Churches and Witches
An article today from the AP talks about a rise in people seeing many children as “witches,” and persecuting them accordingly (torturing, killing, all that good stuff). The article focuses on Nigerian churches, but of course this is an Africa-wide problem.
Something I will be exploring in future posts is the phenomenon that religiosity today is much greater in the developing world than in the developed world. There are reasons for this, among them poverty, poor education and ignorance, violence and war, backward attitudes about women, etc.
This part of the article is particularly telling:
Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.
On the one hand we have a basically backward belief system (Christianity) being applied in a place where people actually take it seriously in its entirety (or mostly in its entirety). On the other hand we have a basically backward belief system being watered down by modern notions of human rights, individualism, freedom, and empathy for innocent children. What is really “an outrage” is that people call themselves “Christians” and yet choose to ignore the vast majority of what that religion recommends and commands. This prevents these people of faith from realizing just how fundamentally backward their official religion is.
We can say with confidence that cultural dynamics and changes inform the way people interpret their religion, and thus religion is anything but fixed. This runs contrary to what many conservatives and Christian conservatives hold vis-a-vis Islam, for example, as well as their attitude toward Christianity and its importance and significance in American history.
MORE ARTICLES:
Ok, now I’m a bit confused. Are you saying that 1)the African fundamentalists are ignoring what Christianity teaches? or are you saying 2) that christians ignore what Christianity teaches and are thus captives of their beliefs? Iguess i fial to see where this tightly written paragraph is going . . .
I think a more nuanced way to look at it is that some Christians (perhaps both Africans and American fundamentalists?) are forgetting the real teaching of the New Testament (you know, the lessons from that CHrist guy whose name is in the religion itself) and focusing on the infamous and horrendous proscriptions of the Old Testament – and usually doing so in order to wrest a feleting sense of ocntrol into their lives. Because they parse their theology thusly, they can’t see how backward they have it . . . or something like that?
Right, let me try to clarify. I would say that Christianity, taken in its entirety–the Bible, taken in its entirety, including both Old and New Testaments–contains a hefty amount of backward ideas and commands.
The Nigerian fundamentalists are taking the tougher stuff (stoning, sexism, witches, etc) more seriously, while the moderns in the West choose to ignore it, instead focusing on the parts that they like (peace and love, etc). They like that part because they live in a secular civilization that values things like human rights and women’s equality, whereas that tradition is much younger or nonexistent in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The person I quoted in the article was of an opinion similar to yours–that these fundamentalists in Nigeria are twisting what the religion is all about. In fact, I submit that it is HE that is missing large parts of the religion, and therefore fails to see how deep the backwardness goes.
Now, I would agree that the softer, cuddly stuff of the New Testament is often given short shrift by the fundamentalists, but often it is not–they do plenty of charity and almsgiving, missionary activity, etc.
Where the fundies go wrong – and you may be as well – is that in the New Testament Christ was INTENTIONALLY trying to get the Jews to abandon the teachings of the Old Testament. If, as an example, you follow His “second greatest commandment” to love your neighbor as yourself, you CANNOT, in any rational way, stone someone. Nor can you condone women being treated a property (or argue against Gay marriage for that matter). So no, your quoted person isn’t missing a large part of the religion – he’s actually following the teachings.
This is a theological argument you’re making–an argument within the borders of the Christian tradition–which is legitimate, as far as it goes. (Equally legitimate theological counter-arguments could be made that Jesus wanted his followers to take the Old Testament more seriously.)
I am saying that, from an objective/ outside perspective, Christianity contains a variety of elements, some good, some bad, just like all religions. A given religious tradition is perfectly free to emphasize one component over another (such as Catholics placing greater emphasis on the Virgin Mary than Baptists), but the narrower one’s overall focus, and the more and more that one ignores/ discards, the further–from a simple, logical point of view–one moves from the full religion.
For example, I could live my life according to the dictum “turn the other cheek” and nothing more. Does that make me a Christian? I don’t follow the 10 Commandments, don’t respect the 7 deadly sins, don’t pay attention to Jesus’ teachings aside from that one thing. Am I Christian? What is the cutoff before I become a true practicing Christian? Thus, from a logical point of view, those more conservative are “more Christian” in the sense that they incorporate a greater amount of the full religion into their life.