I didn’t believe it possible, but I read an article… by an atheist no less… who admits that everywhere there is a Christian presence in Africa, there is a better quality of life. Surprise, surprise!
You can click here to read the whole article… but here are a few selected quotes…
A confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
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.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open.
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.
But all that doesn’t surprise us does it!
Maybe if Christians performed the same kind of work here, instead of just proselytizing and trying to step on the constitution, American atheists and secularists would look at them in a different light as well.
I agree with you 100%! If we Christians would live what we say we believe… what Jesus taught… and what Scripture teaches at least then we could not be accused of hypocrisy. I believe that if Christians would be more involved in being salt and light our message would be more readily heard, believed, and followed. On those points I agree with you!
I must say that there is a lot of the same kind of work going on here in America but the secular press does not cover such good works, and the Christian publications are not read by many people. Christians work quietly in their own community and through their churches helping those they come in contact with every day. True, there is a lot more we could do but we should never be discouraged in good work.