Through African Eyes by John A. Azumah | Articles | First Things

Through African Eyes by John A. Azumah | Articles | First Things

A Presbyterian pastor from Ghana teaching at PCUSA (liberal Presbyterian) church puts forth an African Christian perspective on the gay marriage debate in the Global North and gets to the heart of the different reaction in the Southern Hemisphere:

"As I have reflected on the consultation, I have come to the conclusion that the doctrinal differences between American liberals and African traditionalists originate in deeper conflicts. We may argue about what the Bible says about sexuality, but there is a broader, unstated disagreement over the Bible itself. For mainstream Western society, the Bible is an ancient text that might arouse intellectual curiosity or become the subject of historical analysis, but it is hardly a sacred book. It has no more authority in American culture than the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King's speeches, and other notable historic statements. Dropping the language of "obedience to Scripture" and "conformity to the historic confessional standards" from the PC(USA) Ordination Standards underscores this point.

"The Bible has a very different status in African societies. Where Christianity has become dominant in the last century, the Bible remains a sacred text, relevant and living. The Bible is more than a compilation of historical documents. It is, in very significant ways, an African Testament. For large segments of African Christian societies, the world of the Bible is contemporary. Old and New Testament narratives of sacrifice, polygamy, plague, agriculture, dancing, shepherds, tensions between nomadic pastoralism and peasant dwellers, epidemics, and war have immediate relevance. Andrew Walls remarks, "You do not have to interpret Old Testament Christianity to Africans; they live in an Old Testament world." The word of God is literally "living and active" in the African context. A leading African theologian, Kwame Bediako, has said:

"'In becoming Christian I discovered I was becoming African again. I was recovering my sense of the spirituality of life. I was recovering my sense of the nearness of the living God. I was recovering my African sense of the wholeness of life. I find in becoming Christian, I am being more African than I think I was. I am being more who I am. '"

He has much more on the contrast between the western and African churches -- the importance of community in Africa, the West's fixation on sex and its deification of choice.

"As an African, I'm aware that we too must address many of the issues raised by the sexual revolution, including homosexuality. We cannot pray or preach it away, and it is not just a "Western problem," as some in Africa would like to think. But my years here have convinced me that Americans are uniquely ill-equipped to help us find our way. American culture is distorted by a fixation on sex, and conversations about sex are dominated by ideologies that shut down discussion. To use the words of Desmond Tutu: "For goodness' sake, leave us alone to do our own thing, even if it means making mistakes. At least they will be our mistakes.""