Religion

There are a few things I've saved for the end - topics and experiences I knew I would have to think a lot about before I could write anything down. As this adventure is drawing to a close in a few weeks, I'm in a weird state of mind, torn in several directions. I'm really no more reflective than at any other time during months past. Just tired. I miss home, I miss all of you, and some part of me misses Africa already, even though I haven't left. I suppose that's part of the romance in this place.

There's an irony to the whole thing. I came here to have an adventure, to be somewhere that I might have to surrender my ego and insecurities and bear the pain of learning what really matters about me while realizing that many things I had always thought mattered just don't in the end. But I find myself more uncertain than ever, in general. Africa is a place of contradictions. I've seen the best and worst of humanity, government, and church. Slums and corruption, beauty and culture. I have such a mix of conflicting emotions and thoughts that I find them impossible to sort through sometimes.

I want to write about religion. I say all that before to try and relate how difficult and persistent many of these thoughts have been. They surely won't all flow and connect here, and I'm not sure I can put them to a conclusion. I'll leave it to you to connect them in your own way. After all, religion begins as an affair for each of us, as an individual pursuit.

For centuries, the church has come to 'evangelize' or 'save' the Africans. Often the Christians brought along their own interests and doctrines as the only answer to the religious question, scoffing at African customs before they even understood them. The church viewed African culture as a threat. Africans needed to be 'liberated' from the trap of their own culture. That is such an arrogant attitude that it doesn't even make sense. Many well-intentioned missionaries were blinded by this naive attitude, and many still are.

The results have been destructive, fueling conflicts over land and political issues, and fueling colonialism. The evidence is everywhere. From my perspective, many current African dilemmas and issues can be sourced back to the subjugation and compromise of their original culture by the church. These examples are many. Islam is making its way onto this scene now as well, in similar fashion.

On the other hand, there are incredible examples where I have witnessed the church and its missionaries embrace and revere local culture. There are examples everywhere of individuals who have come and sacrificed under extreme hardship to figure out what it means to be African and Christian. There are countless African pastors who labor for years to influence only a few people, and those few people share everything. They worship together with more conviction, faith, hope, vitality, security and emotion than I have ever witnessed before. This is compared to the church (many of the people, and the institution) I have known, that is often content to settle for less. So have I been, in many ways. Yet we seek to impose our model here on people whose culture is richer and more genuine.

Africans aren't 'something other.' And my experience is that rarely will anything sourced in my own American and church culture [alone] suffice as a solution here. If we can only think in terms of our own rules and models, we will (and already have) pillage(d) the beauty of this place.

If there is an answer to the religious question, and many people seem to have found one, then there must be truth out there. If there is a common human plight or struggle, and there seems to be, then that truth must somehow be universal, beneath us all. Truth resonates; we realize it in the moment. And it binds us. There is a sort of fundamental frequency (physics term; I'm trying whenever I can to apply my formal education in my completely unrelated day-to-day life) and human nature that we all carry. I am sure that there is truth to be found in tribal cultures that have persisted for thousands of years. I am trying my best to find it, claim it, and see what it means or how it connects to the beliefs I brought with me (those which have withstood the journey).

I've witnessed religion (and most other things) in an entirely different cultural context here. And for the first time, I feel free to observe and think about religion without self-interest stirred in. After all, at its core, religion probably shouldn't be thought about in terms of its usefulness. Yes, missionaries and groups can come in the name of their religions and build things that are needed and will bring benefit. But religion becomes real when we are nailed up by some unexpected circumstance and we find ourselves doubting or emptied out. The real encounters happen when religion closes in on us, not the other way around. If we approach it proactively, thinking about its usefulness to us, then maybe we're not as genuine as we could be. Religion is not something to fulfill us through some institution of rite. Religion, at its depth, just cannot be realized through an attitude of self-righteousness. We are not central to its purpose. But maybe we reach a point where there opens up something larger to be part of.

I have seen a disconnect here, a self-centered perception of what's going on around us. We just aren't very well in touch - humans in general, Americans just as much as anyone, and myself at the end of the day. We assume fundamental separations in culture and amongst people, and that inevitably leads to comparison and bias. We are apt to alienate the other side or even attack it without ever considering how we're all connected in a common struggle after we throw aside all the details that just don't really matter.

In the book Blue Like Jazz, a certain chapter is dialogue between the author and a friend. The friend is in despair, pondering the problems of the world, feeling invigorated and helpless all at once, wondering how those problems could possibly run so deeply and how he should respond. And in a moment where I find profound truth, he finally has an epiphany and cries out "I AM THE PROBLEM!"

That realization means more to me now than ever.

Religion is beautiful in Africa. It is full of color and emotion. It's faithful and cultural. At their core, Africans are the most religious people I've ever encountered. There is a universal regard for a creator God, for ancestors and familial ties, for the spiritual aspects of nature. I am speaking here of religion in general, not to the particulars of any specific religion or custom or tradition, though I have witnessed all types - from misguided health-and-wealth megachurches to rural diviner ceremonies and medicine men healing people cursed by black magic. Those are stories for later.

But it is in the Christian church where I have seen the most beauty and the most destruction. I've only ever known a church that tends to isolate itself, claiming the interest of faith or purity. But at some point I looked back and realized it was more about fear and insecurity. And here, more clearly than ever, I see the unfortunate evidence of that.

Here is the connection to the mindset I talked about - what happens when we view religion according to its utility for our interests, when we isolate ourselves behind our own claims or rigid doctrines and look out at 'the rest of the people.' In the end, we are those people. We are the problem.

Until we can figure out our own individual places in the struggle, how we each are part of 'the problem,' and learn to respect and seek beauty in the cultural differences, then I am content to leave Africans to their own God or gods. I have learned from them.

I hope I'm not edging on heresy.

Random story - Keith and I have been in Nairobi this week, staying with the Cottars. There's been some business to take care of, and we just needed to get out of camp for a few days. Through a long chain of events this weekend, we ended up at a funeral memorial for a person I had never even heard of. It was a funeral with an open bar. There are too many details to recount after that. Life is crazy here. And a lot of fun.

Peace & Love.