Yeah, it's a HUGE topic. One that I've never spent much time thinking about, quite frankly. But for my research question today, I went to interview a Catholic priest, who's a professor at a Seminary here in town. We discussed African Traditional Religions and the church and Christianity. It was fascinating. Really, this guy knows a lot about the church, and also about his own culture. And he was frank enough to really tell me some of the conflicts and sticky points and some of the real issues when discussing the traditional cultures and Christianity, especially as brought here by Western Missionaries.
One of the things that I'm mulling over in my brain is how he spoke about there being two systems in Africa - the traditional one and the Christian one. And people, even priests and Christian leaders, operate in both systems. They go to the church, and do the church rites etc., but then when the real crisis comes, when they need something that really means something, they turn to the traditional ways of doing things. I just got back from the interview, so things are still sort of settling in my mind, but wouldn't it be great if somehow, the church could figure out a way to work within that traditional way of doing things - so that Christ comes into that culture, and doesn't have to be a superficial "extra" system. I pray that Christ can become so much a part of who people are that they will be able to bring him into their traditions and culture, and be able to discern those things of their culture which are good, which are godly and which bring life, and those that don't. Just like we have to do in our culture, and struggle to find ways to make sure that are so transformed by Christ that we can live in our culture, but not be completely OF our culture.
Such a fascinating area of study for me - being IN the world and not OF the world. I mean, if we could all figure out how to do that without any struggle...
I'm going to walk home before the rain gets me. I'll have to think on these things a bit more as I walk.
1 comment:
Paul Hiebert (sp?) has a lot to say on that subject. The idea of 3 different realms or levels or whatever--'spiritual realm' God, heaven,etc. completely separate from us; then on the bottom is the 'material realm' which includes concrete day-to-day life; and the realm in between where spirit and material realms meet and interact. Traditional Christianity just touches on the spirit realm 'high religion' I think Hiebert calls it and so while people may embrace this (God, heaven, etc.) since the m's often don't do much to address how the spirit realm interconnects and interacts with the material, new converts often turn to their old religions in order to get answers to questions of that nature--getting rain, healing, etc. I'd recommend his book but can't remember the title!
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