For believers the statement; God works in mysterious ways is used sometimes rather flippantly. Yet anyone who walks with Him long enough in truth and in spirit soon discovers how true this really is. While God’s providence is a regular feature of the true believers life, the amazement that accompanies it never seems to wear out. I have had one of those moments recently.
In my quest to ascertain the
means by which man can obtain a maximization of his existence, I have come to
the conclusion after over 10 years of research, that the Christian worldview is
the only way. My experiment with new age ideas, philosophy and psychology has
failed quite woefully. But the Christian worldview had some challenges I was
struggling to resolve. Chief among them: its “European face”.
My sojourn through theology and its history brought
me face to face with the master theologians of the African continent. The likes
of Alexandria’s titan; Origen, Hippo’s maestro; Augustine, Tertullian, Athanasius
and their acolytes have made such startlingly profound contributions to the faith;
it is shocking some would refer to Christianity as a European religion. Lurking
behind the complex veil of African ingenuity, I detected a failure that grieved
my heart deeply. As an African, I felt that these theologians had failed us by
not undertaking south-bound missions that would have brought the much needed
light to the rest of the continent. The Christianity that flourished in the
north would have reached the west and south at least a thousand years before
the first European ever set foot on the shores of the Atlantic. It is a real
tragedy when one considers that, it is about the only commandment Christ handed
down before His departure.
“And he said unto them, Go ye into the entire
world, and preach the gospel to every creature.16
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”.
- Mark 16:15-16
It is that command that brought the faith to
North Africa and Syria and Persia and later India and China. Men did their
duty, why not our African fathers who by their writing alone have showed such
dexterity with the word. Have we not failed the Lord? Is the arrival of the Whiteman
not a punishment then?
Only yesterday I had resorted
to writing an article expressing my thought on this seeming failure. There are
too many people claiming that the Christian faith is the white man’s religion
and it’s God, the Whiteman’s God. My planned article was going to show them how
the faith reached us first before Europe. But then I would have to explain why
it did not spread to the rest of the continent. These thoughts had populated my
mind when I chanced upon a video on Facebook. It was an Afrocentric complaining
about African American Christian Apologists calling them liars. He mentioned names
and I went goog-ling. The surprise that waited would solve a problem I have
been living with for years. That surprised will change the direction of this
article.
Read part two here >>
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