Faith increasing, part II, Africa and Asia

Africa divides into two spheres of faith—Muslim north and sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest faith measures of any continent.  71% attend weekly and 92% think religion is important part of their lives.  Although Europe had visited Africa for years, they could not tolerate the malaria until quinine was discovered about 1870.  So all the slave, cocoa and rubber trade was iinstigated by Africans who are somewhat tolerant of malaria.  Then 1870-1914, Europeans took over colonially and brought French Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Dutch Calvinism.  Other Christian groups got a foothold.  Ethiopia invited Lutherans in. Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians came too as did Social Gospel groups. But it was to little effect. Only conservative denominations had limited success. Then came a strange twist.  Converted Africans became schooled in the Bible and noted that things like slavery, polygamy, and witchcraft were indeed spoken about (Europeans demanded they spurn such things.) Christianity grew from the grassroots.  The Bible was translated into 650 languages and today there are 11,500 indigenous African denominations.  Most are very conservative, Bible based, Pentecostal.   Most Africans believe in witchcraft and oppose it (Uganda and Burundi excepted).  The struggle with native animistic religion has been titanic.  Slavery is cast in a new light by Christianity and many slaves are still kept but as family members to some degree.  Polygamy still exists, but the more Christian a nation, the less polygamous.  The improved status of women has also been a big spur to church growth.  Equal rights and the ability to hold any job is approved by 83-90% of Christians. There is also a titanic struggle with Islam.  The nations that border the Sahara on the south are 50-75% Muslim. And Christianity seems to slowly be making inroads into Muslim areas.  Sunday worship is nothing like Europe or America. Dancing, testifying, shouting, breaking into tongues and African music give the sense of a revival meeting.

            Asian religiousness is also growing with the exception of Buddhism.  Chinese and Japanese claim they aren’t religious because they consider Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism to be philosophies with no membership. Shinto is the Japanese tradition but only 4% of Japanese consider themselves religious, i.e. churched.  The main barrier to Christian growth is the intense Japanese nationalism.  But 88% maintain a Buddhist altar in their home and nearly all have a Shinto home shrine.  Praying to departed family members, visiting graves, good luck charms and other practices ordinarily deemed religious are practiced by nearly everyone.  But there are quirks.  There is no connection between societal morality and religion in Japan.

            Christianity is making headway into Korea and China. (no Gallup survey for China)  China has gone from 1 million Christians to 100 million with no western missionaries under communism. It’s an amazing thing, because the government strongly advises atheism. We still don’t know absolute numbers because people are “coming out”. Buddhists seems to also be coming out.   S. Korea is 30% Christian. Why has it grown so rapidly.  Many Orientals convert to Christianity in graduate school in America. A survey found that 62% of young people in China are “interested in Christianity”. And just as Muslim faith is most prevalent among the educated, Christianity is most prevalent amnong educated orientals. This refutes the theory that religion appeals to the poor because of deprivation—Marx’s opiate of the poor people.  It may be that a new theory is needed.  That it is not thwarted material desires but thwarted spiritual desires that drive this trend. The people of privilege ask questions like, “Does life have meaning?” “Does virtue exist?” “Is death the end?” There may also be a cultural incongruity reason since these societies are rapidly changing in the face of old beliefs.  Or a hunger for morality that is not tied to the traditional faiths of the east.

            Contrary to industrial development, Hinduism didn’t die out in India.  Instead it revived. 67% of Indians worship weekly and 85% claim importance of personal faith. Today 80% of Indians claim Hinduism.  Pilgrimages have exploded in number.  In 1986 1.3M visited Vaishno Devi Shrine in Kashmir.  2012 had 10M.  Kimbh Mela bathing in the Ganges has doubled since 2001. There is a huge boom in sacred building.  Sikhism and Jainism have also grown. And again, this is most reflected in the upper classes.  Hindu religion is a one-god pantheon with a strong emphasis on sin, that is, religion is closely linked to morality. A major problem of faith in India is the separatism brought about by Hindu-Muslim clashes which have spread to persecutions of Christians and Sikhs.

            So in Asia and Africa, again the answer is that a huge religious revival is taking place and it has widest appeal to the educated and wealthy classes.