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.Parris grudgingly admits this change has entirely to do with the God of Christianity—though he says it is a pity that "salvation is part of the package," and stunningly, he is personally unmoved by what he admits to be a positive transformative force.
Such a testimony to the transformation that takes place in African believers is a helpful illustration and reminder to western Christians of how the Gospel changes people. Western culture, though in decay in many ways, still bears many marks of being a Christian culture.
Thus, when Jesus transforms a life, the difference is perhaps not as externally remarkable from a distance. Western culture bears many marks of common grace.
Yesterday I started reading The Reason for God and came across a quote from Lamin Sanneh's Whose Religion is Christianity? regarding the process that happens as Africans begin to read the Bible in their own language (and are thus empowered to do their own theology):
Christianity answered this historical challenge by a reorrientation of the worldview...People sensed in their hearts that Jesus did not mock their respect for the sacred nor their clamor for an invincible Savior, and so they beat their sacred drums for him...Christianity helped Africans to become renewed Africans, not re-made Europeans.It is refreshing to see how Jesus renews and recreates people and cultures.
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