is massive corruption within large swathes of African politics, often exploited by westerners, but as often(if not more) exploited by their own leadership. The easily fragmented nature of tribalistic societies enhances the ability of those in power to manipulate numerous smaller groups to their own personal benefit. A strong unifying religion could have the power (especially in a society with strong supernatural beliefs) to overcome these deficiencies.


Simply throwing food and money at the problem, however, has been proven not to work without the collective motivation of native Africans from the top down.

12/30/2008 1:13:01 PM

okay, i agree, BUT

theres virtually no way most african nations can get out of the cycle of subsistence-living being saddled with the payments they have to make to the world bank. they cant invest in their infrastructure, because they have to continually pay on the interest on the debts run up decades ago.

im not saying theres an easy solution, but it's like when people get in debt to the payday-loan placed, where they're trapped from week to week barely able to put off the bill to next time.

12/30/2008 8:09:28 PM

the 1st step is teh catholic church just not only needs to end their rejection of contraception but embrace.

Africa needs to curb its population growth else world hunger has no cure because all the food charity we provide merely fuels the continents exponential growth,

12/30/2008 8:33:08 PM

yeah, well, your buddy GWB revoked funds for all NGOs/Charities who would distribute birth control or even counsel abortions to Africans.

so go tell him.

he's the one who loves them so much he's hanging his entire legacy on their continent.

12/30/2008 8:49:14 PM

lol

GWB was not my buddy. To blow your mind schmoe i voted for the half black guy this election

12/30/2008 9:09:08 PM

Quote :

"The SOLE goal of missions is to make the missionaries feel good about themselves. It has nothing to do with caring about Africa."

In some cases I'm sure there are people that do philanthropic work just to make themselves feel better, but I know plenty of people that are doing and have done missionary work because they genuinely care about other people. Just because you refuse to accept that fact doesn't make it not true.

12/31/2008 10:40:56 AM