Christianity’s (new) face.

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Posted by Justin Long ⋅ January 1, 2007 ⋅

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The theme for this issue is West Africa, and we have tried to give as broad an overview as possible. This issue has been a phenomenal piece to put together. We have had an unprecedented number of people contact us to suggest articles, and an equal number send us photographs, short descriptions of favored resources, and pointeres to new events.

Christianity, statistics tell us, is increasingly wearing an African and Asian face. The African face itself is increasingly West African. To see this face clearly, we begin with an overall survey including a chronology, a survey of the countries, and a survey of the peoples.

I am indebted to Josh Snyder for helping me pull together the country surveys. You can use these as thumbnail descriptions, not exhaustive profiles; they will give you a basic picture to hold in your mind while you read the articles. I am equally indebted to the many people who sent photos so that you can have a good picture of the people group clusters that live in West Africa. Warren Lawrence gave us some splendid maps of the people groups, breaking the groups out by population, religion, and language—these maps are each easily worth thousands of words.

In addition to these we feature several additional maps which I created from national data. These five ‘atlases’ each have one primary map (for example, Gross Domestic Product) as well as three related maps (for example, Human Development, Corruption, and Households). We have also collected many of the photographs we were sent (which were not used elsewhere) into three ‘Photocollages’: one to illustrate women’s issues, one for nomads, and one for West African Christianity. These get beyond the raw numbers to give a glimpse of daily life in the region.

The numerous feature articles themselves are really incredible. Tom Pratt’s passion for the poor, Stanley Nowji’s excellent overview of the massive impact Africans are making outside of Africa, Thomas Hieber’s insightful look at non-African communities in Africa itself, the all-too-brief surveys of African mission movements, ad John Lindner’s picturesque overview of some indigenous mission agencies all bring aspects of West Africa to light. I wish we could have included even more, but doing so would have made this issue even longer than our record 90 pages!

In conclusion we have several articles that actually were among the first articles to arrive. Darlene Jerome, Scott Hicks and Keith Webb all sent good material on coaching workers and member care. This is particularly urgent in West Africa, where many workers are laboring for souls in the most difficult of conditions, amidst desperate poverty and harsh persecution.

For our look at tomorrow, Danny McCain writes a deep analysis of several factors that are key to Africa’s future. His examination leads to a stunning projection which Stanley Nowji’s article concurs with: Africa’s church is headed toward a growing position of leadership in global Christianity. To quote Nowji, “Who would have thought an American church would come under an African bishopric—in order to remain biblical?”

Yet for all its potential the church in this region of the world faces many challenges and difficulties. While there are some in West Africa who are rich, many if not most are poor—and not seeking wealth. Many are healthy but more are not. For the church of the future, issues of employment, sanitation, education, language, migration, and cattle are the order of the day. This church is up to the task of evangelization, but at the same time asks us to stand beside them—as brothers, sisters, partners. We have much we can learn from them, much they can learn from us, and much we can learn together. Are we up to this challenge? I truly hope so!

Finally, for Hope I am honored to have a great article from my wife, Heidi, about the path to hope in the midst of cultural transition. I think this is a piece every field worker will be able to relate to, and full of wisdom for any potential field worker to keep in mind.