Sunday America and Sunday Africa

Someone posted this meme to Facebook, so I thought I would comment on it.  In the upper left is "Black Friday".  Upper right is "Sunday America".  On the bottom is "Sunday Africa."

America generally refers to US citizens. [1] But there are 300 million plus people in this country and about 40% of them attend church almost weekly. [2] (The particular church in question is a small Calvinist congregation of 25-50. [3]) Less than one half of one percent of American churches are mega churches and they are attended by 10% of all church attendees.  Half of the approximately 120 million church attendees attend the top 10% of churches. [4]  While most churches in the America may look like the church in question, there are many churches in this country where thousands attend every Sunday.  Of the approximately 12 million people who attend mega churches, 30,000 attend Lakewood Church on Sunday mornings. [5]

This brings us that bottom picture.  Africa is not a country, but a continent populated by over a billion people who are spread out over 54 nations. [6] This picture was taken for a 2009 revival in Maua, Kenya. [7]  Those who took the picture only counted about 3000, about 10% of those that attend Lakewood regularly.  Also, though the revival went till Sunday, this was not a normal Sunday service.

Black Friday 2011, a record number, 226 million Americans, shopped at retail stores.  Surely they did not all wait in long lines before sunrise.  Still, more Americans shopped than attend church regularly.  Yet "regularly" is the key word.  The revival service in Maua is not a weekly event and neither is Black Friday.  For that matter only 40% of Americans attend church while 78.4% profess to be Christians. [8]

Like most memes this picture is very misleading and borderline ignorant.  Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on earth, yet it is treated as if it were a country. [9] Also, two out of three of the pictures do not refer to a weekly event.

Bishop Colenso and the Zulu

When I was reading The Woman's Bible a month or so ago, the story of Bishop Colenso stuck out to me.

Stories like this get you in trouble.  I am not a Victorian missionary to Zululand.  I have never been a missionary to anywhere.  I am not a converted Zulu reading this verse for the first time.  Also, we have to put Colenso into context.  He was already having doubts before this.  So when I say that "I cannot imagine as a 21st century American citizen (blogging on a computer, long after sundown), what it would be like to be a 19th century missionary to Zululand", that should be obvious on the outset.  Still the story took the 19th century by storm and it is not hard to imagine (there I go again) why.  Here is a reference to Colenso's own account.

Yep D'Souza, King was anti-colonial.

I am two hours into my seventeen hours of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches.  Two things have struck me.  One, King repeats himself a lot.  Two, he praises anti-colonialism a lot.  King's anti-colonialism brought this to mind.

Obama has little or nothing to do with the civil-rights movement. His roots are in Kenya, and he is shaped far more by anti-colonialism than by anything that Martin Luther King said or did. ~  Dinesh D'Souza [1]

Well, King thought colonialism and segregation were linked.[2]

For I can look out and see a great number, as John saw, marching into the great eternity, because God is working in this world, and at this hour, and at this moment. And God grants that we will get on board and start marching with God, because we got orders now to break down the bondage and the walls of colonialism, exploitation, and imperialism, to break them down to the point that no man will trample over another man, but that all men will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. And then we will be in Canaan’s freedom land. ~ Martin Luther King Jr. [3]

Now we are all familiar with this old order that is passing away. We have lived with it and we have seen it in all of its dimensions. We have seen the old order in its international dimensions in the form of colonialism and imperialism. As you know, the vast majority of the peoples of our world live in Asia and Africa. For many, many years, people of these two continents were dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated and humiliated by some foreign power. But even there we notice change has taken place. I can remember when Mrs. King and I first journeyed to Africa to attend the independence celebration of the new nation of Ghana. We were very happy about the fact there were now eight independent countries in Africa. But since that night in March, 1957, some twenty-seven new independent nations have come into being in Africa. This reveals to us that the old order of colonialism is passing away, and the new order of freedom and human dignity is coming into being.  ~ Martin Luther King Jr. [4]  

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains science decline

Dispatches: Return to Africa's Witch Children

A 2005 London Incident of Kindoki

Abuser speaks of witch belief

Sita Kisanga was one of three people convicted at the Old Bailey on Friday on child cruelty charges, after an eight-year-old African girl accused of being a witch was tortured in East London.

The case has raised fears that many more children could also be suffering beatings or may even have been killed if accused of witchcraft.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Kisanga said she tried to prevent the abuse, but insisted the girl contained an evil spirit, know as kindoki.

We were living really good. Then it came to one occasion I heard that the child was crying. I thought she was alone in the room and then I saw her auntie beating her with a belt.

I was really surprised and I said 'what is the problem?' and she said to me 'Sita, this child is talking about serious things, things relating to witchcraft'.

She started to explain that the girl goes to Africa in the night-time to do bad things.

I know that it is not easy for people to believe, but those people with a spiritual belief, they will know that what I am saying is true. There is the spiritual world and the material world.

She [the aunt] was beating her like that because she believes in witchcraft, kindoki. She really deeply believed it.

'Kindoki'

The pastor confirmed that she had kindoki. The only advice that he gave us was that she had to attend the church and she had to go through prayer and deliverance.

He is the leader of the church. He saw that the girl had kindoki, that's why he confirmed that the child had kindoki.

I told her to stop beating her. I told her in this country, beating a child is no good.


But she carried on beating the child when I was away at college.

I never did such things to her. It was her auntie who poisoned the child against me.

The auntie was telling the girl to mention my name, but I didn't do it. I would never be able to do things to someone's child.

She is her auntie, her step-mother who raised her. She was protecting her step-mother.

I'm not guilty. I said it to the police. I said everything to them, they don't believe me.

Trust

I didn't trust anyone [to come forward at the time] because no-one would believe me. Look at the problems I've got now. I've explained to them, but they don't believe me.

In our community, kindoki happens. It is killing people. It is doing bad things. It is a serious matter.

In our community in the UK everyone believes in it. In our country they believe in it too.

It is not easy for you to accept these things because you are from a different culture.

Kindoki is something you have to be scared of because in our culture kindoki can kill you and destroy your life completely.

Kindoki can make you barren. Sometimes kindoki can ruin you chances of staying in this country.

The authorities will arrest you and deport you and kindoki can be part of it.

I feel sorry for what's happened to the child. I'm not really feeling sorry for her though. She's not feeling sorry for me. 

Kisanga said she did not think the pastor who saw the girl knew she was being beaten.[1]

...The trial was told by Dr Richard Hoskins, an expert in African studies, that belief in witchcraft - known as ndoki in the Lingala language - was not uncommon among some African communities.

He said: "Spirit possession is also a common feature of African traditional religion and there is a belief that they can fly or mutate into other creatures."

Ms May said: "It's not unusual for the defendant to believe that (the girl) could shift her shape and visit people at night."

But Dr Hoskins stressed witchcraft believers would never condone physically harming a child, even one they thought was possessed by an evil spirit.

Ms X claimed to the child came from Cabinda

Ms X, Kisanga and Pinto worshipped at Protestant churches in Dalston and Neasden which catered for people from Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kisanga clearly believed in evil and there were entries, in her handwriting, about "satanic" tendencies in a diary found in her flat.

In another entry she describes a dream in which she met the 'Holy Spirit' and also refers to a female child in London with a snake in her abdomen.

It appears Kisanga persuaded herself, and Ms X, the child was possessed by an evil spirit and they meted out horrific treatment to her as a result.

Real or not, the belief resulted in simple, unforgivable child abuse.[2]

Further Reading on this 2005 case

'Exorcisms are part of our culture' In this article a pastor explains that ndoki (kindoki) does exist, but he stresses that exorcisms are supposed to be non-violent.  "But disciples should only do what the master did, I never read in the bible about Jesus Christ being violent with anybody to cast out any spirit."

Antoine Lokongo, the editor of a Congolese newsletter, Congo Panorama, believes the growing violence in exorcisms is due to western influence. 

Exorcisms in themselves were not a bad thing and part of Congolese culture and identity, he said. 

"This is part of our identity, part of our culture but it's being exploited for economic reasons."
He said some of the churches and charities set up by Congolese people in the UK were simply "money-making schemes". 

Child exorcisms were becoming widespread with the growing population seeking refuge in the UK from war zones in Angola and Congo, he added.

Woman cleared over 'witch' trial

Girl was to be 'thrown in river' 

Abuse case sparks new fears  
A West African / FundamentalistChristian syncretistic religion in the UK

Neanderthal/Human DNA Primer

Did sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans shape our immune systems? The jury’s still out

Neanderthals, Humans Interbred—First Solid DNA Evidence According to a new DNA study, most humans have a little Neanderthal in them—at least 1 to 4 percent of a person's genetic makeup.

Neanderthals had sex with humans, says DNA  The DNA fragment, found on the human X chromosome, is present in 9 percent of humans across the world from Asia to Europe to America — except in Africa, where it does not appear.