TNR-Evangelicals v. Muslims In Africa

EVANGELICALS V. MUSLIMS IN AFRICA
Enemy's Enemy
by Andrew Rice

Post date: 08.04.04
Issue date: 08.09.04

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It's the same story all over Africa: The continent today is in the throes of its own Great Awakening. From the thatch-roofed churches of desolate central Mozambique to densely urban Nigeria (another country with evangelical leaders), where hundreds of thousands flee Lagos every weekend to attend outdoor church revivals, to the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Congolese crowd storefront congregations, Africans who used to attend mainline Protestant and Catholic churches--and even mosques--are flocking to hear evangelical preachers like Ssempa. Back in 1970, 17 million Africans attended Pentecostal churches, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Today, more than 125 million do--roughly 19 percent of the continent's population. Add the many millions more who profess other varieties of evangelical Christianity, or who still attend mainline churches but nonetheless call themselves "born again," and you have perhaps the most important social movement to hit Africa since postcolonial independence. "he center of gravity of the Christian world," Philip Jenkins writes in The Next Christendom, "has shifted inexorably southward." There are 360 million Christians in Africa today, and demographers predict that the continent's Christian population will nearly double by 2025 to 633 million. By then, African Christians will far outnumber those in Europe and North America. So, as the born-again movement gathers momentum across the continent, it may not simply represent the future of Christianity in Africa. It may represent the future of Christianity itself.

This could be good news for the United States. For years, American evangelical missionaries have been coming to Africa, making connections with local populations and doing charitable works in places where few other aid groups dare go. Now, at a time when the United States finds itself losing friends in the developing world, Africa's evangelicals may be one of the strongest pro-American blocs in the world. Grateful for years of patronage by their American brethren, bound by a sense of fellowship to the nation where the contemporary evangelical movement was formed, and respectful of born-again President Bush, these Africans represent a growing constituency of friends. In 2002, the Pew Global Attitudes Project conducted a public opinion poll of 38,000 people in 44 countries including Uganda. It found that nearly three in four Ugandans had favorable opinions of the United States and that 67 percent supported the war on terrorism. The numbers were even higher in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria--all countries that have experienced religious revivals similar to Uganda's--and they were, collectively, far higher than those in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. And, despite the divisive Iraq war, anecdotal evidence suggests that born-again African Christians still embrace the United States. In fact, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has proudly made Uganda a member of America's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, knowing he can count on Ugandan evangelicals' powerful support for his decision.

But the born-again movement may cause serious problems as well. Libya, Saudi Arabia, and several Persian Gulf monarchies are pouring money into Africa to promote Islam. "Nobody really knows anything exact" about the amount of funding coming in, says Paul Marshall, an expert on Islam in Africa at Freedom House, but the investment is huge. Its tangible impact includes an upsurge in fundamentalist mosques and religious schools across the continent. Combined with the skyrocketing growth of evangelical Christianity--like Islam, a proselytizing faith--this has created a dangerous cocktail. Countries like Nigeria and Tanzania, with populations evenly split between evangelical Christianity and Islam, have witnessed an increase in tension and, in Nigeria's case, horrific religious violence. Indeed, across the continent, religious fervor is reviving old rivalries and creating new ones. And, as religious tension grows, many born-again Africans have begun to see America's wars as extensions of their own struggles at home. Increasingly, Africans like Ssempa support the United States not only because of their ties to American evangelicals or because they believe Washington is fighting terrorism and promoting democracy, but for a baser reason: the United States is killing Muslims. "Guess who supports America, the coalition forces? It's those people who are saved," Brian Ourien, a 25-year-old member of Ssempa's congregation, told me. "And those who are against America are undoubtedly Muslims."

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http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040809&s=rice080904
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Very long article. If you want a copy for personal use PM me.
Livia

Islamic fundementalist battleground. Sheeesh.

They fucking supported both these monsters in the war against communism, and it gave us 9/11. What will supporting the stupid dispensationalists in the war against islam bring us? How utterly stupid neocons are.

The anti-science, anti-intellect, anti-moral and anti-religious Evangelical Movement to put the last nail in the African coffin. As if the Catholics and the Muslims with their total failure to cope with AIDS and poverty and inequality hasn't done enough, just add in another flavor of intolerance.