Written by: Telile Fikru Badecha on June 27, 2014

Culture and the Death of God by Eagleton Terry is interesting but admittedly I needed to read it a couple of times to digest his perspective. The author quotes and paraphrases a number of other intellectuals’ works which are perfectly relevant to his viewpoints and require his readers to be familiar with the sources he employs. Having said that, I found this book to be quite helpful to understand Enlightenment. As Eagleton describes, “Enlightenment was much preoccupied with science, Nature, Reason, progress and social reconstruction, what lay closest to its heart was the subject which caused it the most rancour  and moral outrage, namely religion.” Why is Enlightenment a relentless war againstreligion, to use Eagleton words? The author answers, because “religion is seen as an instrument of social and political organisation and oppression.”[1]

This is exactly how the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is perceived, especially by the majority of Oromo, the largest people group. The priest and the imperial rulers grabbed the Oromo people’s land and made them peasants in their own country. Due to this past and present oppression of Oromo people, Oromo nationalism is a growing factor both among followers of Christianity, Islam and Oromo religion. The danger is that for many nationalists, their nationalism is more important than their faith or their identity in Christ. I am a firm believer that the unity we have in Christ goes beyond our cultural and religious differences. For this reason, I put Jesus first and the rest is secondary.

When the author remarked about the Enlightenment war on ecclesial, I was reminded of the introduction of communism in Ethiopia in 1974 where the Marxist government seized power from Emperor Haile Selassie and “undertook social reforms, including nationalization of landlord and church property. The forces of the Union, eastern bloc of Europe and Cuba, backed the Government. They expelled the American military missions.”[2]

Of all religious groups, the Protestants were the most persecuted group and the communist government confiscated many church buildings. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was that missionaries, mainly from America, planted most of the Protestant churches and the Marxist government did not like America. Another accusation the believers received was that they prayed and went to church regularly, thus spent time in idle rather than at work. As we can see the socialist government concern here is not only religious but also political.

Today it is almost unthinkable to be atheist in Ethiopia. Though my country is one of the poorest countries in the world, we are very religious society. Christianity and Islam are the two major religions that share many common religious values. This is not to deny that religious strife happens once in awhile between these religious communities. We have not yet learned to seek out what we have in common across the denominational and doctrinal spectrum. Churches compete against one another. For some, their identity is church, and such people would fight for their church organization and doctrines even more than they would for Jesus himself. It is my concern and prayer that we focus on Jesus than anything else.

Another point Eagleton discussed is the disconnect between Christian faith and practice among the western Christians. Based on recent British research, many people are Christians by culture but not in practice. In my Ethiopian Protestant culture, for a believer to be identified as follower of Jesus, she or he needs to be an active member of one of the churches. That means taking part in every aspect of his or her faith community life. The danger with our kind of Christianity is it focuses on what a person can do to be a good Christian through one’s own performance and this can cause a very narrow and judgmental view toward others who do not practice and do things the way we do. So we need a biblical understanding of self as Paul says in Romans 6, “for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.” This also relates to Eagleton statement, “ That the death of God involves the death of Man, along with the birth of a new form of humanity, is orthodox Christian doctrine, a fact of which Nietzsche seems not to have been aware.”[3]

About the Author

Telile Fikru Badecha