by Sorry for my failure to communicate over the last few weeks. I have been on a trip to Rwanda and Uganda on behalf of Pepperdine and Saddleback Church’s Justice Task Force (Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback). I believe our trip illustrates some significant, relatively new, forces in evangelical Christianity. At the end of this post, I will give some thoughts on some of the Christian cultural forces that have led to this sort of trip.
Saddleback is not my church (it is on the other end of LA), though I share its evangelical theology. Pepperdine has teamed with Saddleback’s Justice Task Force, made up mostly of lawyers from the church, on several projects. On this visit, we have been teaching large groups of pastors about the law concerning domestic violence and property grabbing (from widows). These are common practices in East Africa and we are trying to get pastors involved as a part of the solution through teaching their congregations and counseling people in their communities. This mirrors the way that Saddleback has affected public health issues in Africa–with health care professionals from their church informing pastors about how to reduce the spread of many diseases. Over 10,000 members of Saddleback have traveled to Rwanda on such missions, at their own expense. There are very few hospitals or public health facilities or legal clinics in the country to deal with such issues, but there are a lot of churches and no institutions as influential on individual life as the churches.
As I grew up in an evangelical church in the 50s and 60s, I never heard of evangelical involvement in such issues (other than that of the Black Church in civil rights matters). We sent missionaries to teach people about Christ, and medical missionaries to treat disease, but there was very little concern with justice issues. Several factors (other than the ease of world travel, though ours was not so easy—a 24 hour trip turned into an 80 hour trip and our bags took a whole week to reach us) seem to be coming together to create this phenomenon.
The first is a theological recognition among evangelicals (lost during much of the twentieth century), that God is concerned with all of life, including justice issues. NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff has documented the growing involvement of evangelicals in social justice concerns in Africa, mentioning Saddleback in particular. See here and here. Those of you who are lawyers may have noticed this growth in organizations such as the International Justice Mission and Advocates International (both of which were in evidence on our trip).
The second factor is the emergence of Evangelical mega-churches that not only share this social concern, but have the man and woman-power (our group was equally divided) to take on such a task. Only a few years ago, there were few churches with 10,000 members, much less churches that had 10,000 members who would travel to Africa at their own expense to do such work.
Finally, there is the explosion of Christianity in Africa. This, along with the explosion of Christianity throughout the global south, is documented in the very fine book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins. As he notes, at the beginning of the twentieth century, around 9 percent of the population of Africa was Christian. With the end of colonialism, many thought that Christian influence in Africa would die, but the reverse has happened. Today the proportion of Christians in Africa is approaching one-half. Much of this growth has been evangelical, Pentecostal, and enthusiastic. Influencing pastors of African churches can influence all of African society. Many of these pastors participate in the Saddleback conferences, which include Christians of a broad variety of denominations.
If you want to see my reflections on other aspects of my trip—visits to Mother Teresa’s orphanage, the National Genocide Museum, a Catholic church building (now a memorial) where 11,000 people were slaughtered in the genocide, my four hour car ride with the country’s Minister of Justice (cf. our Attorney General) send me an email and I will send you my report.
Awesome, Bob. I think another factor in this emergence of social consciousness among evangelicals is also an ongoing shift in the center of gravity of evangelical theology. We are less prone to identify “the Gospel” as only a forensic matter of “how to get to heaven when you die.” I think this relates to a shift in eschatology. “Mainline” evangelicals — for example, those who graduate from CCCU colleges — are more likely to be amillennial (ala N.T. Wright) or historically premillennial than dispensational and pretribulational. When we undertand that the eschatological future involves a renewal of this creation, we are more likely to live out a holistic gospel. Amen!
Kudos to you for being involved in this effort.
“Justice” is surely a good thing, and the practices against which your justice efforts are directed surely seem like unqualified evils. But I wonder: do you worry at all about whether introducing Western procedures, attitudes, concepts of “justice” might have unforeseen, unintended, and perhaps unfortunate consequences for differently oriented cultures? Or am I being too relativist even to raise the question?
Thanks to both David and Steve for their comments. I believe that David is right. I don’t hear as many Christians these days express the common premillennial view that it is a waste of time to try to affect things in this life, since things are just going to get worse before Jesus comes. Actually, I heard that view expressed by some Ugandan Christian lawyers, almost as a self-defense mechanism, as they deal with overwhelming corruption in the legal system. Changing the system is too much to hope for.
Steve (my favorite relativist) is right about the dangers of introducing Western procedures, attitudes, and concepts of “justice” to Africa. I must say that I had pause when I learned that I was lecturing on domestic violence in Rwanda in the same week that Hillary Clinton was doing so to another (much larger) group. I can only say that the Saddleback group tried to convey a biblical notion of justice in this context—one that emphasized the importance of family, not just individual rights.
One small vignette, that may illustrate some Rwandan sensitivity to Steve’s concern: In one of our sessions with pastors, we broke up into small groups for discussion. In my group, I noted that the dowry practice (supported by Rwanda’s law requiring parental permission for marriage) is a problem for both property grabbing from widows and domestic violence. Many “husbands” do not have enough money for the dowry (averaging $6000-$20,000 US) and cannot afford a legal marriage. (They are, however, commonly called “husbands” in Rwanda, though they do not have a legal marriage.) Upon their deaths, their “wives” have no legal rights and are vulnerable to being pushed off of property. Many legal husbands, who have paid large dowries, believe they own their wives and have rights to sexual relations with them irrespective of consent. I discussed with my small group these problems created by the dowry and parental consent law, and the pastors generally agreed with me. Pastor Lydia Umulisa Masasu (Senior Pastor of Kagali’s Evangelical Restoration Church, currently seeking to build a 20,000 seat sanctuary) asked me with a knowing smile what the divorce rate is in the US. I acknowledged that it is fifty percent (compared with Rwanda’s five percent). I sheepishly suggested that her church needs to send a small group of members to the US to teach us about family matters. That got a laugh from the group. Hopefully, Rwandans can find a way to both protect personal rights and the family. My visit to Rwanda reinforced my view that any legal rule is likely to have a mixed impact.
I don’t have your email address, but I’d love more info. on your visit to Mother Teresa’s orphanage. Thanks.
Hi,
I am interested to see your other reports you mention. Please send them to the address given.
Thank you.