Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, And the Transformation of the West

Doctor Jehu Hanciles contends that “despite entrenched notions of Western provenance and dominance within the globalization discourse, non-Western initiatives and movements are among the most powerful forces shaping the contemporary world order.” (37) This discourse begins with correctives emerging from revisionist examination of history and the idea of globalization as not a new concept, but an ongoing interpretation of change as defined through the dominant, western perspective.

This western perspective for the most part, has suffered according to Hanciles a progressive (or perhaps “terminal”) secularization which through promulgation of cultural ideology (academia) and market economy; (technology) has maintained its far-reaching influence and collective dominance.

At one end of the spectrum this perspective finds an analysis of cultural homogenization that would declare “End of History” (Fukuyama), while in reality there is another side to the coin, which is entrenched in between two dialectical poles of: Movement towards homogeneity in tension with resistance. In essence culture matters, and homogenization is in fact selective and not wholesale.

Much of the rhetoric on globalization then, is found to be in a state of partisan perspectives and not without some confusion, as in the tendency is to polarize the “western” and the “non-western.” For example, finding English as the lingua franca of the “global civilization” and considering what is in fact Americanization of the world, globalization. Things are always more complex than at the surface, as Hanciles endorses the view of Samuel Huntington for example, that “the post-Cold War world is a multipolar, multicivilizational world. A world in which the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political, or economic but cultural;” (75)

Christendom is superimposed to this general tendency to identify the movement of western dominant perspective of “globalization” and defined as a post-Constantinian mandate of imperialism, as defining Christianity as primarily a “territorial religion.” Hanciles takes us through a critical tour through history, of the instrumentality of religion at the forefront of conquest and expansion: “mission by the sword” in cases of Charlemagne (c. 747-814), the infusion of nationalism into the mission enterprise by the time of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), and the ensuing policies upheld by the infamous padroado of Iberian colonial interests. This pattern persisted through the Protestant centuries as: “valid missionary engagement required contiguity with, or access to, territory deemed non-Christian.” (As Roman Catholics had already been in contact with these centuries earlier)

Out of the mire of other salient failures that marks the advancement of the fabled “Christendom,” a turning-point emerges during the twentieth century, as a shift of presumed “center” (of spiritual vitality) is anticipated in the future, to be comprised of these “non-Western world”: and an admission “we must not press upon other races undesirable and unessential features of our Western Church life.” (127) And tying it back to the importance of culture, African Christianity is seen as a tour de force, a phenomenon in the twentieth century. With remarkable growth undertaken during enormous adversities, taking shape primarily of internal, African initiatives, long after colonialism or any Western missionary enterprise, in continuity with primal African religions, retaining indigenous values and world-views, that is marginalized but also seeing some global spread through globalization.

The strongest of Hanciles’ argument emerges out of a hermeneutic that appropriates the Christian religion as essentially, migratory. In the second part of his book is included, powerful account of convincing data in trends of immigration, which beckons a reinterpretation of the phenomenon, through the biblical perspective as well as to read the text with this aspect of relocation in mind. For instance, whereas previously the trend has been a migration pattern of North to South (latitudinally) a reversal is (and has been) in order- from South to North (in a diachronic, continental scale) as evidenced through a fairly recent and sharp increase in patterns of African immigration to its northern, European nations, as well as the migration of peoples from Central and South America to their North American neighbors.

Migration as a phenomenon, was reinforcement of the cause and effect circle of foreign mission during the three phases of Western expansion, namely: 1500-1800 European expansion and the Atlantic Slave Trade; 1800-1960 high imperialism and industrial growth; and global migrations beginning from the 1960s. In conclusion, the current understanding of what is “center” in global culture must be reconsidered, especially factoring the vast and complexities of migration as well as, factoring the elements of African Christianity in its remarkable growth, into the equation. What is anticipated, in final analysis, is of a destabilization of Christianity as European Christendom but to reaching far beyond, into an era where such dominance is naturally palliated by the contributions of Christian expressions from diverse cultures.