Lovely piece – and suitably heartening. Happy Easter.
Paul Rogers
2 years ago
As others have said, this is a nice thing to read today.
I am not familiar with this footballer, but the grounding of Nigerians in Christian faith is something I do see and it is reassuring.
Like many white Westerners the rituals of my life convinced me that faith was not required; right up until life sent me some serious challenges, the first (and by no means the last) of which was the early loss of my wife and mother of our three school-aged children to cancer. She died in pain and the grief we carried after her death was only lifted when we rediscovered what we had forgotten; namely that life is too big for humans to solve through self reliance, so don’t think you can do it alone. A divine power is necessary. At least to me.
Lovely piece, thank you.
Last edited 2 years ago by Paul Rogers
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago
My wife comes from a family of northern Methodists where community life revolved around the community of the church. This does not apply now to the same extent that it did and Methodist churches are regularly closing up here. However, one of my wife’s dearest friends is a woman who came over from Nigeria to study social work and was told by her mother that if she ever felt isolated she should go to her nearest church which she did and was rapidly integrated into the life of the church. Her Christian faith ensured she was integrated into the community in a way that I suspect many Muslims don’t achieve.
I would not, however, welcome the sort of open door immigration from Africa that the author proposes because our Nigerian friend is very open about the problems of corruption, tribalism, crime and religious strife endemic in Nigeria. One of the factors behind her decision to move to England was the risk to her daughters represented by Boko Haram.
I am in favour of more discrimination not less regarding immigration, but discrimination not on the basis of the utterly irrelevant factor of skin colour, but on the basis of character and ability to integrate . I believe there are many fine people from Nigeria who would be a real asset to the UK but also many who have been so corrupted by the society of Nigeria that they should never come here or if they do manage to should be expelled upon conviction of any significant crime. One of the politicians I most admire is Kemi Badenoch, who is of Nigerian origin and remains uninfluenced by the divisive race ideology imported from the US.
You are right that Tomiiwa’s statement was probably more in the nature of a conditional suggestion and I certainly agree that Justin Welby is not going to be the driver of any Christian revival.
There is an interesting article in today’s Telegraph by Douglas Murray entitled: “Diversity is the new national religion. Woe betide any agnostics” in which he comments on ”the unnatural hush around Sir David Amess’s murder” that proves that there are some issues we can simply no longer discuss. The Archbishop of Canterbury is less a Christian religious leader and more a proponent of the new secular National religion of woke.
Matt M
2 years ago
Nice article. I think a proper, committed Archbishop of Canterbury from a pre-dominantly African parish would shake things up in the CofE. Get rid of this weary Wokeness we keep having inflicted on us.
As a committed Catholic myself, I agree with most of this article. It’s often occurred to me that God has a weird way of bringing good out of evil. Immigrant — as opposed to native — Christianity has a funny kind of protection born of soft racism. Thus while one can blithely dump on the Catholic Church or the C of E, with Immigrant churches, the liberal/leftie attitude is, “well, of course, we educated and enlightened types don’t expect any better from THOSE people”.
Brian Villanueva
2 years ago
16th century Europe brings the Christian faith to Ottoman and sub-Saharan Africa.
21st century sub-Saharan Africa brings the Christian faith back to Europe.
God gets the glory both times.
Last edited 2 years ago by Brian Villanueva
Frederick B
2 years ago
The Church of England might do better among the native English, whose evangelisation is its job, if it emphasised its Englishness rather than being embarrassed by Englishness, and apologetic about it.
Characteristically though, the CofE has responded to the Black Lives Matter nonsense by introducing into its schools (which educate a quarter of our children) a curriculum devised by a “black liberation theologian”. I suspect that Englishness may not come out of it very well.
Thus it continues its rapid fall towards extinction among the people entrusted to its care. Contrast the fortunes of those churches – the Armenian church for example, or the Roman church in Poland – which are well aware of their duty to specific ethnicities..
I see so much of this here in the States. Too many church leaders lack conviction and instead go with whatever trendy nonsense the vapid crowd embraces. Or the political spin, as in “Jesus was a socialist”.
Jason Highley
2 years ago
Very interesting article! Thank you for writing it.
Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
2 years ago
It’s good to see the highlighting of the simple if important point, which is so awkward for the ‘progressives’: that religious and ethnic minorities – whether Asian Muslims or Black Christians — are socially conservative. Hence the tension in the Anglican church between its liberal progressive (white elite) branch (UK) which seeks to affirm trans identities as well as same sex attraction and the conservative branches in the former colonies which in resisting the liberal progressive agenda is resisting a new form of cultural colonialism.
Last edited 2 years ago by Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
Paul Marshall
2 years ago
Superb article – thank you Tomiwa. Black Africans are the best hope for the Church of England
Ri Bradach
2 years ago
A very good article and one that reminded me of my Irish mother’s friendships in 1960’s London with a Jamaican lady and a Nigerian lady who, like her, grew up with strong faith.
That said, how long before one of the lefty press entrap a young footballer of traditional faith teaching – particularly a Baptist one – with the “is homosexuality wrong” question. Look what answering that did for Falou and nearly did for Billy Vunipola.
Pacific Islanders have similar attachment to their faith teachings and have been viciously vilified for it. That is not to say that I agree with what they have said, nor to say that it is a view of Christian teaching I agree with. I only raise the note of caution that being Christian is an offence to Gruadian readers and Christians are always fair game, regardless of colour.
Last edited 2 years ago by Ri Bradach
Nicholas Taylor
2 years ago
It seems only natural that Anglican Christianity should find its new home in Africa (not just among African immigrants). The dreary repetitions of respectable ‘white’ Christianity in this country seemed absurd even when I was a boy (about half a century ago!) and I have to pinch myself when I see the same pompous rituals and incantations being trotted out today. In Africa it can receive ‘new blood’ by infusion of local traditions and colour, and it will serve as a barrier to advancement of the inhuman and misogynistic cult of Islam. I can even look with some pride to a family connection. A great grand-uncle was for a time in the late 19th century Archdeacon of the Niger under Bishop Samuel Ajahi Crowther. African Anglicanism, under native African leadership, has been around long enough to make its own way.
Last edited 2 years ago by Nicholas Taylor
R Wright
2 years ago
Very interesting. I was always quite fascinated by stories about the 19th century missionaries in Africa, particularly in heavily influenced places like Nyasaland/Malawi. Looks like their efforts have paid off.
Richard Slack
2 years ago
To a point but only to a point. The black-led churches are a phenomenon which perhaps has not been properly studied but their origin was in the early post-Windrush days when a number of congregations found the more exuberant forms of worship common in the Caribbean and Africa rather off-putting and made sure the newcomers did not feel welcome.
Religions have always played a part in the lives of immigrant Communities including in the Empire. They provide community, social networking and often assistants in living a better life in the new community, together with links from the countries of origin. But this tends not to last as the members of religious communities find greater purchase in society without a priest to speak for them.
In Tower Hamlets there was once 150 Synagogues, there is now barely 3 two of which struggle to maintain religious life. The majority of the Jewish Community moved out post-war, some to other religious communities such as Stamford Hill or Ilford; but also the numbers observing has dropped wherever they have gone. They feel Jewish and identify as such but they do not practice.
The evidence here in Tower Hamlets is that the Mosques do not have the purchase on the lives of immigrants from Pakistan of Bangladesh as the would have had 15 years ago, as evidence particularly in the number of women visible at work and in public life. They identify with their faith but they do not feel controlled by it.
So I will confidently predict that this is almost certainly the high point of the African-led Church which will not be able to defeat secularism. And a good job too
Martin Terrell
2 years ago
Thank you. Interesting and optimistic.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
I have worked in Nigeria and Ghana a bit, as well as Francophone west Africa. But the Anglophone countries are where the immigrants to UK come from.
One thing we maybe don’t like to emphasise: Christians in these countries face a militant Islam threat in their Norths. They are right on the front line.
Albeit in the rest of the country, especially Nigeria, both faiths mix more easily.
David Simpson
2 years ago
Except that I think this is the Christianity of the 19th century. What we need is a Christianity for 2022 (and Welby et al are offering a pabulum from 1950, at best).
What would a Christianity for 2022 look like, and how would it differ from the Christianity of the 19th century.
I believe a significant part of membership in the 19th century church was a consequence of social pressure. In my state liquor was prohibited until 1968, and in the 1950s few stores were open on Sunday. The court challenges on the Constitutionality of Sunday closing laws did, I think, provide people an opportunity to ignore the social pressure.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Good luck to the LGBTQ+ fascists!!!
Jack Woodward
1 year ago
My experience, in a United Methodist Church with a huge outreach to singles and people in the middle of divorce, is that many of the unchurched are more interested in accomplishing good in the community than the more traditional pattern of attending church and supporting other people (missionaries) who accomplish good. It seems that often walking the walk opens the door to Jesus coming into their life.
Lovely piece – and suitably heartening. Happy Easter.
As others have said, this is a nice thing to read today.
I am not familiar with this footballer, but the grounding of Nigerians in Christian faith is something I do see and it is reassuring.
Like many white Westerners the rituals of my life convinced me that faith was not required; right up until life sent me some serious challenges, the first (and by no means the last) of which was the early loss of my wife and mother of our three school-aged children to cancer. She died in pain and the grief we carried after her death was only lifted when we rediscovered what we had forgotten; namely that life is too big for humans to solve through self reliance, so don’t think you can do it alone. A divine power is necessary. At least to me.
Lovely piece, thank you.
My wife comes from a family of northern Methodists where community life revolved around the community of the church. This does not apply now to the same extent that it did and Methodist churches are regularly closing up here. However, one of my wife’s dearest friends is a woman who came over from Nigeria to study social work and was told by her mother that if she ever felt isolated she should go to her nearest church which she did and was rapidly integrated into the life of the church. Her Christian faith ensured she was integrated into the community in a way that I suspect many Muslims don’t achieve.
I would not, however, welcome the sort of open door immigration from Africa that the author proposes because our Nigerian friend is very open about the problems of corruption, tribalism, crime and religious strife endemic in Nigeria. One of the factors behind her decision to move to England was the risk to her daughters represented by Boko Haram.
I am in favour of more discrimination not less regarding immigration, but discrimination not on the basis of the utterly irrelevant factor of skin colour, but on the basis of character and ability to integrate . I believe there are many fine people from Nigeria who would be a real asset to the UK but also many who have been so corrupted by the society of Nigeria that they should never come here or if they do manage to should be expelled upon conviction of any significant crime. One of the politicians I most admire is Kemi Badenoch, who is of Nigerian origin and remains uninfluenced by the divisive race ideology imported from the US.
Kemi Badenoch is a wonderful example of a successful immigrant. I’m much happier sharing Britain with her than the utterly odious Crispin Blunt.
You are right that Tomiiwa’s statement was probably more in the nature of a conditional suggestion and I certainly agree that Justin Welby is not going to be the driver of any Christian revival.
There is an interesting article in today’s Telegraph by Douglas Murray entitled: “Diversity is the new national religion. Woe betide any agnostics” in which he comments on ”the unnatural hush around Sir David Amess’s murder” that proves that there are some issues we can simply no longer discuss. The Archbishop of Canterbury is less a Christian religious leader and more a proponent of the new secular National religion of woke.
Nice article. I think a proper, committed Archbishop of Canterbury from a pre-dominantly African parish would shake things up in the CofE. Get rid of this weary Wokeness we keep having inflicted on us.
I really loved Sentamu so sad to see him go! Really joyous Christian man!!
Me too, Alison.
As a committed Catholic myself, I agree with most of this article. It’s often occurred to me that God has a weird way of bringing good out of evil. Immigrant — as opposed to native — Christianity has a funny kind of protection born of soft racism. Thus while one can blithely dump on the Catholic Church or the C of E, with Immigrant churches, the liberal/leftie attitude is, “well, of course, we educated and enlightened types don’t expect any better from THOSE people”.
16th century Europe brings the Christian faith to Ottoman and sub-Saharan Africa.
21st century sub-Saharan Africa brings the Christian faith back to Europe.
God gets the glory both times.
The Church of England might do better among the native English, whose evangelisation is its job, if it emphasised its Englishness rather than being embarrassed by Englishness, and apologetic about it.
Characteristically though, the CofE has responded to the Black Lives Matter nonsense by introducing into its schools (which educate a quarter of our children) a curriculum devised by a “black liberation theologian”. I suspect that Englishness may not come out of it very well.
Thus it continues its rapid fall towards extinction among the people entrusted to its care. Contrast the fortunes of those churches – the Armenian church for example, or the Roman church in Poland – which are well aware of their duty to specific ethnicities..
I see so much of this here in the States. Too many church leaders lack conviction and instead go with whatever trendy nonsense the vapid crowd embraces. Or the political spin, as in “Jesus was a socialist”.
Very interesting article! Thank you for writing it.
It’s good to see the highlighting of the simple if important point, which is so awkward for the ‘progressives’: that religious and ethnic minorities – whether Asian Muslims or Black Christians — are socially conservative. Hence the tension in the Anglican church between its liberal progressive (white elite) branch (UK) which seeks to affirm trans identities as well as same sex attraction and the conservative branches in the former colonies which in resisting the liberal progressive agenda is resisting a new form of cultural colonialism.
Superb article – thank you Tomiwa. Black Africans are the best hope for the Church of England
A very good article and one that reminded me of my Irish mother’s friendships in 1960’s London with a Jamaican lady and a Nigerian lady who, like her, grew up with strong faith.
That said, how long before one of the lefty press entrap a young footballer of traditional faith teaching – particularly a Baptist one – with the “is homosexuality wrong” question. Look what answering that did for Falou and nearly did for Billy Vunipola.
Pacific Islanders have similar attachment to their faith teachings and have been viciously vilified for it. That is not to say that I agree with what they have said, nor to say that it is a view of Christian teaching I agree with. I only raise the note of caution that being Christian is an offence to Gruadian readers and Christians are always fair game, regardless of colour.
It seems only natural that Anglican Christianity should find its new home in Africa (not just among African immigrants). The dreary repetitions of respectable ‘white’ Christianity in this country seemed absurd even when I was a boy (about half a century ago!) and I have to pinch myself when I see the same pompous rituals and incantations being trotted out today. In Africa it can receive ‘new blood’ by infusion of local traditions and colour, and it will serve as a barrier to advancement of the inhuman and misogynistic cult of Islam. I can even look with some pride to a family connection. A great grand-uncle was for a time in the late 19th century Archdeacon of the Niger under Bishop Samuel Ajahi Crowther. African Anglicanism, under native African leadership, has been around long enough to make its own way.
Very interesting. I was always quite fascinated by stories about the 19th century missionaries in Africa, particularly in heavily influenced places like Nyasaland/Malawi. Looks like their efforts have paid off.
To a point but only to a point. The black-led churches are a phenomenon which perhaps has not been properly studied but their origin was in the early post-Windrush days when a number of congregations found the more exuberant forms of worship common in the Caribbean and Africa rather off-putting and made sure the newcomers did not feel welcome.
Religions have always played a part in the lives of immigrant Communities including in the Empire. They provide community, social networking and often assistants in living a better life in the new community, together with links from the countries of origin. But this tends not to last as the members of religious communities find greater purchase in society without a priest to speak for them.
In Tower Hamlets there was once 150 Synagogues, there is now barely 3 two of which struggle to maintain religious life. The majority of the Jewish Community moved out post-war, some to other religious communities such as Stamford Hill or Ilford; but also the numbers observing has dropped wherever they have gone. They feel Jewish and identify as such but they do not practice.
The evidence here in Tower Hamlets is that the Mosques do not have the purchase on the lives of immigrants from Pakistan of Bangladesh as the would have had 15 years ago, as evidence particularly in the number of women visible at work and in public life. They identify with their faith but they do not feel controlled by it.
So I will confidently predict that this is almost certainly the high point of the African-led Church which will not be able to defeat secularism. And a good job too
Thank you. Interesting and optimistic.
I have worked in Nigeria and Ghana a bit, as well as Francophone west Africa. But the Anglophone countries are where the immigrants to UK come from.
One thing we maybe don’t like to emphasise: Christians in these countries face a militant Islam threat in their Norths. They are right on the front line.
Albeit in the rest of the country, especially Nigeria, both faiths mix more easily.
Except that I think this is the Christianity of the 19th century. What we need is a Christianity for 2022 (and Welby et al are offering a pabulum from 1950, at best).
What would a Christianity for 2022 look like, and how would it differ from the Christianity of the 19th century.
I believe a significant part of membership in the 19th century church was a consequence of social pressure. In my state liquor was prohibited until 1968, and in the 1950s few stores were open on Sunday. The court challenges on the Constitutionality of Sunday closing laws did, I think, provide people an opportunity to ignore the social pressure.
Good luck to the LGBTQ+ fascists!!!
My experience, in a United Methodist Church with a huge outreach to singles and people in the middle of divorce, is that many of the unchurched are more interested in accomplishing good in the community than the more traditional pattern of attending church and supporting other people (missionaries) who accomplish good. It seems that often walking the walk opens the door to Jesus coming into their life.