The following article appeared in Denver Seminary Magazine, Winter 2007. It was written by DJ Turner following an interview with Tony Weedor. It is included here with permission from Denver Seminary.
“I must confess equally boldly that my own solid hopes for the well-being of my country depend, not so much on her navies and armies, nor on the wisdom of her rulers, nor on the spirit of her people, as on the persuasion that she still contains many who love and obey the Gospel of Christ. I believe that their prayers may yet prevail.” ~ William Wilberforce, from Practical View of Christianity
Often referred to as the “forgotten continent,” in recent years the world has opened an eye toward Africa. With publicity stemming from the political and social activism of Bono, lead singer of the popular band U2, and with two recent Oscar®-nominated Hollywood films, “Hotel Rwanda” and “Blood Diamond,” the travesties and tragedies of a continent torn by corruption, violence, and poverty are finally coming to light. In the Denver Seminary community, few know of these tragedies better than Tony Weedor, alumnus (M.Div., ’97) and native of Liberia. Though Weedor and his family currently live in Littleton, Colo., there is no doubt of the passion and love he feels for his homeland.
Liberia was founded by slaves who were freed from the U.S. in 1822, and the country gained its independence in 1847. These slaves who had been delivered back to the “promised land” were referred to as Americo-Liberians, and although they made up only 4-5% of the population, until 1980, only Americo-Liberians could become president of Liberia. These freed slaves took back with them the culture, religion, government, and social structures that had been familiar to them in the U.S. Unfortunately for those who lived in that part of Africa, that also included enslaving and selling the native people. Weedor describes the role of Christianity to these early Americo-Liberians: “Here in America, they used Christianity for endurance—that God will take them back to the ‘Promised Land,’ Africa being the ‘promised land’ in all the negro spirituals—those are the things they used here to survive. But when they went back to Liberia, they used Christianity to enslave the people—to oppress the people. . .They were very corrupt because they saw the slave masters here were corrupt.”
But the corruption in Africa was not only brought back from slaves who were mistreated in America. Until 50 years ago, large parts of Africa were under colonial rule. The colonial masters from France, Britain, Portugal, Germany, and other countries also left their mark—from slavery to torture and wrongful imprisonment. Education, however, was not one of those marks. Several African leaders over the past 50 years have only had a 6th-grade education or less. Weedor laments that many of the leaders in Africa are “not supposed to be leaders.” While many African nations were established as republics, few of them have been able to sustain any type of stable democratic government. From the early 1960s to the late 1980s alone, there were 70 coups, often leading to a military dictatorship, and 13 presidential assassinations in Africa. Add to that the rise of AIDS; leaders who try to maintain their power by fanning ethnic conflicts either in their own country or neighboring countries; and other, horrific forms of violence and corruption, it may seem that little hope could be found in the second largest and most populous continent in the world.
“The only hope for Africa,” says Weedor, “is not Islam; it is not the African traditional religions; it is Christ.”
Beyond its Troubled History to its Spiritual People
When peeling away the layers of corruption and fear, one sees the African people as being deeply relational. “Africans are very friendly, welcoming, hospitable, and respectful,” says Weedor fondly. He describes the people from his home was being people-oriented and not at all time-oriented. “If you go for a visit, you just visit and visit. No one is going to say, ‘It is time for you to go.’” It is not uncommon for church services in Africa to last upwards of four hours. He adds, “They just enjoy people.”
It is because of this relational worldview that Weedor believes that Islam is growing at exponential rates in many parts of Africa. “Islam embraces the culture. Islam comes within the culture and says, ‘You have two or three wives, then you can take five more. And if you go to the witch doctors, you can still go to them.’ Where Christianity confronts culture, Islam embraces it.” The fact that religion is passed from parent to child adds to that as well. “I met a man in Liberia,” Weedor recounts, “who had 25 wives, 69 children, and 36 grandchildren—that’s a whole church for just one person. The muslims are giving birth physically and they are ‘giving birth’ spiritually.” The other big difference between the movement of Islam in Africa versus Christianity stems from training and money. Converts to Islam who are trained to be leaders are given a mosque and a paycheck. Most evangelical pastors in Africa receive little or no money and many walk three or more days to get to a church to preach. Weedor sheds more light on the challenge: “The [evangelical] missionaries go build compounds; the Muslims go and rent a house among the people. The American missionaries go to the village; the Muslim missionaries go to the university where they will be able to influence the people. Islam is growing because they embrace the culture; they embrace the people.”
Africans as a collective believe in the spirit world. There are very few, if any, atheists or agnostics in Africa. As one tribal chief said to an evangelical missionary after hearing a two-hour sermon trying to convince listeners of the existence of God, “Our problem is not with His existence. Our problem is which one should we worship?”
Fear is another spiritual factor for many African Christians. Weedor describes this dark side: “Two things Satan has done for the West and Africa. One, he has convinced the Americans and Western Europeans that he does not exist, and you believe him. And then he turns to the Africans and he tells us that he is more powerful than God, and we believe him. We live in fear, even as Christians, because of Satan, believing that he is going to do something to us.”
Philip Jenkins, in The Next Christendom, suggests, “If there is a single key area of faith and practice that divides Northern [hemisphere] and Southern [hemisphere] Christians, it is the matter of spiritual forces and their effects on the everyday human world. This issue goes to the heart of cultural definition and worldviews.” Weedor agrees, “So we [Africans] live in fear. This is where the gospel must be clearly presented. One almost has to undo the damage that the worldview has done in order to build and establish a biblical worldview.” He adds that the challenge faced by many evangelical missionaries is the pressure to produce numbers. He believes the church in the West desires large numbers of converts and needs them fast, because missionaries have to show donors that their money is producing something.
Giving Africans a biblical worldview is what Weedor’s organization, CenterPoint International Foundation, is all about. “In 1994, the genocide in Rwanda started in the Bible schools among Christians. In the war in Liberia, Christians took guns and started killing people. I asked myself, ‘which Bible are these people reading?’ You can go from place to place, be it Sudan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda, or most of these places, and our loyalty tends to be more to our tribal groups than it is to Christ. And that is sad. That’s what I want to change in Africa.” For his work with CenterPoint, Weedor tries to return to Liberia once or twice each year. His next visit is scheduled for February 2008.
Nominal Christianity runs rampant through Africa, just like many other parts of the world. It is easy for the typical African to view Jesus as just another powerful witch doctor, or the spirit who will heal, protect from dogs, or give money if one only screams His name loudly enough. But when an African, when a Liberian, understands who Jesus really is, Weedor describes it as being one of the most exciting relationships to witness. “The government will let you down,” he said, “as will your parents, but Jesus will always be there for you. Committed African Christians understand that He is the source of everything.” To further emphasize this point, he shares, “I know Liberians and I know Africans who actually pray for our daily bread, because it is not there. When they say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ they are waiting for it. That’s how dependent they are on God.” While many Africans may twist this to a wealth and prosperity version of the Gospel, Weedor reminds his fellow Africans, “God will never use His power to glorify you; He will only use it to glorify Himself. That is what we need.”
As a final thought, Weedor adds, “This is why I am working overtime: like Wilberforce said, the answer to the problems of my country is Jesus. And if my people understand who Jesus is, that will be the end of corruption; that will be the end of the spread of AIDS; that will be the end of civil war. There will only be caring and loving.”