book 3 in my book catch up is a missions book…. whose religion is christianity? the gospel beyond the west is a short (130 pages) book by lamin sanneh, a gambian theologian/missions writer. sanneh uses an interview/dialogue style through the book (which i confess i didn’t like that much as a style) but it does unearth some nuggets. in his interview he explores world christianity. he prefers the term world christianity to global christianity as global is too close to western notions of globalisation.
the heartlands of christianity are in asia, africa and latin america. the rate of expansion in those places is astonishing. sanneh cites figures from africa and the rate of expansion there particularly after colonialism. this runs counter to western experience and tales of secularisation and decline in religious interest and he suggests that the good news of christian expansion is one that western societies don’t really seem to admit is actually happening. it contradicts their own experience of religion.
i actually found the most intriguing insight/comment in the book to be about one of the reasons sanneh suggests for success of the gospel in africa.
another factor little noticed in the statistics is a theological one: christian expansion was virtually limited to those societies whose people had preserved the indigenous name for god.
this is a really interesting missiological point. if you go to a culture that has a name for god, do you impose your name for god assuming theirs is another god or adopt that name for god? the results suggest that the latter approach when the bible was translated made all the difference. (this reminded me of vincent donavon”s approach when he encounters the massai and engages in discussion about their tribal god engai). it raises questions – i was thinking about the mind body spirit world for example – to what degree do you do the same thing there and use the divine, or spirit of life, or reike (which means universal life force)?
another interesting question is about what people in the west can learn from world christianity. he suggest we should get over our christendom guilt complex about christianity as colonialism by recognising that world christianity has moved on beyond that now so we should as well. he also suggests that they offer a way of dealing with pluralism that avoids the need to feel you have to be a religious agnostic to be a devout pluralist (a hot issue in the uk i think).
it’s an interesting book. i am convinced that hearing voices and theologies from a whole range of contexts and cultures round the world will enrich our understanding. so this is a welcome little book…
I’ve heard a couple of talks on this sort of subject and I find it fascinating. However it doesn’t seem to be penetrating our consciousness in this country. Although the church is declining in this country (but not as much as it was http://www.vision2025.org/documents/CRAroadshowA5leaflet05census.pdf) I think we still think that all mission work abroad is a struggle and the church is only slowing growing everywhere else. It’s just not like that!
Do the statistics mention whether the church growth has where there has been a Bible or not? It’s not just having the name of God in the indigenous language that makes a difference, but having access to some of the Bible
http://www.vision2025.org/leaders_churchgrowth.html
Another book on a similar subject that I’ve heard recommended, though I haven’t read it myself, is God on the Move: Growth and Change in the Church Worldwide by Martin Goldsmith
http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Move-Change-Church-Worldwide/dp/1850783047/ref=sr_11_1/026-0963391-2967652?ie=UTF8
paul thanks… i guess because i work at cms i hear the statistics a lot about world christianity so forget that they are not that widespread. and you are right to mention the bible – the translation into indigenous language is discussed quite substantially by sanneh and is a big factor in christianity moving beyond colonial and western constructs. i mentioned the name of god as that was an insight i had not come across before.
thanks – that’s gone straight onto the next amazon order…
The debate about the use of indigenous name for God is a longstanding one going back to Acts etc.
I think it was Ken Okeke (one of the first CMS mission partners TO Britain in the early 1980’s) who highlighted that the problem for British Christians is of course that many people they meet have no name for God.
Tom
Hmm..I have a sneaking feeling that I am going to have to read this book for class at asbury. Just a gut feeling. But heck it sounds cool, I think I will jump the gun and go ahead and order it.
Jonny, I forgot that your day job was CMS, so you don’t need telling about the modern mission scene.