Word from a seminarian: The end of Christendom, the rise of African Christianity, flame of hope for the West

Abstract

Apart from being asked about the food and weather in Africa, one of the most frequent questions I am asked as a seminary student from Ghana concerns the Christian experience in Africa, especially because many are aware of the vibrancy and growth of the church across the African continent. Indeed, because Christianity is on the rise in Africa whereas secularism is on the rise in the West, I am often asked whether there is hope for the faith in the West. Without a doubt, the answer is yes, but understanding how this is the case requires reflecting on history. After all, the most important difference between Africa and the West is the way it responded to the collapse of Christendom in the twentieth century. That is the story that must be explored if one hopes to learn from the dynamism of African Christianity.On Good Friday, April 8, 1966, the cover page of Time magazine read, "Is God Dead?" According to Time, "the three words represent a summons to reflect on the meaning of existence." 1 In the essay, editor John T. Elson heralded the rise of "the new atheism." Elson drew on the religious and socio-political trends of the day, such as the jarring truth of the Holocaust, to argue for the decline in the consciousness of a personal God even among American Protestants. 2 Eighty-four years prior to this headline, Friedrich Nietzsche had opened a similar conversation in Europe with his infamous essay "Gott ist tot" (God is dead). The irony is that the West (Europe and North America), which accounted for roughly 80% of the world's Christian population in 1900, was the face of Christianity. 3 However, after two bloody world wars largely fought by western powers it was time to clear the decks and rebuild everything. In the rebuilding, the consensus was that the Christian identity of the West was irrelevant.