African Immigrant Religions in America

12: African Immigrant Churches and the New Christian Right

12 African Immigrant Churches and the New Christian Right Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome Introduction The impact of contemporary African Christian immigrants on American social and political life is not a much-studied subject. Few scholars and analysts have addressed the increasing tide of religious immigration, involving the migration of ministers, religious workers, and pastors of African churches to the United States as missionaries. This chapter addresses questions concerning the nature of contemporary African immigrant Christianity in the United States. In particular, it focuses on the issue of the political incorporation of African immigrants, and in so doing it explores the relationship between African immigrant churches and the Christian Right. Some of these connections spur the development of homogenous liturgies, doctrine, and conservative political responses to contemporary social issues and challenges, including the acceptance and normalization of conservative values. In policy terms, this devolves in the United States into support for the prolife agenda, an antigay stance, opposition to stem cell research, support for a ban on gay and lesbian marriage, advocacy of male-headed households, and support for the notion of spiritual warfare against “ancestral spirits,” often interpreted simplistically as located in African indigenous religious beliefs and practices. Given the fact that African immigrants are part of an ethnic and racial minority in most of the Western countries to which they migrate in large numbers, the history of racial exclusion and support for segregation and blatant racism within the Christian Right, and the very recent move toward racial inclusiveness, what does affinity in value systems mean for both the new African immigrant churches and the Christian Right? This 279 is an important question because the Christian Right also advocates an end to affirmative action and multicultural curricula, as well as more restrictive immigration laws. These are measures that should benefit African immigrants, because, as blacks, they are more likely to face discrimination in employment and education and in the administration of immigration laws. Also, while the Christian Right engages in political activism and advocacy, African immigrant churches mostly claim to be apolitical and encourage their congregations to avoid overt political participation . Clear disparities in power, measured in terms of access to resources and political voice, are obvious when one compares African immigrant churches to the Christian Right. Are there any efforts to address these disparities? Politically, where do the interests of African immigrant churches lie? Which alliances are more favorable in terms of the realization of their objectives? The chapter engages in a preliminary examination, analysis, and explication of the connections between African immigrant churches and the Christian Right and their significance within the U.S. political economy. The Christian Right: Beyond Evangelicals Most people use the term “Christian Right” conterminously with evangelical Protestants, but, according to Grant Wacker, professor of the history of religion in America at the Duke University Divinity School, by the late 1980s, the former group could include nonevangelical Protestants from mainline denominations, secularists, Jews, and Mormons. In could also exclude some evangelical Protestants. Thus, in practical terms, the Christian Right includes “(1) evangelicals who cared enough about the political goals of the Christian Right to leave their pews and get out the vote and (2) non-evangelicals who cared enough about the political goals of the Christian Right to work with evangelicals.”1 Historically, the origin of the Christian Right as a force to be reckoned with in American social, political, and economic life can be traced to Christian seminaries that fostered the development of biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Movements to push the teaching of human evolution in public schools, and, after World War II, the real or perceived threat of communism, contributed to the philosophical foundations of the Christian Right. More contemporarily, the Christian Right was profoundly affected by the political and social upheavals of the 1960s. Many in the 280 m o j u b a o l u o k o m e Christian Right are also opposed to a host of Supreme Court decisions, including those banning official prayer in schools, legalizing abortion, and restricting the extent to which private Christian schools can benefit from public funding.2 As described by Wacker, the worldview of the Christian Right rests upon four cornerstones, including (1) the belief in moral absolutes, (2) a view of the world as a continuum from metaphysics to ethics to political affairs and everyday customs, (3) a central...