Why is it called a
Nigerian church? Why a Kenyan church? Wherever you are in the Diaspora, you
will find many African churches are full of one particular nationality or
another. It almost seems that they choose not to integrate with other Africans.
Perhaps it is a question of retaining their identity which leads me to believe
that there could possibly be a fear of losing cultural cohesion.
Depending on the type of church you attend will determine
the type of God you serve. If you go to an all African black church you might
serve a God who enjoys sending down Holy Ghost fires and roasting your enemies.
You might even go to a church where God cannot possibly hear you by praying in
your heart and only vociferous prayers will do because he wants us to ‘have
dominion and fight our way into his Kingdom’. Perhaps you might go to a church
that if you didn’t know you would think God only understood Swahili or they ate
chin chin after service to commemorate him. So I ask you, what (if you do) type
of church do you go to?
I find that too much of the same cultured churches risks the
danger of mixing other factors to it such as politics, traditions and cultural
stereotypes which takes away the essence of what church is and makes it more
than just a place of worship, but a place of business, a place to find your
national identity and a place to begin your political campaign. Just recently, a well-known Congolese church
in the UK had been caught in the centre of a political tension to the point
where a protest and petition was held from others members of the Congolese
community to shut the church down and was successful. Would this still have
happened if it had been mixed?
A question I often ask is why do many Africans in the
diaspora not mix with other countries outside of Africa or even within Africa
when it comes to churches? Could this not reduce the amount of intercultural
differences?
When we immerse within ourselves and do not integrate with
other nationalities, it limits us from experiencing the richness of other
cultures and appreciating what they have to offer (even in church) so this may
still lead us to hold onto certain biased view about others.
In my view, certain
church ‘standards’ stems from whichever background that church derives from and
if you are someone like me who is on the periphery of being stuck between two
cultures (your native country and where you are in the diaspora), then you
might possibly question or even challenge the eligibility of the church’s way
of doing something, having been exposed to other ways. However because it’s preached behind the
pulpit, these views then resonate amongst the members in agreement which has
somehow been taken for ‘the Word of God’. It almost makes the African church
become a cultural institution with religious affirmations. They become the driving force behind some African
churches motives or even vision. For example, a lot of prosperity preaching
churches derives from certain cultures where they are known to be lovers of money.
I’ve heard people say things like ‘if it’s such and such
church, I won’t go’. The problem isn’t church itself, but that it’s a
particular African church which already carries its own stigma amongst some
people because of the type of culture associated with it, e.g, they only speak
a certain language, women should be seen and not heard, they don’t start on
time. The mentality of Africans never being on time has filtered into the
church to the point that some services won’t even start until they have a good
amount of people in the service. Some people will miss the Kingdom of God
by being late. We’ve normalised certain parts of our culture and brought it
into the church and people get on with it as if it’s a part of the gospel.
Church is also the foundation for many in regards to
relationships and building a community, however, when everyone there is
connected because they are all from the same community, it comes with risks
such as labelling a teenage girl, if she
was to be found pregnant in church, as the ‘bad apple’ because she ‘sinned’.
This not only goes out in the church but it won’t be long before her reputation
is spread throughout the rest of her community hence why it’s good to have
diverse mixture of people.
Am I saying that it’s wrong for different African
communities in the diaspora to have church exclusively for themselves?
Certainly not if people feel that is best for them. However, I feel as though
if we continue to do this in the diaspora considering that we are few compared
to our counterparts in Africa, then it will be very difficult to have a united
Africa where we all support each other, abroad and at home. We who are abroad can set the example of
mixing amongst each other as many back home are separated because of
borders.
Let us not use the Bible to justify our culture or to
enforce our own beliefs of ‘this is the way things must because it is in the
Word of God’, because we need to remember that same Bible was used to keep
black people oppressed as slaves for many years. We can only get the perfect picture of things
when we look outside of the box otherwise we keep ourselves bound and limit
ourselves from moving forward. Mixing cultures particularly in churches can
help to enrich and empower one another. However I put this question out, is
church a crucial element for the survival of the different African culture(s)
in the Diaspora?
