Month: May 2017

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Anomaly

The growth of Christianity in the central and southern parts of Ghana is astounding. The map to the right is based on information from the Joshua Project.  Each dot represents the geographic center of a people group. The color of the dot shows the percentage of Christians in that people group – darker being a higher percentage. People groups without very low percentages of Christians are not shown. You can see that the central and southern parts of Ghana have a high percentage of Christians. The virtual absence of dots in other parts of Ghana is telling. But it would be a mistake to measure the growth of the church in Ghana only by percentages and numbers of Christians; because the church has grown in so many other ways.

Many churches in Ghana now have international missions. One is doing missions in over 90 countries! It’s headquarters in Ghana is, in fact, it’s international headquarters. In addition, these churches have significant social ministries including schools, clinics, hospitals, Bible schools, seminaries and even universities. They have publications, TV stations and radio stations. They have social programs designed to reduce poverty and help those in need. They design and implement their own Sunday School programs and curricula. Some of their churches have thousands in attendance on Sunday. Some seem to have a congregation on every other corner of Accra. All of this is created, funded, and run entirely from within Ghana.

But there is an anomaly. That anomaly is Bible translation. While every other ministry of the church – pastoral care, evangelism, social ministries,  education, etc. – is created, funded and run from withing Ghana; the translation of the Bible into the languages of Ghana is created and funded with resources from abroad, mostly the US and the UK. Western agencies have a better understanding of the number of languages in Ghana and which still need translation, than do churches in Ghana.

Churches that saw a need for a university to train their people, then raised the funds from within Ghana to build and staff the university, did not see the languages without translation on their doorsteps. They saw social needs, poverty, the need for solid training for pastors and stepped into those gaps too. But their lack of engagement in  Bible translation stands in awkward and anomalous contrast to their engagement in so many other ministries.

Recently, Ed has been involved with some Ghanaians in a big push to change this situation. Together that group has developed a definitive list of the remaining translation needs in Ghana together with an estimated budget to translate the whole Bible into all of them over the next 18 years. In a few weeks, Church leaders and Christian business people will meet in Ghana at a fund-raising event where we hope to raise the funds for the first few years.

Beyond that, we want hope to get the churches to engage with Bible translation and guide it the same way they give attention to other ministries. Here’s to normalizing the anomaly.

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Learning going the wrong way

Dedication of representative translation committees for three Ghana languages, 2014

Launching translations in three small languages in Ghana’s Volta Region that no on ever learns, although the people who speak these languages almost always learn the regional language.

In Africa, people who speak small languages learn larger languages, but the reverse does not usually happen.

When a missionary whose language is English learns a small language, that speaks volumes. Not only has the missionary learned the language, he or she has done something counter their own interests. Learning the smaller language is a step down the social ladder. When Africans learn smaller languages to minister to people, that also speaks volumes about humility and service. I have written about a specific example.

An African translator told me how a church leader mocked him for volunteering to help in literacy in his “little language”. The person told him that such activities have no value because his language is so small.

But the things that are growing the church in rural areas in northern Ghana and northern Côte d’Ivoire are translations and literacy in those “worthless” languages that no one will bother to learn. It’s another delicious example of God’s subversion from below:

Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. (I Corinthians 1:27)

It turns out that the things people readily dismiss as useless provide the real leverage for transforming communities and bringing Gospel life.

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Where’s home

Sometimes when I’m in the USA, people ask where I am at home, or more at home. Am I at home in the US where I grew up? Or have I become at home in Africa?

I have definitely kept my American identity. Whenever I leave US to go back to Africa, leaving doesn’t feel good. And when I arrive back in Africa, it feels right and good. When I leave Africa to go back to the US, leaving doesn’t feel good. When I then arrive back in the US, it feels right and good. It’s not like one place feels right or good and the other wrong or bad or uncomfortable. No, they both feel equally good, right, and comfortable when arriving and the reverse when leaving.

I dislike leaving both places and like going back to both. So where is home for me? Well, it’s complicated.

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Free the Word

Today (May 3) is World Press Freedom Day. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. According to World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky, modern journalism has roots in the man whose started the Reformation – Martin Luther. In 1517 he posted a list of 95 thoughts (called 95 theses) on various church practices of his day on the door of the church at Wittenburg, starting the Reformation.

Within months, Luther’s document had been picked up by the newly invented printing industry and spread throughout Europe. I turned out that Luther wrote vivid prose and he turned out many short articles on the key religious and political issues of his day. He also translated the Bible into German.

Translating the Bible into German and writing articles in German for wide distribution are both underpinned by two ideas that most of us take for granted:

  • The way to promote social, spiritual, religious and political change is through spreading ideas. It is not by producing a law or edict at the top and forcing it on everyone. But the latter was the model in the minds of most leaders in Luther’s time. Luther decides to appeal to the masses aided by the printing press. It was a radical idea
  • The second idea is that ordinary people using their everyday language can understand and make their own decisions about the issues that affect them. This was also radical as many in Luther’s day expected people to just do what political and religious authorities told them.

In our days in the Western world, these two ideas are so basic that we don’t often think about them. But in some places they are still radical. I have met Protestant pastors and even the occasional missionary who didn’t like the translation in the heart language (the people’s mother tongue) because they felt it undermined their authority. The thing is, they are right; it does indeed undermine their authority.

When people read and study God’s Word, they start questioning what they have been taught. Yale history professor Lamin Sanneh has documented cases of Christians in Africa reading the Bible in their languages and then adopting different understandings than those held by their missionaries.

By submitting his ideas to everyone, Luther gave everyone the opportunity to judge them, thereby taking away some of his authority as a minister of the Gospel. That didn’t bother him. Why? Because he believed:

  • That changes in peoples’ heart and thinking was critically important.
  • Heart change cannot not be accomplished by applying authority.
  • That God will act powerfully through his Word in the people’s language.

The spectacular growth of Christianity in Ghana where the Bible has been translated into the languages of the people is one of the testaments to freeing the Word Luther-style. We are working to freeing it for the peoples in Ghana who have not yet been accorded the opportunity to it judge for themselves.