I am going to leave their culture alone. But I am going to teach Jesus to them. It's called indigenous missions
The people there do what they feel the Lord is leading them to when it comes to where they want to meet. I have taught with groups who meet under a Baobab tree to a group that meets in their house.
That's my problem Bob your going to teach them about Jesus why not about god, god is the focal point not Jesus.
And I have seen giant revival tents with lunatic missionaries basically stealing money from Africans in the middle of nowhere. Just because you think the lord is leading you doesn't make it right. There are certainly some good missionaries working in Africa, but they seem to be few and far between in my experience.
I am not talking about missionaries. I am talking about the local people. We teach them to follow the Lord's leadership. Not to follow us. We provide them the teaching and the care to help them get to where God wants them to go.
I was and still am ignorant about religion. But no so much as before. I was raise Catholic and did not know what Jews or Muslims were. I always thought Jesus was Christian. After exploring a bit I started to read the bible for the first time and started getting curious as to why we. (past tense as a Christian) did the opposite of what the bible says, especially the Old Testament. Then I really started wondering why we celebrate a person instead of what that person celebrated. If Jesus celebrated The Festival of Lights, why are we not and instead fill it with a different holiday? If Jesus participated in Passover, why do we not instead we celebrate Easter. All in on, questions after questions got me to finally renounce my Christianity. While I have not picked a new religion to 'convert' to I do try to follow the ways of Judaism, although Kosher gets expensive as heck!
He and the father are one. Does the trinity make sense? It's difficult. But from my personal study. It is clear that God is the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
Claims after claims after claims yet they have insufficient evidences to prove its accuracy and truthfulness. That's what throws me off, every single time. Pretty good story book though
Fair enough. Thanks for the evidence. I'm not the type to believe what I want to believe just because I want to believe it. You win on that point. Not the version of the trinity most are taught: http://www.yrm.org/trinity-fact-fiction.htm
I wouldn't call it extensive. I have met a few missionaries in Africa (observed others) but I spoke to a lot more local people about them and religion in general (in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Ghana). Also, my brother wrote a nonfiction book with his really good friend Ofir, who met a really cool Christian missionary at Lake Turkana who was/is doing great work. And it's not just Christian missionaries I am speaking about. I traveled around in Mali and a Dogon chief told me that it was Muslim men bringing in religion that he felt was the worst thing to happen to his village in his lifetime.
When I say "bringing in religion" I meant to say "bringing in Islam." The Dogons have their own religion.
Not the same guy. Eddie Williams is the guy I know. He stays in Lodwar but works all over the region. He even went into Sudan a couple years ago, and was thrown in jail by the SPLA.
It disturbs me deeply the work of religious missionaries (of any religion). These are the weakest of the weak people. They find the most vulnerable and least likely to be educated people and hope to convert them. Spare me the prepared speech about how they offer intangible gifts and don't expect anything in return - this is as BS as the concept of imams and priests being of higher moral character than anyone else. There are plenty of people in need of help in your own continent to whom a spiritual proposal would be far more morally justifiable. These missionaries should go try to do their deed in conference halls with lawyers and doctors and engineers in developed countries. There is a reason why it works more easily where they go. It's because those people do not have access to as much information as everyone else, nor do they have as much background knowledge about it. So disturbing. As if Africa needs any more people to come and cause divisions between them. As if developed Islam/Christianity are any better than all of Africa's own developed religions - which are tailored to their culture and their beliefs and their geographic location. Honestly religious people need to mind their own business and lead by example. If it's everything they think it is, people will be flocking to their belief system. Flying across the world and performing a staged example is ridiculous. You want to help Africa? So you decided to go there and try to coax them into converting to your religion? That is one of the most selfish things anyone can do. You can be in denial all you want and take solace in the fact that, ultimately, some young/poor/vulnerable person will "voluntarily" accept your message - but the next time you see that, remember how you chose the young/poor/vulnerable to send your message to and how much that factored into their reaction to you.
