Disciples of All Nations by Lamin Sanneh - My Reflections

Chp. 1
Lamin Sanneh correctly argues that Christianity has no native tongue and therefore no native culture. From the outset of Christianity, the gospel was carried to people of different tribes, nations, and tongues, and the worship that arose amongst those peoples reflected the peoples themselves. Early church leaders wrote to those who had been converted in other nations instructing them in the way they should behave, not altogether different from the way their cultures had taught them to behave. And yet, Sanneh correctly argues, culture is not paramount - God is. God, as the Creator, must be in tune with all of His creation, but is not Himself in sync with all that His creation does. God's way is the highest way and all peoples benefit from following His way. As missionaries, we do well to remember that we do not come to impose our culture on another, because God is in the culture that we are trying to reach. And yet we do well to remember that we do come to change the people by instructing them in the way of righteousness - His righteousness. We must use discernment to discover which things we forbid and which things we allow.

Chp. 2
Sanneh argues that Christianity's failure to convert the Arabic world in the earlier centuries rested in its failure to address the Arabic culture. Christianity became an ethereal philosophical pursuit after Constantine, and the Arabs were not interested so much in philosophy as they were in the practical. The Arabs, as a nomadic culture, were interested in religion that conformed to their way of life more than they were interested in adopting a mental disposition. The presentation of Islam was more effective than the presentation of Christianity in addressing the Arabs' need for a way to approach life practically. Thus, Islam won out. As missionaries, we can learn from this history. We must not make the mistakes of the past by presenting a practically irrelevent gospel that fails to speak to the culture. The culture of those who are Muslims perhaps presents a greater challenge for the missionary to overcome than does the Islamic religion itself.

Chp. 3
In order to outfox Islam in terms of resources and reach, Europe took to the seas to colonize distant lands and reap their bounty. In doing so, Europe brought with it a powerful tool for controlling the lands it colonized - Christianity. Whatever good might have been envisioned for the conversion of natives, the actual history is a testament to the checkered (oftentimes disastrous) success of missions in the New World. Human lust, even on the part of missionaries, led to massive suffering that discredited Christianity as a religion in many of the regions that Christians sought to convert. An important lesson can be learned from history: Christianity as the tool of the state more often corrupts, but when Christianity is the impetus apart from the state, Christianity has the power to do good.

Chp. 4
Christianity, although occasionally employed by the state as a means of control, essentially serves to undo the control of the one employing it for that purpose. Sanneh lists numerous examples in this chapter, particularly of missionaries who translate the Bible into the vernacular and teach the heathen according to Western standards, who ultimately undo the coercive influence of the Western nations they hail from. When people begin to read and understand the word of God for themselves, they see it for what it actually is, and not as a construct of those teaching them. Empowered by this understanding, ethnic Christians rise against the nations who have sought to subdue them and use religion as a tool.

Chp. 5
The gospel produces a decidedly different manifestation in people of different cultural manifestations. The church in Africa looks decidedly different than the church in Europe and America. Both cultures use the same Book, but each culture has responded to it differently. Sanneh points out that the very nature of Christianity which makes it different from all other world religions is that it does not argue for the creation of one particular culture. Thus, the African and Western manifestations of Christianity are both legitimate manifestations (though neither is perfect).

Chp. 6
The African charismatic / Pentecostal experience was (now decreasingly is) at odds with the Christianity being brought to Africa by missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet, the African brand appealed to Africans whereas the Western brand failed to appeal to the same degree. The African brand, since it related to the African culture, was more naturally taken up by the Africans themselves than the Western brand, which was related to Western culture. Thus, understanding culture and laboring to present the gospel in a way which is culturally relevant is paramount in importance for the missionary working in a foreign culture.