The connection between Christian expansion and the use of indigenous names for God

Hau kola's
Lamin Sanneh offers some challenging ideas regarding the connection between the effectivenss of the Gospel and the appropriation of local indigenous names for God in Bible translation. It presents a unique wholistic view of redemption and the whole person as it relates to the preservation of indigenous cultural, social and religious contructs. I found it to be very helpful in our ongoing discussion of syncretism. -- RT

Excerpts from Lamin Sanneh's, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003.

p. 10
I have decided to give priority to indigenous response and local appropriation over against missionary transmission and direction, and accordingly have reversed the argument by speaking of the indigenous discovery of Christianity rather than the Christian discovery of indigenous societies.

The fact that Bible translation adopted into its canon the indigenous names for God implied at the minimum a tacit rejection of the standard monotheism-polytheism dichotomy of evolutionary thought, and opened the way for indigenous innovation and motivation in the religious life.

Bible translation has thus helped to bring about a historic shift in Christianity’s theological center of gravity by pioneering a strategic alliance with local conceptions of religion.

p. 18
Another factor little noticed in the statistics is a theological one: Christian expansion was virtually limited to those societies whose people had preserved the indigenous name for God. That was a surprising discovery, because of the general feeling that Christianity was incompatible with indigenous ideas of religion. Yet the apparent congruity between Christianity and the indigenous name for God finds a parallel in the fact of Christian expansion occurring after rather than during colonialism. In any case, Africans best responded to Christianity where the indigenous religions were strongest, not weakest, suggesting a degree of indigenous compatibility with the gospel, and the implicit conflict with colonial priorities.

p.22
Christianity has caused a renewal of local languages, and the old customs and traditions in response to its ethics of love, reconciliation, justice, and responsibility. That renewal has also meant new structures and institutions guiding the expansion.

“World Christianity” is the movement of Christianity as it takes form and shape in societies that previously were not Christian, societies that had no bureaucratic tradition with which to domesticate the gospel. In these societies Christianity was received and expressed through the cultures, customs, and traditions of the people affected. World Christianity is not one thing, but a variety of indigenous responses through more or less effective local idioms, but in any case without necessarily the European Enlightenment frame. “Global Christianity,” on the other hand, is the faithful replication of Christian forms and patterns developed in Europe. It echoes Hilaire Belloc’s famous statement, “Europe is the faith.” It is, in fact, religious establishment and the cultural captivity of faith.

p. 24
The development of mother tongues as the means of receiving the gospel caused the shift. Under Christendom the basis and rationale for transmitting the gospel were colonial annexation and subjugation, with the church as an afterthought. Native lands and labor were expropriated, commercial and administrative agents appointed and deployed, mission stations setup, and church life and practice regulated. That was “Europeandom” as the faith and politics of early modern Europe spread abroad and was legitimized by the sacraments of the church.

Indigenizing the faith meant decolonizing its theology, and membership of the fellowship implied spiritual home rule. World Christianity was thereby weaned of the political habits of Christendom, even thought he mental habits died hard.

p. 25
An inculturated Christianity is not merely a sequel of discredited versions of the religion; it anticipates an emancipated society, a situation for which local leadership is best suited.

p. 35
World Christianity, by contrast, must be interpreted by a plurality of models of inculturation in line with the variety of local idioms and practices. The mental habits of Christendom predispose us to look for one essence of the faith, with a corresponding global political structure as safeguard, whereas world Christianity challenges us to pay attention to the dynamic power of the gospel and to the open-ended character of communities of faith.