In The Christian Revolution, Philip Jenkins discusses how Christianity has largely been claimed by white European nations, but is quickly becoming widely popular in the global south, especially nations in Latin America and Africa. I’m interested in examining the ways in which Evangelical American Christians have influenced these forms of Christianity.
Jenkins argues that this new wave of Christianity that is so predominant in the global south is far more traditional and superstitious than the Old-Age Christianity that we in the West are so used to. One of the ways in which this manifests itself is the blatant and aggressive homophobia within the Church and bleeding into the policy of the State. In 2014 both Uganda and then Nigeria enacted policies that are horribly oppressive to members of the LGBTQ community. It is quite literally a crime to identify as anything other than heterosexual, and the punishments are real and severe. This fundamentalism didn’t materialize out of nowhere.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western missionaries sought to translate the Bible into local languages so that converts could hear the Word of God. They also encouraged a literal understanding of how to read the Bible. Today, that literalism continues to encourage fundamentalist interpretation of difficult passages like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which inform and fuel such vitriolic homophobia. It is important that we consider how this new wave of Christianity has been shaped by globalism and how the global north continues to shape global understandings of the Christian tradition. It seems ironic and problematic to me that after Western missionaries spent time teaching Africans what Christianity is, there are actually missionaries and scholars that feel they have to return to teach them what Christianity is not.
Check out this link for more reading:Watch Full Movie Online Streaming Online and Download
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/27/homophobia-christian-africa_n_4675618.html
