As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset

Matthew Parris

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.

We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. "Privately" because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: "theirs" and therefore best for "them"; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the "big man" and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? "Because it's there," he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Most of the time when faith is talked about it is coupled with works. We know that salvation requires faith in Jesus Christ alone. No amount of working will achieve for us eternity with God, Christ paid our way by dying on the cross and breaking down the walls of sin and death by rising from the grave!

But faith has become very abstract in our thinking; it is just an idea and a concept. Faith has become something only with our minds. That's not biblical. Faith has always been a verb, an action. Faith is something we do.

That might not be new to you. James is clear in the second chapter of his book, where he talks about faith and deeds. "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" (James 2:14).

It seems that people hear that and try harder to be "good." They try to not gossip, to be less selfish, or to not speed. They try to listen to better music, read their Bible more, or say only nice things about others. There is a problem, though. Trying really hard only gets you so far, and then frustration comes.

No matter what we do, we can not make God love us more than he already does. Doing the right thing is as filthy rags to God, just as our sinful actions are. God loves his sons and daughters no matter how messy we are.

God wants us to get to know him, to love him. He wants us to sit with him and let his spirit saturate us. We need to take the time to sit with God and let our thoughts come into alignment with his. That's when real faith steps in.

Faith as an action steps forward. Not because we have to, or because doing these good things gains for us anything we do not already have, but because after being with God we show our gratitude for what he has done for us through faithful obedience. It's an overflow of our hearts, not a requirement.

My friend Jeremy is a good example of this. His life is lived in obedience to God. So much of what he does, does not make sense to the world. He did not become a man of faith by waiting for it to magically happen, though. He has practiced faithfulness.

He listens for Gods voice and then does what God is telling him. He puts himself in some extreme situations and then it is up to God to provide the answers and the way out! He depends on his time spent communing with God then loves people, and goes where God is leading.

It sounds so simple, but after hearing some of his stories, some might prefer to stay locked up in their houses away from the stress. Faith is definitely not easy.

All of this leads me to my illustration, the last part of my stories from my day at the park.

Pridge and I decided that we were done, so we turned around to find our way back along the trail we had wondered along. After a few snowballs had been thrown at each other I found myself a ways in front of my friend.

When I came upon the same fallen tree that lay spread out over the river, I made a quick decision to wait for Pridge by stalling and playing on the tree again. A fresh patch of snow sat piled up in front of me.

I stepped out right into the middle of it. It struck me right then how much faith I had in this moment. I had no clue what was underneath that snow. For all I knew, I could have stepped right through the branches and into the river.

My foot landed on shaky tree branches that threatened to give way, but I kept moving. I was less sure about my footing this time around, but I had much more confidence. I made it the first time even though slightly wet and I was certain I would not fall this time.

I turned slightly to go back up the incline that had made me nervous the first time, and climbed it with ease. The second time around had proved to be simple.

God tells us to do things we can handle, but they are rarely easy. He wants to stretch us. Then, just as soon as we are starting to feel comfortable, he stretches us again. It is continual and amazing if you dare to live it!

Soak in the presence of God, and then go live it! Live your faith!

"Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr.

After a whirlwind journey of some of the southern states in the past few weeks, I am finally home. I arrived just in time for the snow to pile all around. With only good intentions of going out to brave the cold wheather, I have instead huddled into a comfy chair with a good book.

In light of yesterday being Valentine's Day, I would like to share just one of the many things that stood out to me in this book about love. In the eighth chapter of the book he talks about the profile of the obsessed. It made me question what I am obsessed with. The definition of obsessed is: to have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic. What do I think about most?

People who are obsessed with Jesus give freely and openly, without censure. Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back. (p. 132)

 

People who are obsessed with Jesus aren't consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God's kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. (p. 133)

 

People who are obsessed with Jesus live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another. Obsessed people believe that Jesus talked about money and the poor so often because it was really important to Him (1 John 2:4-6; Matt. 16:24-26). (p. 135)

 

Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success on this earth. As Martin Luther put it, "There are two days on my calendar: this day and that day" (Luke 14:25-35; Matt. 7:13-23; 8:18-22; Rev. 3:1-6). (pp. 136-137)

 

A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the sin of pride is always a battle. Obsessed people know that you can never be "humble enough," and so they seek to make themselves less known and Christ more known (Matt. 5:16). (p. 138)

 

People who are obsessed with Jesus do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving His people (Matt. 13:44; John 15:8). (p. 139)

 

People who are obsessed with God are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world (James 2:14-26). (p. 140-141)

 

A person who is obsessed thinks about heaven frequently. Obsessed people orient their lives around eternity; they are not fixed only on what is here in front of them. (p.142)

 

A person who is obsessed is characterized by committed, settled, passionate love for God, above and before every other thing and every other being. (p. 143)

 

People who are obsessed are raw with God; they do not attempt to mask the ugliness of their sins or their failures. Obsessed people don't put it on for God; He is their safe place, where they can be at peace. (p. 144)

 

People who are obsessed with God have an intimate relationship with Him. They are nourished by God's Word throughout the day because they know that forty minutes on Sunday is not enough to sustain them for a whole week, especially when they will encounter so many distractions and alternative messages. (p. 145)

 

A person who is obsessed with Jesus is more concerned with his or her character than comfort. Obsessed people know that true joy doesn't depend on circumstances or environment; it is a gift that must be chosen and cultivated, a gift that ultimately comes from God (James 1:2-4). (p. 146)

 

A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the best thing he can do is be faithful to his Savior in every aspect of his life, continually saying "Thank You!" to God. An obsessed person knows there can never be intimacy if he is always trying to pay God back or work hard enough to be worthy. He revels in his role as child and friend of God. (pp. 147-148)