The Invisible Institution vs. the Institutional Church

It's Thursday evening. I am reading. Never to Leave Us Alone: The Prayer Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Lewis Baldwin.

I'm feeling sad. "For enslaved Africans in the antebellum South, the "invisible institution" - clandestine meetings held in the fields, woods, thickets, ravines, and cabins - constituted the most prominent setting for both private and communal prayer." (13)

Some prayed with their heads in pots...

Some prayed while huddled beneath "thoroughly wetted quilts and rags." (14)

These things break my heart. They prayed this way to keep "the sound of their voices from penetrating the air." (13) To pray to God the slaves had to "steal away to Jesus."

Baldwin writes: "The invisible institution became the major wellspring of the black prayer tradition." (14) The "Christian" slaveholders' institutional churches, on the other hand, were places where the wells had run dry.

On Secret Religious Meetings:


"A Negro preacher delivered sermons on the plantation. Services being held in the church used by whites after their services on Sunday. The preacher must always act as a peacemaker and mouthpiece for the master, so they were told to be subservient to their masters in order to enter the Kingdom of God. But the slaves held secret meetings and had praying grounds where they met a few at a time to pray for better things."

(Harriet Gresham, born a slave in 1838 in South Carolina, as reported by her interviewer, ca. 1935)

Myelinization and Spiritual Transformation

Algis Valiunis, in "The Science of Self-Help," critiques the American self-help industry and offers an alternative solution.

Self-help books make money but do not help people change. "Self-help, ­positive thinking, actualization, ­motivation, empowerment: the industry of worldly wisdom whirs on like a perpetual-motion dynamo, powered by the consumers’ insatiable compulsion to have it all and to feel good about themselves, and by the purveyors’ confidence that they, at any rate, can indeed have it all, by turning out swill by the boatload and feeding the cravings of the perennially feckless. Self-help has been around a long time, and its recipients are growing ever needier while its providers are becoming more and more energetic."

First there was Dale Carnegie. Then, Norman Vincent Peale. Followed by M. Scott Peck (whom I truly felt helped by), Dr. Laura Schlessinger (I've also been a bit helped by her wisdom), Leo Buscaglia, Tom Harris (OK, OK), John Gray (Mars/Venus), Dr. Phil, and Tony Robbins. Add to this Chicken Soup for the Soul and Valiunis sees the perfect storm for: making tons of money while helping nobody. "The recidivism rate for self-help users is high; if you go in for this sort of thing at all, odds are that you’re a repeat offender." At most self-helpers give a quick drug-like fix, but the user quickly returns to the needy life. Which has them turn to the self-help author's next 7-step book. And so on and on and on.

Valiunis admits to reading none of these books. But he has read three works critical of the self-help industry: Tom Tiede’s Self-Help Nation, Steve Salerno’s SHAM, and Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent Bright-Sided. Valiunis likes Ehrenreich's book the best. And, she has a Ph.D in cellular biology, so she's a scholar.

A point: If Valiunis wants to be scholarly here he needs to read the books he is critical of. What if he read one or more of them and got significantly helped? Like I was on reading Peck's Road Less Traveled?

Another point: I'm assuming Ehrenreich has data on the recidivism rates. Valiunis does not give them, only states that it is "high."

Valiunis spends much of his essay skewering self-help guru Wayne Dyer. I remember many years just seeing the title of his book Pulling Your Own Strings and thinking, "been there, done that." Valiunis on Dyer: "Along the way, or The Way, he has collected three wives and eight children. He gave up alcohol many years ago, and tells a chilling story or two about his behavior while drinking, but evidently does not speak of himself as a recovered alcoholic. An exemplar of energy, confidence, tenacity, self-reliance, and gentleness, tall and rugged and becomingly bald, Dyer appears to have overcome the bad things that have happened to him, or that he has done, and to deserve the great good fortune he has enjoyed. One is sad to learn that he announced last year he has leukemia."

And: "Dyer is a self-styled Transcendentalist epigone [in the footsteps of Thoreau]. And while there is a lot to be said for the high fliers of mid-nineteenth-century New England, a large portion of their teaching is bunk — and so is Dyer’s. To say that one’s thoughts and feelings are within one’s power to control is one thing, and not an unwise one: the Stoics said as much — indeed, insisted that they are the only matters one always can control. To say that one’s thoughts and feelings can rid the earth of cyclones and water moccasins is another thing, upon which any further comment is unnecessary."

Putting the ad hominems aside, I am largely with Valiunis re. the inefficacy of self-help literature. But for different reasons. The kind of help I'm interested in is: heart-transformation into Christlikeness (e.g., Galatians 4:19). Almost definitionally this kind of morphing cannot be done by the self. Any idea that we could pull our own chain to become like Christ seriously devalues Christ. All authentic trans-morphing into Jesus-likeness can only be effected by God, and not self. Therefore: abide in Christ. Live "in him."

What Valiunis says next intriques me and fits, I think, with the kind of spiritual transformation things Dallas Willard and J.P. Moreland are saying. Valiunis:

"Amid the blather, hokum, and trumpery, there is a sub-genre of self-help lit that represents the traditional granite in the American character, and which proffers hope that not all of our countrymen in a generation or two will be sops or ninnies. For some, the pursuit of happiness remains above all the pursuit of excellence. Three recent books, Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated, Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, examine high achievement — literary, musical, business, sporting — down the ages, in the light of recent discoveries in psychology and neurology. What all three writers agree on, despite some obvious ideological differences, is that hard work, so-called deliberate or deep practice, extremely intense and pursued over many years, makes the difference between the remarkable and the less accomplished. Inborn genius, to which we commonly attribute success, is in fact so rare that it doesn’t really figure in the calculations."

So, the good news re. real change is: work hard. Spend 10,000 hours over ten years practicing a skill and you will master it. That... is change. You will have been, actually, helped. What happens?

Neurophysiologically, myelin is produced. Serious work stimulates myelin manfacture. "Serious work that best stimulates myelin manufacture. The more one diligently practices a particular activity, the more myelin is wrapped round and round the active nerve fibers. Each myelin wrap encircles the fiber in layer upon layer, as many as fifty times. The process is so painstaking and protracted that one scientist at the National Institutes of Health compares myelinating a single neural circuit to insulating a trans­atlantic cable. Indeed, myelin fortifies and quickens nerve impulses much as rubber insulation does transmission along a copper wire. Studied repetition grows myelin and thereby enhances the particular skill you are working on, whether you are “playing shortstop or playing Schubert,” as Coyle writes. One commonly speaks of muscle memory in describing a physical skill honed to a saber’s sharpness, but that is an evocative misnomer: the locus of perfected motion lies in the cultivation less of our muscles than our neural pathways."

"Deep practice carries you to the very edge of your abilities: here you inevitably fail, and fail repeatedly, before you succeed. Just as you gain in physical strength by increasing the weight you lift to your upper limits, so, by performing over and over again the skills you can hardly manage to get right, you train your neural circuitry in the direction of competence, or even excellence."

Valiunis considers this good news. "The myelin theory should somewhat ameliorate... unhappiness. At the heart of this theory is the confidence that every person of normal capacities can surpass, with the help of fine teaching and by dint of perseverance, limits on his achievement that once seemed fixed."

OK. I have no doubt that practice makes near-perfect. And that repetition strengthens neural circuits; indeed, that I can now play this guitar piece that I could not play a year ago is the indicator of personal neural transformation.

Valiunis's entire essay is worth reading for more detail. But what about spiritual transformation? I do not believe that all the hard work and practice in the world will help me become what I most want to become; viz., into a being that loves like Christ loves. My answer is: 1) abide in Christ, like a branch connected to a vine; and 2) engage in the spiritual disciplines, over and over and over... The repetition of, e.g., worship is empowered by the Holy Spirit to effect changes in me that go beyond hard work.

I suggest reading what Dallas Willard says in "The Human Body and Spiritual Growth." Take a thought like this and view what Valiunis says in light of it:

"Of course one cannot overcome the hardened patterns of desires by force of will alone. ["Hard work" alone won't do it. But we must "do" something.] Rather, it is as we by faith place our bodily being in subordination to Christ that we experience a new presence in our members, moving them toward the good things of God and allowing the old bodily forces to recede into the background of life where they belong. Thus it truly is "by the spirit" that we "put to death the misdeeds of the body." The natural desires, and my body itself, remain with me, of course, but now as servants of God and of my will to serve Him, not as my masters. Our part in this transformation, in addition to constant faith and hope in Christ, is purposful, strategic use of our bodies in ways which will retrain them, replacing "the motions of sin in our members" with the motions of Christ. This is how we take up our cross daily. It is how we submit our bodies a living sacrifice, how we "offer the parts of our body to him as instruments of righteousness." (Romans 6:13)" (Emphasis mine)

When J.P. Moreland spoke at our HSRM conference a few years ago he was saying similiar things. See J.P.'s beautiful The Lost Virtue of Happiness. Pay attention to what he says in his conclusion:

"What made the difference in Chris's life? [Moreland met "Chris" and introduced him to Jesus.] What set him in the right direction early in the game? Many things, of course. But one factor is of crucial importance because it is often left out of discipleship today, and it is badly misunderstood. Notice that I did not simply teach Chris about self-acceptance and challenge him to listen to wonderful praise music that would motivate him to feel good about himself. Both of these I did, but three things were central to is transformation: practice, practice, practice. It was his repeated practice of doing certain things that formed [e.g.] the habit of courage, which replaced the habit of withdrawal."

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, one's physical brain get myelinized in terms of Christ-strengthening. Spirit-empowered meta-morphing affects one's entire person, to include one's physical body.

African Religion

Kenya

(I'm doing some teaching this morning to RMS II graduates on African Religion. Here are some notes I'm using.)

To understand Africa you must understand its religions, and how religious it is.


• “It is largely through religious ideas that Africans think about the world today.” (Ellis and Ter Haar, 2)

“All African peoples believe in God.” (Mbiti, AR, 45)

• African belief in God came about because of…

o People’s reflections concerning the universe. “African peoples believe the universe to have been created.” (Mbiti, AR, 45)

o People realized their own limitations and weaknesses. Disasters, tragedies, and death “may easily have led people to speculate that there must be someone greater than themselves and greater than the world, who had full control over it.” (Mbiti, AR, 46)

o People observed the forces and power of nature. “It is likely that they began to associate the heavens with the one whom they eventually called God.” (Mbiti, AR, 46)

• “Every African people has a word for God and often other names which describe him.” (Mbiti, AR, 47)

• God is Creator of all things. “This belief is common everywhere in Africa.” (Mbiti, AR, 49)

• “God also sustains, keeps and upholds the things he has created.” (Mbiti, AR, 49)

• God provides for what he has created. “For that reason, African peoples call him the Giver of things, Water Giver, Healer, Helper, Guard, Source. They believe that God only gives good things. All African peoples pray, asking God to give them what they need and come to their rescue, because they believe that god provides.” (Mbiti, AR, 52)


The nature of God

• God is:

o Good

 The people of Zaire say, “Rejoice, God never does wrong to people!” (Mbiti, AR, 55)

 In Liberia people say, “God causes rain to pour down on our fields, and the sun to shine. Because we see these things of his, we say that he is good.” (Mbiti, AR, 55)

o Merciful

 People call God “the God of pity,” “the Merciful One,” “the Kind One.”

 God “is the source of all mercy and kindness. Therefore people expect others to show kindness and mercy towards one another, and these qualities are highly appreciated in African societies.” (Mbiti, AR, 55)

 While in Kenya Cliff Msioki told me that if I was in trouble people would come and help me. If my car broke down people would see that I got to me destination.

o Holy and pure

 God has no fault or failure.

 In Nigeria people speak of God as “the pure King,” “the King without blemish,” and “the Whiteness without patterns.” (Mbiti, AR, 56)

 In Kenya some people speak of God as “the Possessor of Whiteness,” and associate him with the snowy top of Mount Kenya.” (Mbiti, AR, 56)

o All-powerful

 People say: “It is only God who makes the sun rise and set”; “God can turn things upside-down”; “God is the Master of all things.”” (Mbiti, AR, 56)

o All-knowing

 People in Nigeria say, “Only God is wise!” (Mbiti, AR, 57)

 “In order to show this idea more forcefully, people speak of God as the All-seeing and All-hearing, the Watcher of everything, the All-seer, and the Discerner of hearts.” (Mbiti, AR, 57)

 Some people say, poetically, that “God is the Big Eye, and that God has long ears.” (Mibiti, AR, 57)

o Present everywhere

 “In some areas God is known as the Great Pool.” (Mibiti, AR, 57)

 God is everywhere at once.

o Limitless

 God has no limit.

 God is “the Limitless One who fills all space.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

 God cannot be exhausted by human imagination.

o Self-existent

 “While God has made all things, he himself is not made. He exists on his own; he is self-existent.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

 “In South Africa some people have a name for God which means ‘He who is of himself’ or ‘He who came into being of himself’.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

 “So the question of how God originated does not arise; it is a meaningless question as far as he is concerned.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

o The first cause

 God is called “the Original Source.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

 Some call God, simply, “the Beginner.” (Mibiti, AR, 58)

o Spirit

 “Some people call him simply the Great Spirit, the Fathomless Spirit, the Ever-present Spirit, or the God of Wind and Breath. The air or wind is often used as a metaphor when speaking of God as spirit.” (Mibiti, AR, 57)

o Never changes

 “In Nigeria the people sing that ‘Nobody has ever heard about the death of God, because he never dies!’” (Mibiti, AR, 60)

o Unknowable

 God cannot be explained. God cannot be fully known.

 People in Zaire and Angola call God “the Marvel of Marvels.” (Mibiti, AR, 59)



Worship and Prayer

 In Africa, the universe is viewed as a deeply religious universe. “Worship helps to implement that view.” (Mibiti, AR, 60)

• “Prayer is the commonest method of approaching God. It is found in all African societies.” (Mibiti, AR, 60)

• “The practice of making sacrifices and offerings is found all over Africa. By this practice material or physical things are given to god and other spiritual beings. This act marks the point where the visible and invisible worlds meet, and show man’s intention to project himself into the invisible world.” (Mibiti, AR, 63)

o “In African societies, life is closely associated with blood… The life of one person or animal, or of a few of either, is destroyed in the belief that this will save the life of many people. Thus, the destruction of one becomes the protection of many.” (Mibiti, AR, 63)



In the African religious universe there are intermediaries between God and man.

• People feel small in the sight of God. So, in approaching him, they need the help of someone else. “For that reason, some African peoples make use of helpers in approaching God, although they also approach him directly.” (Mibiti, AR, 68)

• “These helpers may be called intermediaries. Some are human beings, while others are spiritual beings. The human beings include priests, kings, medicine men, seers, oracles, diviners, rain-makers and ritual elders… People go to them and tell them their needs, and it is then their duty to approach God through prayer, sacrifice, offerings and the interpretation of visions or dreams.” (Mibiti, AR, 68)

• The kind of spiritual beings who help people in their approach to God are:

o Divinities

o Some spirits, especially those of national leaders and heroes

o The dead, especially family members who are still remembered in the family

• “The idea of intermediaries fits well within the African view of the universe, which holds that the invisible world has its own life and population. The life of this invisible world is in some ways higher than that of man, but God is higher still. In order to reach God effectively it may be useful to approach him by first approaching those who are lower than he is but higher than the ordinary person.” (Mibiti, AR, 68)

• “Although African peoples use these intermediaries in performing some of their acts of worship, they do not worship the intermediaries themselves as such.” (Mibiti, AR, 69)

Spirits

• In the African worldview “the universe is composed of visible and invisible parts. It is commonly believed that, besides God and human beings there are othyer beings who populate the universe. These are the spirits. There are many kinds of spirits.” (Mbiti, AR, 70)

• Nature Spirits

o Nature spirits of the sky

 “These include: the sun, the moon, stars, ‘falling stars’, rainbows, rain, storms, wind, thunder and lightning. People say or believe either that such objects and forces are themselves the spirits, or that there are spirits occupying and controlling them.” (Mbiti, AR, 71)

 Not all Africans believe in these. The more rural the community, the more there is belief in nature spirits.

o Nature spirits of the earth

 These are connected with: “the earth, hills, mountains, rocks and boulders, tress and forests, metals, water in various forms, different animals and insects

• Human Spirits

o “Human spirits are those that once were ordinary men, women and children. Belief in the existence of these spirits is widespread in Africa. It is the natural consequence of the strong belief in African Religion that human life does not terminate at the death of the individual, but continues beyond death. It follows, therefore, that there must be myriads upon myriads of human spirits.” (Mbiti, AR, 75)

o The spirits of those who died recently are called “the living dead.” “The living dead are the spirits that normally matter most of the family level. They are considered to be still part of their families. They are believed to live close to their homes where they lived when they were human beings. They show interest in their surviving families, and in return their families remember them by pouring out parts of their drinks and leaving bits of food for them from time to time… [O]n the whole the spirits of those who died recently are benevolent towards their families as long as they are remembered and properly treated.” (Mbiti, AR, 77-79)

o “Spirits do not have concrete shapes and features, since by definition they have no physical form. But it is believed that when they appear to people, they may look like human beings, animals, insects or other things, and they can change suddenly to a different form. The spirits of the living dead look as they did when they were human beings.” (Mbiti, AR, 79)

What practical relevance does this have for African life?

• Ellis and Ter Haar tell of the widely circulated story of Evangelist Mukendi from what was formerly Zaire, and today is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

• The story in Mukendi is written in a book entitled Snatched from Satan’s Claws. The book claims:

o Mukendi was weaned by a mermaid and pledged to Satan bu his father, a witch.

o Mukendi claims that this underwater underworld was created by withces, and witches live there.

o These witches have made universities and even an international airport, which is directly under the capital city of Kinshasa.

o Every city has a spirit-city beneath it. This is where the “spirits of people who in life were controlled by fallen angels congregate and communicate with the witch doctors, sorcerers and magicians who still live on earth.” (Ellis and Ter Haar, 49)

o These agents of the devil feed on human flesh.

o “The ultimate purpose of this underground activity is to ‘steal, kill and destroy’.” (Ellis and Ter Haar, 49)

o “Mukendo’s book is just one example of an abundant African popular genre on human involvement in the spirit world.” (Ellis and Ter Haar, 50)

Religion in Africa

Me, in Kenya

I'll be teaching on African religion tomorrow at RMS II.

Topics I'll cover include:

• The nature of God
• Intermediaries between God and humanity
• Spirits
• The "living dead"
• Diviners
• Magic, sorcery, and witchcraft
• Religious objects and places
• Religious rituals
• And a lot more...

We'll keep in mind that, as John Mbiti and others say, "all African peoples believe in God." (Introduction to African Religion, 45) To understand Africa one must understand their religions.

Michael Martin's “Critique of Religious Experience”

(For my Philosophy of Religion students. All quotes from our text (Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings). This is not an exhaustive explanation of Martin's essay. For example, for purposes of my class, we will not look at Martin's critique of Richard Swinburne's Principle of Credulity.

Martin defines “religious experience”: “For my purpose here a religious experience is understood as an experience in which one senses the immediate presence of some supernatural entity.” (68)

William P. Alston claims to not be making an argument for God from religious experience.

o “Because when one senses the presence of God, no inference is involved.” (70)

o For Alston mystical experience “is immediate and noninferential.” One just believes, e.g., that one has heard God speak to them, in the same way that, e.g., one now sees a brown table in front of them.

Martin thinks this kind of thinking is wrong. Martin thinks that “religious beliefs based on religious experiences need to be justified by an argument.” (70)

o The reason why what Alston says sounds good “rests on a confusion between how a belief is arrived at – that is, the genesis of the belief – and how it is justified.” (70)

o Someone may come to believe that, e.g., “I see a brown table,” or “God spoke to me,” noninferentially. (That is, without using arguments.) “But it is not obviously true that this person could justify those beliefs without using inferences or arguments.” (70)

o E.g.: “I see a brown table in front of me.” To justify this would require making an argument.

o So, Martin thinks that to justify religious beliefs based on religious experiences require an argument.



Here is the argument, as Martin formulates it:

1. Under certain conditions C, religious beliefs of type K – that is, beliefs generated by religious experience – are likely to be true.

2. Condition C obtains.

3. My religious belief that God exists is of type K.

4. Therefore, my religious belief that God exists is likely to be true.



Martin critiques the first premise: Under certain conditions, religious beliefs generated by religious experiences are likely to be true.



For Martin, there are Alternative Explanations of Religious Experience.

Martin considers two possible causes that may explain a religious experience, arguing that one is more plausible than the other, thus providing a better explanation than the other.

Hypothesis (H1): Religious experiences are caused by a reality external to the person having it.

Hypothesis (H2) (the psychological hypothesis): Religious experiences are caused by a reality internal to the person having it.

For Martin, it’s just as likely that religious experiences have a psychological explanation, rather than having an external cause.

o Martin writes that, “Religious experiences are like those induced by drugs, alcohol, mental illness, and sleep deprivation: They tell no uniform or coherent story, and there is no plausible theory to account for discrepancies among them” (p. 70). It seems that, because of the myriad phenomena that are called religious experiences, the best explanation is offered by (H2).

• One reason he believes this is: descriptions of religious experience are inconsistent with each other. There are “discrepancies” between the stories of religious experiences.

• “Imagine a possible world where part of reality can only be known through religious experiences. There religious experiences would tend to tell a coherent story. Not only would the descriptions of each religious experience be coherent, but the descriptions of different people would tend to be consistent with one another.” (71)

• Personal moral improvement doesn’t prove that a religious experience is genuine.

• One could have a vision of God and degenerate morally. (71)

• One could have an illusory religious experience and improve morally.

• “The test of conduct proves too much.” (72) Different religions and their religious experiences result in improved conduct. But since these religions are incompatible, “it can hardly be claimed hat all these experiences are trustworthy.” (72)

• Furthermore, there is the further problem over why God should be postulated and not something else—some other supernatural entity or entities, or even something else that is very different from the God of Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism.



What can we say in reply to Martin?



1. It seems that Martin is insisting that the two types of explanation are mutually exclusive. No good reason is offered for why God and a neuropsychological cause cannot both explain one’s experience. That is, H1 and H2 are not mutually exclusive.

2. Martin picks on the cryptic, often odd language of mystics to count against H1. But it doesn’t follow from this that what is experienced is not the same. Maybe persons who undergo such experiences have their perception of the divine colored too much by their own expectations and ways of conceiving of the divine. Moreover, perhaps such experiences are especially vulnerable to such influence in ways that experiences of a “brown table,” for example, are not.

3. Also, the competing explanations under (H1) are less of a problem if we have first concluded that (H1) is an acceptable, and better, explanation. For one can then consider what sort of entity would best explain the nature of one’s experience.

4. Personal moral improvement on the basis of nondiscursive religious experience is not, following James, proof to others that God exists. But it is a sign for many, to include myself, that the experience is veridical.

5. Finally, the thesis Alston defends is: If God exists, then mystical experience is quite properly thought of as mystical perception.” [If God exists, then we should expect mystical experience.] Alston is not here arguing for the existence of God. Alston is showing that it is rational to be a theist. We don’t need to justify taking religious experience at face value.

The theist is saying: beliefs based on religious experience are “properly basic.”

Ngugi wa Thiong'o - Africa's Best Writer

There's a nice bio essay on Kenya writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o in today's Daily Nation. I read wa Thiong'o's Decolonising the Mind on my flight to Nairobi.

China's Religious (and Taoist) Revival

"China is in the midst of a religious revival, and people will pay to visit holy sites." So says today's nytimes magazine. ("The Rise of the Tao") "In cities, yuppies are turning to Christianity. Buddhism attracts the middle class, while Taoism has rebounded in small towns and the countryside. Islam is also on the rise, not only in troubled minority areas but also among tens of millions elsewhere in China."

The official Chinese state worldview-position is: atheism. But the estimated number of people who hold to some kind of religion is now 300 million. A different poll showed that "85 percent of the population believes in religion or the supernatural."

Just as there is a revival in Christianity, so also is there a revival in Taoism.

"Taoism is based on the idea that behind all material things and all the change in the world lies one fundamental, universal principle: the Way or Tao. This principle gives rise to all existence and governs everything, all change and all life. Behind the bewildering multiplicity and contradictions of the world lies a single unity, the Tao. The purpose of human life, then, is to live life according to the Tao, which requires passivity, calm, non-striving (wu wei humility, and lack of planning, for to plan is to go against the Tao."),

The Fake Christianity of the Early Slaveholders

Frederick Douglass wrote a scathing appendix to his essay "Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ," which denounced slaveholding religion. Peter Paris says Douglass "wanted to make it perfectly clear that his description of the slave master's religion as an exercise in hypocrisy and deception should in no way be confused with what he called "authentic Christianity."" (Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples, K 947-53) Douglass's words are incredibly courageous and bold, and true. How anyone could read the actual Gospels and hold slaves and treat them the way many did is outrageous. The entire Douglass quote below is brilliant, prophetic, true...

"What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the "slave holding religion" of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed.


I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of "stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.

The man who wields the blood clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,--sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery.

We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the POOR HEATHEN! ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF SOULS! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other --devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise."

Paris says this "represents one of the most profound condemnations of slave holding Christianity emanating from the nineteenth century." (Ib., K 961-67) I find it prophetic as a transhistorical judgment against all hypocrisy and sham "Christianity," in contrast to what we plainly read of Jesus in the four Gospels. In the name of the One who came to set captives free people are held captive? How absurd and demonic!

Walking Naked Into the Land of Uncertainty

On the road in Eldoret, Kenya

This morning I was looking at the books in my office, saw my cope of Robert E. Quinn's Deep Change, and decided to pick it up and review. It's been ten years since I read it. I remember using it in the doctoral class I taught at Palmer Seminary, a course called Personal Transformation. Even though Quinn's book was non-religious, I thought it was brilliant and complemented what I was doing.

Quinn writes: "Deep change means surrendering control." (3) This is why "organization and change are not complementary concepts. To organize is to systematize, to make behavior predictable." (5) To change, on the other hand, is to enter into the land of the unpredictable. Quinn puts it this way: "Most of us build our identity around our knowledge and competence in employing certain known techniques or abilities. Making a deep change involves abandoning both and "walking naked into the land of uncertainty." This is usually a terrifying choice... It is therefore natural for each of us is to deny that there is any need for deep change." (3)

At Redeemer our leaders sometimes describe hat's happening as "organic." Things are popping up all around us. Quinn says that "an organic organization is one that is responsive, acts quickly and in a coordinated way, and can adjust and learn and grow." (6) Now watch this. "Only organic individuals can create an organic organization." (6)

Theologically, try this. God is an organic farmer who continually "makes all things new." The Christian leader or pastor, as they abide in Christ, are essentially involved in God's new-making activity. To be part of this requires them to be organic individuals, people with soft hearts that can be tilled and planted and productive. A leader who walks in ongoing transformation results in a transformed and transforming organization. As Jim Hunter says, a leader is either green and growing or ripe and rotting. Quinn says: it's either deep change or slow death.

Get organic by consistently abiding in Christ. If you are a branch that is connected to Jesus the Vine, then you are hooked up with the Vine that makes all things new. This True Vine is on the move. You can't abide in the Vine and stay put. For authentic Christ-abiders the word "stagnant" cannot exist. The word is always: "new."

Quinn writes that "to make deep personal change is to develop a new paradigm, a new self, one that is more effectively aligned with today's realities. This can occur only if we are willing to journey into unknown territory and confront the wicked problems we encounter. This journey does not follow the assumptions of rational planning." (9) Theologically, God's ways are not our logical, planned-out ways. To follow after Jesus is not necessarily to know where he is going. "The objective may not be clear, and the path to it is not paved with familiar procedures. This torturous journey requires that we leve our comfort zone and step outside our normal roles. In doing so, we learn the paradoxical lesson that we can change the world only by changing ourselves. This is not just a cute abstraction; it is an elusive key to effective performance in all areas of life." (9)

I'm not as clear as Quinn is that we can change ourselves. Years ago God told me, "John, why are you trying so hard to change others when you cannot even change yourself." This insight served to deepen my branchiness. Which has greatly affected my Vine-ness. This has been mostly good for other people in my life. It's not I that live, but Christ lives in and through me.

Using M. Scott Peck's observations on psychotherapy, Quinn writes that "effectiveness - bringing change in another person - is dependent on change in the psychotherapist." (9) Quinn quotes Peck:

"It has been said that the successful psychotherapist must bring to the psychotherapeutic relationship the same courage and sense of commitment as the patient. The therapist must also risk change. Of all the good and useful rules of psychotherapy that I have been taught, there are very fedw that I have not chosen to break at one time or another, not out of laziness but rather in fear and trembling, because my patient's therapy seemed to require that, one way or another, I should step out of the safety of the prescribed analyst's role, be different and risk the unconventional. As I look back on every successful case I have had I can see that at some point or points in each case I had to lay myself on the line. The willingness of the therapist to suffer at such moments is perhaps the essence of therapy, and when perceived by the patient, as it usually is, it is always therapeutic. It is also through this willingness to extend themselves and suffer with and over their patients that therapists grow and change. Again as I look back on my successful cases, there is not one that did not result in some very meaningful, often radical, change in my attitudes and perspectives. It has to be this way." (10)

As a pastor-leader my task is not to fit into some kind of "role," but to stay in relationship with Jesus. (Seminarians - I give you permission to drop out of the class "The Role of the Pastor.") What grows as a result of this relationship is his business and choosing. If I have any "business" at all to do, it is his.

Quinn, once more: ""Traveling naked into the land of uncertainty" allow for another kind of learning, a learning that helps us forget what we know and discover what we need... After a while, terror turns to faith. These people "know how to get lost with confidence."" (12)

I don't always know where I am going. I suspect this is more common than not. But I can remain confident in my lostness if I know I'm attached to the One who leads and has come to seek and save the lost.

African Diviners & Albino Body Parts

Karen, Kenya. A jacaranda petal fell into my cappucino.

An article in this week's cnn-world reads: "Albinos see hope for protective law in Tanzania." "In recent years, there has been an increase in Tanzania and neighboring Burundi in the deaths of albinos -- who have no pigmentation in their skin or hair -- by sorcerers who want their body parts to make charms that they claim will bring good luck." See here, e.g. - "11-year-Old African Albino Girl Beheaded at Behest Of Witch Doctors."

"An 11-year-old girl is the latest albino to be killed in a bizarre witchcraft ritual series of murders which has plagued albinos living in parts of Africa. Banele Nxumalo was washing clothes and bathing in a river with friends when she was grabbed by a man and then shot and beheaded. Her headless body was found floating upriver a short time later. The ritualistic killing occurred in Swaziland. Police believe she was slain because albino body parts and blood are believed to have magical powers. Earlier in the year another 11-year-old was killed in the same manner but her hand was removed. These types of killings are occurring more and more in sub-Saharan Africa... Authorities believe both children were targeted because witch doctors view the blood and body parts of albinos - who lack pigment in their eyes, hair and skin – as able to bring about good luck and prosperity in live, life and business when used in conjunction with other potions. Black magic practitioners and human traffickers often work together to obtain the hunted albinos."

How shall we understand this?

When I met with Steve Lichty in Nairobi over coffee I was taking notes as he introduced my friend Al and I to Kenya and Africa. Thank you so much Steve! And, BTW, there are no Starbuck's in Nairobi. But they have Java Houses. After coffee in a number of Java Houses Starbuck's looks and tastes dumpy.

We talked about religion in Africa. This is Steve's area of scholarly interest (though he's a polymath who connects to so many areas). He told me about the role of "diviners." I found myself so interested in this, especially when combined with my own Jesus-desire to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1-3). Steve recommended some books. I've now got Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar), and Introduction to African Religion (John Mbiti). Both have sections on divination. Mbiti distinguishes between "medicine men," "diviners," "mediums," and "seers." The training of a medicine man can last up to ten years or even longer. (Mbiti, 155) The training "consists of learning the names and nature of herbs, trees, roots, seeds, bones, bird and animal droppings (excreta), and many other things which are used for the making of medicines." (Ib.) Diviners, says Mbiti, normally work also as medicine men. Mediums also resort to medicinal treatments.



John Pemberton, in "Divination in Sub-Saharan Africa," writes (I'm quoting a lot here for my own reference):

"For most sub-Saharan African peoples, divination rites are an essential part of daily life. An individual casts pieces of a kola nut or addresses questions to a friction oracle in the morning in order to determine what to do to make his or her way successfully through the day; a family consults a diviner to learn why death is repeatedly taking a mother's newborn children or to know the will of the ancestors for resolving conflicts within the household; a king seeks the knowledge of his diviners to make his position of authority secure. Diviners are also the agents of memory, the preservers of a people's history, or, in times of crisis, the creators of a "past" or a "vision" by which the living may endure. A person's status is often determined by what is revealed in rites of divination at the time of birth, coming of age, marriage, investiture to priestly or royal office, death, and other critical events.


The number and diversity of divination rites in Africa are enormous, varying in form among ethnic groups and even within the cultural life of a particular people. Among the Dogon peoples of the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali, village elders study fox tracks that cut across the pattern of squares they have inscribed in a field outside their village for indications of future events, especially such fundamental matters as births, marriages, harvests, and deaths.3 The Azande, who live in the southern Sudan and the northern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C., formerly Zaire), employ the poison oracle (benge) to address serious questions such as accusations of committing adultery or practicing sorcery, and use the friction oracle (iwa) to find out if witchcraft is being practiced against them or to determine whether to proceed with a journey.4 In the eastern part of the D.R.C., a friction oracle is also used by the Luba and Songye peoples.5 Among the Luba the rite is known as kashekesheke, and the friction device is called kakishi (the Songye equivalent of which is katatora; see cat. no. 20), a small, carved wooden object held jointly by client and diviner and whose movements provide answers to the client's questions. The Ding, Kuba, Lele, Luluwa, and Wongo in the central areas of the D.R.C. use the itombwa (see cat. no. 21), often in the form of a beautifully carved image of an animal (most commonly a crocodile, bush pig, or dog), the back of which is rubbed with a small handheld bulbous piece of wood; the movements of the latter provide "yes" or "no" answers to questions asked by a suppliant through the diviner.6 Sometimes, the jaw of a crocodile is substituted for the itombwa.

Among the Luba and Songye there is also a more elaborate form of divination, featuring the sacred gourd (mboko), in which the diviner tumbles a variety of natural and manufactured objects and then interprets the configuration formed by the objects that end up on top.7 Spirit possession, which is usually associated with this form of divination, appears to be of even greater importance among the Yaka (who live in the southwestern part of the D.R.C.) than among the Luba or the Songye.8 The Chokwe of Angola employ basket divination — a comparable method of interpreting the pattern formed among a group of objects (see cat. no. 23)—and spirit possession. In one Chokwe form of divination involving spirit possession, the reflective surface of water or a mirror enables the diviner to see the source of a client's affliction.9

Among the Lobi, who live in the southern part of Burkina Faso, a diviner sits next to his client and places small sculpted figures (bateba) on the ground in front of them.10 The bateba serve as witnesses to the divination, in which diviner and client join hands and address questions to the figures; the rising or falling motion of their clasped hands indicates positive or negative responses from the spirits (thila) represented in the sculptures. In northern Côte d'Ivoire, a similar rite is performed by Senufo female diviners known as Sandobele, 11 who use male and female sculpted figures to communicate with the powerful bush spirits and/or ancestors (madebele). In Banyang villages in Cameroon, a form of divination rarely seen today is the Basinjom masquerade, in which an individual wearing a wild, otherworldly mask and costume is endowed with clairvoyant powers capable of identifying people who have powers of witchcraft (see cat. no. 33).

Along the upper west coast of Africa, there are several types of divination that rely on "sixteen signs." Ifa divination among the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria and its probable derivative, Fa, among the Fon of the Republic of Benin, has been the most fully studied of these.12 It was brought to the Americas during the mid to late eighteenth century, at the height of the slave trade. The casting of sixteen palm nuts or cowrie shells continues to be widely practiced today by Caribbean and Brazilian people of West African descent in New York and other metropolitan centers in the United States, and is therefore the best known of African divination systems. The "sixteen signs" type of divination may have its origins in Islamic sand writing (khatt ar-raml), and its traces are found not only in Ifa and Fa but also in divination systems in the Mande cultural zone in Mali, in Madagascar, and among the Shona in southern Africa.13 While all the different versions of the "sixteen signs" have certain basic elements in common, the particular interpretation of the signs is almost entirely determined by the cultural values, oral traditions, and social experiences of the people who practice the divination rite.

Two other forms of divination involving the consultation of signs are mouse divination, employed by the Baule and Guro of Côte d'Ivoire,14 and spider divination, which is prevalent among the peoples of Cameroon.15 Here, the signs are not the result of human actions but are formed through the random movements of a mouse or a spider—the mouse scampering over bats' or birds' bones or sticks that a diviner has laid out parallel to one another, and the spider emerging from its nest in a hole in the ground and dislodging small, distinctively shaped cards that have been cut out of the rigid leaves of the "African plum" tree and placed neatly around the hole—in each case creating new configurations. These signs too must be interpreted by a diviner, one capable of "reading" the patterns of bones or leaves. While the procedure in every instance may seem random or accidental, the signs that appear are considered not at all random—and incapable of human manipulation—since they are directed by spiritual powers who communicate to the living by this means.

In all these societies, there is more than one system of divination. In addition to mouse divination, the Baule have the ritual of the "trance dancers," in which certain individuals—after being "chosen" by a nature spirit (asye usu) and a deity known as Mbra and trained in the performance of trance dancing—identify the causes of public and private misfortunes and then recommend solutions. As Susan Vogel has noted, "The largest, oldest, and most elaborate Baule figure sculptures are made as the loci for gods and spirits that possess their human partners and send messages through them in trance states."16 Among the Tabwa, in the southeastern sector of the D.R.C., the Luba friction oracle (kashekesheke) is employed; and in extreme cases, shamans (tulunga) are called on, for they know and can control the powers of sorcery.17 In neighboring Kenya, prophets (iloibonok) among the Samburu and Maasai have the power to "see" past, present, and future by using containers (enkidong)—usually gourds—filled with divination objects, and they also have the ability to cure misfortunes and practice sorcery using special substances (entasim). Though sought out for protection, the tulunga and the iloibonok are often feared and mistrusted and therefore occupy an ambiguous status in society.18 In addition to friction oracles of the itombwa type, nkisi figures and certain masks among several Kongo peoples have divinatory status, since they confer on those who utilize them the power to see hidden things.19 All these divination systems are largely concerned with understanding the present in terms of the past—near or distant—and its implications for the immediate future, as well as with healing or protection against witchcraft and sorcery. However, divination among the Dogon of the western Sudan and the Malagasy of Madagascar addresses questions pertaining to the future. The Malagasy want to know about matters of destiny and how what one does in the present determines what will occur, but whereas Dogon elders study fox tracks across patterns inscribed in the sand, the Malagasy often employ written texts and astrological calculations.20

When I was in Eldoret, Kenya, I asked two pastors "Do you have diviners in Eldoret?" The answer: "Oh yes, we have many. Some of them advertise by putting flags on top of their homes. Many people go to them and pay for their services."

"Albinos in East Africa fear for lives after killings. 10,000 displaced or in hiding due to demand for body parts, Red Cross says." (here) 

All of this is, for me, part of my beginning to understand Africa.