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May 25, 2011
Book Review: "Clouds of Witnesses"
Biographies of Asian and African Christians give valuable perspective.
I’m seated at the front of a university lecture hall with representatives of five other religious traditions. Listening intently to the brief descriptions of our faiths are seventy undergraduate and graduate students, many hailing from other countries. Two weeks later I’m attending a global theology conference at Wheaton College. Presenters describe the theological landscapes in their countries, and it is apparent how significantly these contexts are shaping how evangelical theology is articulated.
Many questions were asked in both of these settings. Good and challenging questions. One question I never heard raised: “Do you believe in hell?” Another one that didn’t come up: “What do you think about Rob Bell?”
I am being a bit snarky; surely Christians around the world ask questions about hell, judgment, eternity and… Rob Bell. However, it was unmistakably clear in both environments that the questions American Christians so passionately debate are not always asked by those who don’t share our cultural context.
When, as I recently read, a prominent Christian claims that the questions raised by Rob Bell and his critics are the questions being asked by Christians, I wonder which Christians we have in mind. I fear our debates sound myopic to those outside the American evangelical subculture. I wonder too whether our ignorance of the questions and concerns of the larger church—down the street and across the globe—limits our opportunities for robust fellowship and mission.
It can be daunting for those of us raised within American Evangelicalism to venture outside of our cultural comfort zone. Fortunately, Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom have written a collection of biographies that provides an excellent starting point. Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (IVP, 2011) features the lives of seventeen Christians from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The rapidly changing global church makes a book like this incredibly important. As the authors point out, “In 1900 more than four-fifths of the world’s Christian population lived in Europe and North America, while a century later about two-thirds live outside those regions. The challenge for American and European believers who become aware of this epochal transformation is to grasp what it meant for Christianity to take root in societies with often very different cultural norms from those in the West.”
These faithful believers reveal a Christianity far larger than most of us have experienced. They also help us recognize why our questions are not the only ones that matter.
For example, the Nigerian theologian Byang Kato drew from ancient African theologians like Origen, Athanasius, Tertullian, and Augustine to make the clear distinction between Christianity and western culture. “It is God’s will that Africans, on accepting Christ as their Savior, become Christian Africans.” Questions about “polygamy, family life, the spirit world, tribes, and communities” were to be evaluated through the lens of Scripture and not the Western missionary. Similarly, the Indian mystic Sundar Singh stated boldly that, “Indians need the Water of Life, but not the European cup.”
Or consider V.S. Azariah, the first Indian bishop in the Anglican Church. His theology and location in southeastern India led to an important emphasis on the Lord’s Supper. While most denominations were separated according to caste, Bishop Azariah believed communion must lead to increased fellowship across the caste system. About communion he wrote, “And this creates in us a dependence upon another and a humility that are the prerequisites of any growth in the spiritual life.”
Would it benefit our churches to be aware of these individuals and the questions and contexts that formed their Christian identity? Absolutely! Both Kato and Singh provide helpful cautions to our missionary endeavors. While I can never set aside my white, Western, male identity, I certainly can grow in my awareness of questions and issues the Gospel addresses outside of my own cultural context.
Bishop Azariah has something more to say to American Christians. His biography made me wonder why the Lord’s Supper hasn’t provided avenues for repentance and reconciliation in America, a country that has known racial division since the beginning. Might the segregated American church have benefited from the experience of believers in India, including a view of the Lord’s Supper that leads to greater unity?
Our current conversations and arguments about hell matter, but so do the thousands of passionate questions and experiences of Christians outside our shrinking Western, Evangelical bubble. Will we grow in our capacity to engage in these conversations, to learn from those who love Christ and his Gospel as much as we do? Clouds of Witnesses is a book for our time and it deserves a wide reading by those looking to a Savior big enough for all of our questions.
Comments
Sounds like a really good book, and once I finished reading my stack, I'll add it to my "need to get" list.
However, one observation....
"While I can never set aside my white, Western, male identity,..." is what has hamstrung the American church here, in the United States...conformity to the traditional maxim of the National Forefathers where White paternalism and patronage were the avenue in which Spiritual and social mandates were/are formulated for our community, society, and nation.
This has been our modus operandi for the past...two hundred plus years of this country and the Church, and though it has...well, somewhat "worked" we have solidified that viewpoint as divine writ.
Hence the reason we, as a nation and as a national Church have fallen into heresy, apostasy, and syncretism.
No matter what the topic...the very fact that this entrenched viewpoint is the foundation of our spiritual backbone has led us to our decrepit spiritual state we find ourselves in.
I know you meant to just isolate your own viewpoint indicating the suppression of one idea to a greater idea, but in truth, you have touched upon the very problem of our nation, and of Europe.
This is why we, as a Church and a nation, are starting to look like Europe...spiritually dead.
And herein is the truth of it all...the "White" system of paternalism and patronage has infiltrated all aspects of American society just as it did European society...it's no longer just yours or my "white" issue, it's an American issue. Non-white pastors and priests have adopted this mentality as well.
Me thinks that when Christians begin to understand the limitations of their world-view, and accept that the world doesn't revolve around their particular way of thinking...perhaps...just perhaps, we might be a lot more effective in our approach to evangelism.
Posted By: sheerahkahn | May 25, 2011 10:48 AM
I think sometimes, we forget how simple our creator has made His Gospel. We must understand, it is The Holy Spirit that will settle any questions about scripture or The teachings of Christ. Sometimes I have found myself afraid to tell someone about a sin or a teaching that they bring into question. But the simple truth of The scriptures win out everytime.
Years ago I remember The Lord speaking to me Jereimiah 1:7-9. We are not to be afraid to say His Words. Doesn't mean that because you are of a certain culture or background that you acommadate their ways of teaching or their ways of life.You must remember to acommadate His Words and His way of Life.
The world is part of that triune problem that Christ said we have,"the world, the flesh and the devil." Study to show YOURSELF approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing The Word of Truth.But shune profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.II Timothy 2:15-16.
Posted By: Linda Lanouette | May 25, 2011 4:54 PM
Dave, thanks. I have so often been enriched by the diversity of God's people and the work of the Holy Spirit around the world. Reading missionary biographies (including the YWAM biography of Sundar Singh) when I was homeschooling my son was one of the highlights of that experience for both of us.
It is very humbling to come face to face with our own spiritual myopia and discover the many ways "the world, the flesh, and the devil" have co-opted our own perspective on Scripture when we encounter a believer from another culture who sees and lives parts of the Bible that we have tended to ignore because of our own cultural biases. Many third world cultures are much closer to the traditional cultures of the people by and to whom the Bible was written. As a result, they often intuitively grasp the significance of Scriptures that we in our western culture just don't get (or even get wrong).
Many years ago, when I was a short-term missionary in Europe, a Nigerian woman became one of my closest friends. One evening she invited me to share a traditional Nigerian meal with her that she prepared for us. Although my palate was not accustomed to either the taste or textures of the food, I ate everything. When she told me that just this simple act put our relationship on a whole new footing--that in her culture to share a meal was not just a recreational convenience to nourish one's body and enjoy social interaction, like it is in the West, but rather represented the cementing of a deep bond of trust and a true sharing in the very life of another, I was very grateful for my mother's training that instilled in me the manners that made me instinctively accept and embrace what I was offered to eat by my hostess. I often remember that meal with my friend now when I read the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper and Jesus' words in John 6:51-58 and consider what the Eucharist has meant in the Church down through the ages--that it is a sharing in Christ's very life. I'm sure Christians who have interacted with their brethren (especially those from traditional cultures) could multiply that example many times over.
Posted By: Karen | May 25, 2011 10:48 PM
if you want to do something useful, learn Arabic - of course the church has not been doing that for the last 10 years - as they should have been. it's left to Messianics like Mike Evans to go and preach in the streets of Saudi Arabia while the church is still sending people to the philippines, haiti etc. no vision, no strategy. no hebrew roots. but yes on divorce, yes on everything goes, yes on feminism.
that's why a normal person cannot in good conscience be involved in the church these days.
Posted By: Randy | May 28, 2011 5:42 AM
Randy--Our lives shouldn't be about being "useful"--they should be about knowing and loving Christ. And part of that is doing the unique things He calls us to do.
Life shouldn't be about following our own man-made "strategy," but joining God in His plans for us. It sounds like you have a passion for Saudi Arabia. That's good. Maybe God has called others to Haiti, or to the Philippines...
Posted By: Ooii | May 28, 2011 11:15 AM
The Gospel is truly simple, yet crucial for our salvation from the very hell we are "debating". Christians around the globe do understand it and do not waste their precious short time "debating" about the next heresy American evangelical subculture eked to produce! Well, what one can say? Repent and believe in the Gospel and you shall be saved! This appears to be the most legitimate approach.
Posted By: Vik Feodorov | June 16, 2011 1:40 PM
This has been our modus operandi for the past...two hundred plus years of this country and the Church, and though it has...well, somewhat "worked" we have solidified that viewpoint as divine writ.
Posted By: peter | November 25, 2011 7:04 AM
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