How can the Enlightened European conceive God?

For God is not a philosophical concept.

Welcome to my newsletter, “Global Witness, Globally Reimagined,” where I dream here about mission in a postcolonial world. Every week, I share one thought that has spoken to me in the week, two resources I trust will be helpful to you, and three exciting quotes about mission. I pray one of these will energise you in the coming week.

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1. Thought I Can’t Shake Off

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Edwin Smith (1876—1957)¹ begins his book, African Ideas of God, (published by the University of Edinburgh Press in 1950) with a short story about an interesting conversation he had with a famous Swiss-German biographer, Emil Ludwig (1881—1948) in the mid-1930s. For the sake of fidelity, I will just copy and paste the first paragraph of the book for you to see for yourselves.

Some years ago I found myself at dinner in the hospitable home of the Acting-Governor of what is now the Sudan at Khartum. One of my fellow guests was the eminent biographer, Emil Ludwig. Having learnt that I had been a missionary in Central Africa, he drew me aside after the meal and questioned me at great length indeed, he monopolized me for the rest of the evening. “What does Christianity do for the African?” He asked. “Does it increase his personal happiness, and if so, how?” I spoke of the release from fears. “What fears, and how release?” I pictured the fears and told how we try to induce a personal trust in a living, present, loving God who is stronger than any evil power. Mr Ludwig was puzzled. “How can the untutored African conceive God?” It surprised him when I said there was no need to persuade pagan (sic) Africans of the existence of God: they are sure of it, but not sure of Him as a living power in their individual experience. He was frankly incredulous. “How can this be?” he said. “Deity is a philosophical concept which savages (sic) are incapable of framing.” I doubt whether I convinced him.²

Every time I read this, I am reminded of the huge wave of secularisation that has squeezed a great deal of religion, including Christianity, out of Europe. The religious landscape of Europe has, in the decades since the book was published, changed so drastically. It is the European who has now become the heathen, and needs to be persuaded about the existence of God. The legacy of the European Enlightenment remains and, with it, the intentional societal relegation of religion (and spirituality) to the private spheres of life. Today, a few decades after that dinner conversation in Khartoum, the question is, “How can the enlightened European conceive God?” For, of course, God is not a philosophical concept but Spirit and those who worship God must worship in Spirit and in truth.

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2. Resources I am Enjoying

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• Podcast: Dr Girma Bishaw: Gratitude

In this podcast, Girma Bishaw demonstrates the missional potential of non-Western Christians living in through gratitude. He argues that gratitude to God and to one another for such gifts as life and belonging can transform societies. When something good is acknowledged, for instance, the gift of friendship, it is encouraged and promoted and this can help change narratives. It is more than two years old, and the organisation he leads now, The Gratitude Initiative, has been established and has actually gained a following. In this episode, he was articulating the ideas behind the initiative. Gratitude changes social imaginations of people and this can lead to relational transformation in communities, better-fulfilled human life, a greater sense of belonging and, therefore, a more harmonious and just society. This podcast belongs to Asbury Seminary where Girma studied before graduating with a Doctor of Ministry degree in 2019. He came as a refugee from Ethiopia in 1992 and has lived in the UK since then. He is a respected leader among diaspora Christian communities in London.

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Video: BBC's Sunday Morning Live: Is Religion Dying Out In Britain?

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In this conversation with Andrew Copson on the BBC Sunday Morning Live show, various religious leaders struggle with the rising secularism in Britain and how it has impacted certain religions, especially Christianity. They contend with the fading of Christianity as a cultural identity and historical institution in Britain, the increased and overstretched narrative of the freedom to choose, the disconnect between faith and practical living, and the rise of immigrant Christianity and other religions, among other related matters. In all, these leaders wonder what conversations about religion, especially Christianity, would look like in the next few decades if the subject is still relevant in the country’s life. There is, indeed, an urgent need for a fresh missional engagement in the UK and in Europe today, probably more than it has been in the past millennium.

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3. Quotes I am Pondering

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• The conspicuous changes in Europe and North America further re-echo the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity from the Global North to the Global South with countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa as major missionary-sending nations to Europe and North America. — Babatunde Adedibu

• This is something we need to dwell on: what does it mean that in the so-called secularized and secularizing Europe, Christianity seems to be linked more and more to national belonging, national identity, national culture? — Dorottya Nagy

• Africa may yet prove to be the spiritual conservatory of the world … when the civilized nations … shall have had their spiritual perceptions darkened …[through] a captivating and absorbing materialism, it may be, that they have to resort to Africa to recover some of the simple elements of faith. —Edward Blyden.

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I pray that you have a missionally faithful week.

1. Edwin W. Smith was born in Aliwal North (Cape Province) in South Africa. He was born to a British missionary of the Primitive Methodist Church in South Africa by the name John Smith. In 1898, Edwin went back to Africa as a missionary in Lesotho, South Africa, and Zambia. He returned to England in 1915 and worked with the British and Foreign Bible Society until 1939 when he joined with others to found the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures. He died in 1957.

2. Edwin William Smith, (ed.), African Ideas of God, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1950, p. 1.