Is it Broken?

When a Westerner comes to Africa and stays long enough for the initial excitement to wear off, he gets his first taste of culture shock. He sees the system, the people interacting, the daily motion of all the parts of the cultural clock, but it seems to him as if something is broken! He sees all the problems, the poverty, the inefficiency of the whole, and his western mind starts working on solutions. He thinks like I did: You know if they just had a bus schedule then ..., if the police would just arrest instead of taking bribes then... if, if, if!!! The Westerner gives all the answers that work within his world view. He thinks that if he was to be in charge for about six months, he would fix the whole thing. And, if God does not help him, that is what he seeks out to do in his circle of influence.

But the question is, is it broken?

To answer that question, I have learned that I had to go deeper. Truth is only found when you look below the surface. A friend of mine told me a Nigerian fable: A man is walking down the road, and as he passes a crowd of people they all stop him and complain that the load that he is carrying on his head is quite crooked. They keep saying that if he is not careful the load will fall off. The man just replies with a smile and says, "You all say that my load is crooked, and that is true, but while looking at my load, you never thought to look at my legs!" And as he walks away, they all see that he has one leg badly damaged by polio which causes him to lean greatly to one side. The point of the story is this: many can see a leaning load, but only those that look well can see why!

To see if the system is broken, we have to know the reason that it was built. I have found that nothing explains the heart of a culture more than its main religion. This will determine the focus of the whole; the goal that it was made to reach. In every people group, the people in that group are trying to get to their 'heaven' and trying to follow the rules that gain its enterance. Unless you know this, you will never really understand those people.

In the West we have had one dominant religion for over 2,000 years. For about 1,400 of those years, all thought, all religion was controlled by one group - the Catholic church. The rules of the Catholic church were the key. If an individual kept these rules, they gained eternal life, or at least the chance of Heaven after Purgatory. This system of belief became very deeply ingrained in us in the West. It became a core belief that what one does with a set truth (or faith) will determine one's fate.

But in Africa, this has not been the case. In Africa, from time unknown, the religion has been one without written rules. African traditional relgions have never had holy writings, but not having holy books does not mean there are no rules. It is a religion of very few but very important rules. Not to oversimplify a continent of peoples with thousands of languages and many cultures, but all traditional religions have at their heart this one truth. In Africa we are Animists. This means that we worship our ancestors. So you are thinking, ok, great, so what. Well, here is the point of it all. The key for eternity is not a written rule, creed, or faith, it is PEOPLE! People are the key to eternal life. Traditional African religious beliefs state that the only way your soul remains in this earth, in the present spirit world, is that it is venerated (worshipped) by its descendents. So what does this mean in plain English? Relationship is key. If you are my son, and you do not like me - to the point that when I die you do not worship my spirit - then my spirit ceases to exist. In Western terminology, that is tantamount to going to hell. To secure eternal hope, I must secure earthly realtionships.

This is the difference: the West has been formed around the belief that a faith or a set of rules is most important, while the African world has been set up around the belief that relationship is most important. What seems so broken to you, is in fact working perfectly for the African! You cannot, would not, risk relationships over such small things as traffic rules, city laws, and church doctrines. These are minor in the African mindset, relationship is king!

So, for those Westerners that live in this misunderstood system, it helps to know why the whole thing works the way it does. Once the missionary understands the system, he can move on to fix the real problems, not waste time on the surface. If you want to help Africa, you must reach its people, for people are the key!