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<\/a>North America is primarily of European origin. The longer we maintain this narrative, the harder it is to recognize the global heritage of North American residents and citizens. I recognize that Europe and North America were dominant senders<\/em> of missionaries, but evangelicalism is so much more than \u201cjust\u201d mission work. I\u2019m ready for a creative and thoughtful re-telling of the North American evangelical story that encompasses more of the diversity of the nation in the primary thread rather than as afterthoughts.<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Adichie-quote-300x212.jpg\")
<\/a>stereotyping. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wisely recounts in a TED Talk<\/a> I discovered (only) this week, the \u201cproblem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” For example, any time someone suggests \u201cIn Africa\u2026\u201d and follows with a contextually specific phrase (\u201cIn Africa, these groups are sometimes known as \u2018aladura<\/em>\u2019 churches, from a Yorouba word meaning \u2018owners of prayer\u2019\u201d), it perpetuates a homogenous stereotype of a large and varied landmass. This would be comparable to someone saying, \u201cIn North America, \u2018Tomar el pelo<\/em>\u2019 refers to teasing people;\u201d it\u2019s a limited perspective.[2]<\/a><\/li>\n\u201cMma Ramotswe wondered whether the world which this girl\u2026would inherit would be better than the world in which she\u2026grown up. [She\u2019d] grown happier because [she] had seen Africa become independent and take its own steps in the world. But what a troubled adolescence the continent had experienced, with its vainglorious dictators and their corrupt bureaucracies. And all the time, African people were simply trying to lead decent lives in the midst of all the turmoil and disappointment. Did the people who made all the decisions in this world, the powerful people in places like Washington and London, know about people like Motholeli and Puso? Or care? She was sure that they would care, if only they knew. Sometimes she thought that people overseas had no room in their heart for Africa, because nobody had ever told them that African people were just the same as they were. They simply did not know about people like her Daddy, Obed Ramotswe, who stood, proudly attired in his shiny suit, in the photograph in her living room.\u201d[4]<\/a> <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Please, let\u2019s take the time to discover some of what Sarah C. Williams calls \u201chistory \u2018from below.\u2019\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n
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- I struggled with the distinctions of \u201cevangelical\u201d throughout the essays. The foundational definition was Bebbington\u2019s classic: Christians who stress conversion, find ultimate authority in the Bible, are moved to action \u201cbecause of their own experience of God,\u201d and stress the death and resurrection of Jesus as central to their faith.[6]<\/a> Noll recognizes that \u201cpart of the genius of evangelicalism is its ability to adapt to local cultures, but this adaptability makes clear-cut definitions more difficult to maintain.\u201d[7]<\/a> The problem with this attempt to define and explore evangelicalism in this manner is that I began to wonder what type of Christianity wasn\u2019t<\/em> included in the definition. Who isn\u2019t<\/em> under the evangelical umbrella in Africa (or Asia, Oceana, etc.)? Kalu\u2019s mention of the missionary \u201cmoratorium\u201d in the 1970s and the World Council of Churches (WCC) is a case in point.[8]<\/a> The WCC is primarily composed of \u201cmainline\u201d denominations and African theologians in those mainline denominations initiated the moratorium. Just who isn\u2019t<\/em> an evangelical in these authors\u2019 minds?<\/li>\n
- Finally, it was helpful to be reminded by Kalu of the paradigm differences between North America and Africa. Unlike the North American shift identified by Taylor in A Secular Age<\/em>, with the loss of transcendence in the immanent frame, Kalu observes that \u201csince Africans recognized the role of the transcendental in the daily lives of individuals and communities, the struggle against demonic forces and spiritual evil easily occupied a central role.\u201d[9]<\/a> If there is a disconnect in understanding one another\u2019s context, this contrast identifies it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
As Williams suggests, Christianity is complex and \u201cto deploy one singular Christian discourse about gender [or Africa, Asia, etc.] as encompassing and typical is at best to simplify and at worst to gravely misrepresent the diverse spectrum of ideas about gender [or place].\u201d[10]<\/a> While texts like this support a big picture, perhaps even these contextual approaches are too broad.<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> That being said, I greatly appreciated the assumption she challenged that \u201cgender and evangelicalism\u201d was all about women (Sarah C. Williams, \u201cEvangelicals and Gender,\u201d in Global Evangelicalism, <\/em>eds. Donald M. Lewis and Richard V. Pierard (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2014), 277ff). It must be a conversation on both genders.<\/p>\n
[2]<\/a> There are 54 countries, and 1500+ languages spoken on the African continent (at least 6 language families), at least 68 in Kenya alone.<\/p>\n
[3]<\/a> Ogbu Kalu, \u201cAfrica,\u201d in Global Evangelicalism,<\/em> 163.<\/p>\n
[4]<\/a> Alexander McCall Smith, Tears of the Giraffe<\/em>\u00a0(Anchor Books, 2000), 204-205.<\/p>\n
[5]<\/a> Williams, 276.<\/p>\n
[6]<\/a> Mark Noll, \u201cDefining Evangelicalism,\u201d in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, 20. cf David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em> (London: Routledge, 1993), 2-17.<\/p>\n
[7]<\/a> Noll, 23.<\/p>\n