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4: Non-Western Christianity in the Western World: African Immigrant Churches in the Diaspora
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4 Non-Western Christianity in the Western World African Immigrant Churches in the Diaspora Akintunde E. Akinade Introduction Immigration is changing the religious configuration of the United States. The 1965 Immigration Reform Act contributed to an unprecedented wave of American immigrants in the twentieth century. These immigrants have inevitably contributed to the new religious reality in the United States. The American religious tapestry is no longer a monochrome but a rainbow of many religions and congregations from all over the world. Bruce Lawrence has rightly described the epicenter of American identity as “piebald and plural.”1 One fascinating phenomenon within “a new religious America”2 is the rise of African churches. The U.S. 2000 census put the number of African immigrants living in the United States at about a million. This number will continue to rise.3 Today, as in the past, Africans migrating to the United States bring their religions with them, and gathering religiously is one of the ways they make a life in this country. This chapter examines what African churches (especially the ones belonging to the Yoruba charismatic/pentecostal movement) are doing in the United States and how they have been able to maintain their religious identity in a new cultural context. I argue that we have to see this religious movement as an integral part of world Christianity whose new resurgence and renewal defy simple categorization and facile generalizations . This chapter underscores the importance of non-Western Christianity in a Western context. African churches in new cultural milieu boldly confirm the radical deterritorialization of Christianity. Border 89 crossing and itinerancy are essential characteristics of the Christian faith. These factors continue to transform the face of Christianity in the twenty-first century. The New Face of World Christianity The veritable explosion of Christianity in non-Western societies and culture—Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific—has presented us with a compelling story of Christianity as an authentic world religion.4 This remarkable shift of the center of Christianity took place in the second half of the twentieth century. For instance, in 1900 more than 80 percent of professing Christians lived in Europe and America. In our contemporary world, 60 percent of professing Christians live in the non-Western world. This radical demographic shift has led to the dismantling of Eurocentric presumptions, as a result of which the West has ceased to be the culture of location for the Christian world. In non-Western societies, the reference point for the gospel was not the originating culture of Europe or America but the culture of the receivers. Christianity was inevitably adopted within an appropriate local framework and reshaped by indigenous genius, sagacity, worldview, and ethos. The subject of the new shift in Christianity has been vigorously pursued by Philip Jenkins in The Next Christendom. In this book, Jenkins expands on the position of scholars like Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls, and Kwame Bediako and laments that this new shift in world Christianity is still ignored or treated with disdain in the United States.5 He points out that even someone as perceptive as Robert Wuthnow did not mention this new phenomenon in world Christianity in his influential book, Christianity in the 21st Century. Whether acknowledged within the Western magisterium or not, the new centers of vitality and importance in theological construction and world Christianity are in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The old centers of theological influence are becoming the new peripheries.6 In order to fully understand the dynamic nature of world Christianity today, it is very important to have serious engagement with the Christian movements in the Third World. This is the only way to fully understand the amazing diversity of the world Christian movement. The Kenyan theologian John Mbiti once remarked that many Christian scholars in Europe and America have more meaningful “academic fellowship with heretics 90 a k i n t u n d e e. a k i n a d e [44.222.116.199] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:47 GMT) long dead that with living brethren of the Church today in the so-called Third World.”7 No serious study of Africa can ignore Christianity and the role it has come to play in Africa. Let us take a quick look at statistics. David Barrett, the editor of The World Christian Encyclopedia and widely regarded as the guru in this subject, claims that in 1900 there were about 10 million African Christians out...