Christianity is not the cause of
Africa's underdevelopment
A Cameroonian pastor responds to critics who denigrate the Christian religion, accusing it of being the source of Africa's economic backwardness.
Here is his reply:
The practice of Christian principles is not a hindrance to Africa's development!
1 Corinthians 2:14
"But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
You think the Bible is a weapon to dominate Africa ?
The Bible entered Africa 1500 years before slavery and 1800 years before colonization.
It has nothing to do with the slave trade and colonization in Africa.
Slave traders and colonists did not need the Bible to trade and occupy Africa. They had weapons and goods.
I invite you to research the history of Africans converted to Jesus Christ in the early centuries of our era.
You will see that many fathers of the Christian church preached Jesus Christ in Africa, long before the slave trade and colonization.
This is the case of Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo and many others.
The Church of Alexandria in Egypt with its great theological school called the Didascalée also dates back to the 1st century.
In Ethiopia, the Christian presence dates back to the 4th century, that is to say 1000 years before the slave trade and 1500 years before African colonization.
Christianity was also declared the official religion of Ethiopia with the conversion of King Ezana in 323.
Contrary to some thought, the Bible is not a Western invention. It has its origins in Israel, that is to say in the Middle East. These were texts that circulated in Israel.
It is just a collection of ancient Hebrew texts dating from between the 7th and 2nd centuries before Jesus Christ (Old Testament) and texts in Aramaic and Hebrew translated into Greek between the 1st and 2nd centuries of our era (New Testament).
As for Cameroon, the Bible was first brought by sons of freed Jamaican black slaves: pastors Joseph Jackson Fuller and Joseph Merrick.
It was not Westerners who brought the first Bible to Cameroon, but blacks.
Their preaching of Christ therefore had nothing to do with any hegemonic or exploitative will.
Moreover, these events took place in 1844, that is to say 40 years before the arrival of the first colonizers in Cameroon, whose official arrival took place in 1884 with the signing of the German-Douala treaties.
There is therefore no connection between the Bible and African colonization.
Moreover, relations between the church, the slave traders and the colonizers were often very tense.
Black pastors Fuller and Merrick led a fierce fight against slavery which continued on the Cameroonian coasts, well after its worldwide abolition.
They taught blacks that slavery was an abomination before God.
I invite you to read the work of the African history professor and researcher Tidiane DIAKITE:
"The Slave Trade and its African Actors from the 15th to the 19th Centuries."
and also:
Jean-Paul MESSINA, Jaap Van SLAGEREN: History of Christianity in Cameroon: From the Origins to the Present Day
It is therefore false to spread this unfounded public lie that the Bible was imposed on blacks by slave traders and colonizers.
If the biblical message had been imposed by force on blacks, African kings and chiefs should have been converted.
However, the first blacks who believed in the message of Christ were only men of the people.
The kings remained largely with their African beliefs.
This is the case in Cameroon where, the first black to be baptized in 1849 Bekima Bile and the first black pastor consecrated in 1855, the Yabassien George Nkwe, former slave of King Ngale Mbonjo, followed by pastors John Same, the Epee brothers ..., and the converts Richard Kofele Njuma, Élisabeth Miomba, were people of the people.
And speaking of the denial of the existence of Jesus Christ, which you ridicule, do you measure the number of intellectuals and other great scientists who have believed in the gospel?
Would you be more Cartesian and more lucid, for example than:
- The famous scientist, Charles Darwin who conceptualized the theory of evolution of species, finally returned to the message of Christ which he had denied before his death? He made his repentance to his evangelist friend Lady Hope.
- Nicolas Copernicus one of the greatest scientists of this humanity who developed and defended the theory according to which the earth revolves around the sun
- John Gregor Mendel, the founding father of genetics...
- George Lemaître, the famous physicist author of the theory of the primeval atom, at the origin of the Big Bang theory....?
Would you dare to deny that the practice of faith in Jesus Christ through the gospel is at the origin of the inspiration of many famous singers and Jazz musicians?
This is the case of Manu Dibango who started in the great men's choir of Douala, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and many others, who most of them began singing and playing in Methodist churches in America.
Have you forgotten the role of gospel music in the emancipation of black people in the United States?
Do you know that the first to oppose slavery in the United States and Europe were the Quakers of the religious society of friends, whom one could call today the "born again"?
They spoke in tongues, contorted themselves during their prayers, and their moral rectitude found its source in the teachings of Christ.
Voltaire, in his famous work Philosophical Letters, admires these men and their faith which makes them virtuous citizens.
Have you lost sight of the fact that it was a black pastor preaching the doctrine of Jesus, named Martin Luther King, who delivered the final blow to racial segregation in the United States?
Need I remind you that it was the church of Jesus Christ that created the first Christian schools in Cameroon and in most black African countries?
Weren't the first African elites trained in schools where Jesus Christ was confessed?
This is the case as early as 1845 with the schools of Bimbia and Douala in Cameroon, founded by the Christian pastor Alfred Saker.
The work of the Christian faith in the emancipation of Africans is undeniable.
It is the name of Jesus that opened Africa to the modern civilization in which we live. This is undeniable.
If the practice of the Christian faith through these churches is the cause of underdevelopment, how can you justify the fact that the most developed African countries are also those with the most intense Christian religious practice, namely Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia...?
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The practice of biblical principles creates development.
Take the case of Western countries, including the Soviets. Their defining characteristic is the abundance of churches and cathedrals at one point in their history.
How many streets and squares have Christian connotations in those countries?
Let's go to the United States where you live. Which country in the world has such intense Christian religious practice?
In 2020, 65% of Americans declare themselves to be practicing Christians.
If faith in Jesus Christ was what hindered development, would this country be the world's leading power with so many Christians?
Even during the swearing-in of American presidents, pastors are regularly invited to offer prayers.
John McCain, former candidate in the 2008 presidential election, declared: "We are a nation founded on Christian principles."
Among the founding fathers of this great country, we find fervent Christians.
Even China, which some often cite as a country that has preserved its religion, where is their wealth kept? Isn't it in the United States, a country where 70% of people confess the name of Jesus that you mock?
Dear Mr. Critic, Jesus Christ is not a fable.
If He were, a fable could not traverse so many generations.
He is not a physical being, he just took human form to show himself to men.
He is coming back soon.
Whether you believe him or not, it is him who will judge you.
He is love and he loves you.
Christian Ntimbane Bomo
Société Civile Critique
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