Unconscious Pagans: A Response to "Christianity Rediscovered"

Hello, all. I wrote a paper just recently for a class at college. It might actually be one of the most concise papers I've ever written, and I am quite pleased with it. Looking back at my old posts, I can see that I have come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.

The paper is a response to a book I read called "Christianity Rediscovered." It was about a Catholic missionary named Donovan who traveled to Africa in the 1960's. He was deeply disturbed by the way that the once good name of Christianity had been dragged through the mud of racial hatred and institutionalism, both of which are NOT central to the Christian message. He also worried that Christianity had become too Western, too estranged from the third world to be able to make any difference in the life of a nomadic tribe, of which there are many in Africa. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to see the culturally sensitive side of Christianity or wants to be given a reason why Christianity is NOT conformist or culturally single minded, and is in fact freely accessible to everyone.

That being said, here's my customary disclaimer: The paper is not meant to offend, just to build on top of what I see as solid work from Donovan and to make it more relevant to a contemporary Western audience.

"Most Christians today agree that the teachings of Christ are wholly distinct from worldly beliefs. The Christian Gospel is allegedly transcendent, above any worldly influence that could dilute the significance of its message. And yet, none can deny that throughout its long historical existence, Christianity as a whole has progressively assumed a decidedly Western tone. During the time of Vincent J. Donovan, missionary and author of Christianity Rediscovered, this Westernized Christianity began to show its age and limitations in how it went about its mission to spread the Gospel. In its emphasis on the education of and financial assistance for the African people, the Church essentially became another world charity organization, a mere institution, no better qualified to share the Gospel than the United Nations. After one hundred years of such administration, the only victory achieved was a hollow one, with liturgy being neglected and religion becoming just another subject taught in the schools (7).

Donovan protests this cultural bias, and rightly so. Throughout his book, he argues that the radical individualism and institutionalism of Western society needs careful examination (and when necessary, restriction) before preaching the Gospel, and throughout this brief exposition, I will argue that, at all times, Christians should carefully emphasize the Gospel's transcendence over all earthly systems and its need to be shared within a culturally subjective context. Every tribe and people, whether pagan or Western, is perfectly capable of listening to and receiving the good news. The challenge lies in translating it in such a way that they can understand it within their own cultural context. Only then can they begin to decide their collective response. The relationship between Christian theology (or belief in the divine message that it is meant to clarify) and human culture becomes clear in this light. Theology is meant to meet humanity where it stands.

Frustrated by the inefficiency of the Church's institutional work in Africa, Donovan took an alternative, direct approach. In a letter to an unnamed bishop, he expressed a desire to dispense with the failing, traditional strategy of not preaching the Gospel directly to the pagans:

“I suddenly feel the urgent need to cast aside all theories and discussions, all efforts at strategy – and simply go to these people and do the work among them for which I came to Africa. . . .I know this is a radical departure from traditional procedure, but the very fact that it is to be considered shows the state we are in” (13).

Traditional procedure dictated that one could not preach the Gospel to pagans directly, but that they needed time and incentive to warm up to Christian ideology (42). This might be a concern for a number of reasons, whether political, economical or historical, etc. But when Donovan defied the norm by asking a Masai elder named Ndangoya to speak with him about God (as opposed to medical or financial aid), it quickly became clear that the pagan Masai were already culturally prepared for the Gospel; they needed no warming up or incentive to listen to it when it was spoken. “Who can refuse to talk about God?” answered Ndangoya (18).

Donovan soon learned that the Masai, indeed, all pagans, are beautiful people. They have beautiful customs, habits and expressions. They are human without being Western. But more importantly, they possess their own liturgies and a religious mindset that is potentially receptive to the Christian Gospel. The true story of the virtuous Ole Sikii, the Masai who earnestly sought Engai (his god) even to the edges of a volcano, but for all his effort could not find him, stands as a testament to the honesty and purity of pagan belief (83-90). Though the way they think about God and theological concepts might initially sound too different from the orthodoxy that Westerners have accepted, they are every bit as capable of comprehending the significance of the Christian Gospel and the fulfillment that it entails.

Indeed, fulfillment is the single most important word that could be used to describe the Gospel to pagan ears. The Gospel does not demand a conforming to Western thought. It has no cultural strings attached. Being a Christian does not strictly mean abandoning tribal culture and embracing the theological culture of the Western Church. But what the Gospel does entail is the fulfillment of the beliefs and customs already in pagan possession, meaning that Christ and all subsequent theology is meant to meet humanity where it stands. In other words, pagan culture and liturgy is entirely compatible with Christian doctrine, just as the language of the Hellenistic people encountered by Paul proved entirely compatible. While the Greeks sought God, God sought the Greeks, and he spoke to them through missionaries like Paul. The Gospel presented itself as an answer to the great questions that had plagued Greek thought for years; the Gospel was the fulfillment of their culture. In just the same way, the messages of forgiveness and community preached by Christ addressed the age old concerns and fears of the Masai people. Though their creation myth was not that of Eden, it shared the most fundamental themes of Creation and Fall, albeit with different cultural biases (43).

In multiple cases, Donovan learned to dismiss the culturally blind assumption that pagans have no sense of piety, or that grace and holiness were gifts that he needed to bring with him to the dark corners of the world. His encounters with the various Masai tribes made it progressively clearer to him that grace and holiness already abounded there, regardless of his missionary presence. In fact, when his own faith failed him, he found among the Masai culture a new insight to faith that helped inspire him to complete his task. To the Masai, true belief is like a lion on the hunt, who leaps for his prey, wraps his arms around it, and takes it into himself. Merely agreeing to something is like the hunter who shoots his prey from a distance and uses only a portion of his body, but real faith requires the use of the lion's entire being in its pursuit. Moreover, the analogy provides an excellent picture of how God seeks out his people. “We have not searched for him,” said the Masai elder. “He has searched for us. He has searched for us and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God” (48). In a way, this is the heart of the Christian faith; while humanity seeks the divine, the divine seeks humanity. The light of the Gospel was always God's to give, and he gives it indiscriminately of culture.

Not only is the Gospel intended to be given to all cultures, but it is also meant to be heard and understood by them as well. As in the case of language, we fail to understand foreign languages despite our familiarity with the common meanings behind words, as we are not always familiar with the words to which meanings correspond. Human beings do not speak a single language, nor do they have a single cultural context in which to share concepts. Instead, there are many cultures and ways of thinking. If the Gospel is truly transcendent of earthly limitations, then it cares nothing for culture. This is not to say that the Gospel dispenses with human culture as worthless, but instead that it cares for human cultural, political, or historical systems specifically as varying means by which it can express itself to the human understanding. For example, God communicated with the tribe of Israel in terms of its own culture, but this does not make ancient Hebrew culture somehow superior to contemporary ones. Human ways of thinking, living, and speaking, while valued as precious, are vehicles for the underlying message of the Gospel. They are ways of signifying something greater than themselves.

If this is true, then Western civilization has no exclusive claim to the interpretation of the Gospel. Donovan frequently criticizes the Western Church for being too individualistic and centered around organizations. He contrasts these tendencies to the communitarian outlook of Masai tribal society, and claims that, “A missionary facing an alien culture, to be an efficient instrument of the gospel, has to have the courage to cast off the idols of the tribe, of the tribe he came from” (68). In other words, a missionary like Donovan must set aside his tendencies of thinking in terms of individualism or institutionalism, both traits of Western “tribes,” and learn to take on a new meta-cultural perspective, which is entirely in keeping with the demands of missionary work.

Up to this point, Donovan has correctly assessed the relationship between the Gospel and human culture, but a problem presents itself: he has articulated well how Christianity is a fulfillment of pagan culture, but he has said nothing of fulfillment for Western culture. What about the people who do not possess the religious receptivity of the pious pagans, and whose culture has contrasting values that do not immediately lend themselves to the fulfillment that the Gospel promises?

I am a Westerner. I have never travelled to Africa or any third world countries, and as such, Western society is my native environment. The only foreign countries I have seen with my own eyes are European ones, with developed cities and no nomadic tribes to speak of. The people and customs there are as diverse and unique as anywhere, but they differ from the pagans in that they have inherited varying viewpoints with regards to religion. I have seen that large portions of Europe are without belief. Despite the towering cathedrals that still stand as reminders of their Christian heritage, many Westerners do not acknowledge any need for faith in their lives. This obstacle to missionary work is not exclusive to Europe, either. North America finds itself in a similar situation. The public eye here often confuses faith for fundamentalism or irrationality. In increasing numbers, Western people dismiss belief in God as an antiquated notion. At best, they see the Gospel as trivial or subjective.

Westerners, for all their civilization, are in desperate need. Though they may not starve or suffer under conditions of civil war, they lack the ability to see the Gospel as a fulfillment of their culture. In their comfort, they have lost the religious receptivity of the pagans, which was what once allowed Christianity to spread, and they remain unaware of their loss. They are as the rich young man who refused to follow Christ after giving away his possessions. My objection to Donovan is not his meta-cultural perspective of missionary work, but rather how limited his scope within that field of work is. He emphasizes the need to speak the pagan language to bring them the fulfillment of the Gospel, but he remains silent as to how the Gospel should translate to Western ears. Donovan is a product of his time, putting all his focus into third world missionary work because that was where the greatest need once seemed to be. Apart from an occasional anecdote about the ignorance of Western youth in the classroom, he seems blind to the spiritual poverty of Western culture, and gives no guidance or insight as to how this obstacle can be overcome.

Having never traveled to Africa, I cannot say with certainty that Donovan's emphasis was unnecessary. Extreme poverty and suffering are, beyond any reasonable doubt, real issues that Christians must take seriously. In spite of that, I am keenly aware that I do not live in the pagan society that Donovan describes. Post-modernism and the lingering spirit of the Enlightenment have hardened the heart of the West to the good news. In a way, the West has assumed the traditionally negative connotations of paganism: its superstition is science, its witchdoctors are radical secularists, and, most dangerously, it teaches an active resistance to any notion of a higher power that could threaten human sovereignty. Westerners have become the worst sort of pagans, the kind who have lost their religious receptivity, something crucial to the acknowledgement of the fulfillment promised by the Gospel. Arguably, this fulfillment is the very point of missionary work. In short, Westerners have traded the positive aspects of their paganism for all the negative ones. They remain willfully ignorant of who they really are.

Donovan's strategy of the Finishable Task assumes that pagans who will either accept or reject the Gospel constitute the world. For those who accept, they receive the Christian inheritance, and they must become missionaries unto their neighbors. For those who reject, Donovan says nothing except that he must mournfully pass them by and continue sharing with those who will listen (80-82). With this tactic, he excludes many Westerners, as a simple sharing of the Gospel will never suffice in persuading them. Moreover, his outlined plan entails approaching “the people of any culture or nation, not as individuals, but as a community” (121). This worked well in his dealings with the Masai, but for Westerners, who do not often think in terms of community, this approach fails.

Either Donovan's meta-cultural vision of the Gospel is correct, and missionaries need to approach Westerners within the context or their own culture (even if that culture is individualistic or organization centered), or they need to convince Westerners that their culture is somehow wrong and that they must embrace a communitarian outlook. The first option says that Westerners must hear the Gospel in their own terms, while the second dictates that they must forsake their culture and take on aspects of one more fitting with Donovan's model. But this second alternative is an anathema to Donovan's entire position, since he initially concerned himself with the fact that the Western Church has no right to impose Western culture on any who hear the Gospel. Consequently, pagan communitarianism has no right to impose its culture on the West, and Donovan's complaints of Western individualism are dismissible in the face of the Gospel, which is transcendent of human culture in any case.

Looking back, I can see that Donovan's approach is true to the original missionary intent and practice of the Gospel. Seen in this light, Christianity is geared for reaching out to pagans, specifically those who earnestly seek God. But at the same time, Christianity appears ill-suited for dealing with a culture of pagans who have heard the good news but rejected it. However accurate Donovan's view, it fails to consider the fulfillment of Western culture. This stands out as a clear shortcoming. While I must agree with Donovan's model, it suffices only as one half of a greater equation, a foundation upon which to build. The question becomes how missionaries can translate the Gospel into the language of Western pagans while staying true to Donovan's meta-cultural approach to missionary work.

Belief in the Gospel meets people where they are. It must meet us Westerners in terms of our own language while somehow coaxing us away from our hard-hearted Enlightenment presuppositions. It must remain consistent with our scientific and moral sensibilities while simultaneously engendering in us a heart of understanding, a willingness to listen to God's message as given through the Incarnation. It must transform us from rejecting pagans into virtuous pagans. It must convince us of the need to acknowledge our own paganism, and that the Gospel fulfills our culture every bit as much as it does that of the Masai of Africa."

Works Cited:

Donovan, Vincent J. Christianity Rediscovered. 4thth ed. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2005. N. pag. Print.

Feedback/comments are welcome and appreciated. I'd love to hear what you think of all this.

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