The New Mission Movement. . .

From churches to mission societies there was a profound movement to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the continent of Africa in the last three centuries or so.  It was greatly successful having planted a vibrant Christian mission that became solid indigenous communities of faith.  It was so successful that Africa has now become the largest concentration of practicing Christians.  Lutherans are looking less like their Northern European ancestors and more and more like the churches where the Gospel was planted.  It is not true for Lutherans only.  Roman Catholics, Methodists, and a host of other groups have witnessed the great shift from America and Europe to Africa as the place where conversions continue to grow and church numbers explode.  Now it appears that Americans and Europeans are not quite finished in their mission work but it has little to do with Scripture or the faith and everything to do with the values of modernity.

Unfortunately, what is now being exported is an attempt to undo what African Christians have learned only too well -- the Biblical doctrinal and moral truths that the present age have diverged from in pursuit of  sexual liberation and a gender fluidity.  While you might think that this is only what the most liberal of Western churches are doing, it should not surprise us that even elements within a more conservative tradition are heading down this path.  From Kenya to Cameroon, Ghana to Tanzania, Western aid workers, government officials, tourists, and progressive denominations are advancing understandings of sexuality and the human person that are in conflict with the orthodox and catholic faith and incompatible with African cultural values.  But, hey, what is there to stop them?  The tools of this evangelization of a corrupt and unBiblical sexual ethic and gender identity are money as well as words.  Follow the money trail and you will see how the liberal and progressive Christians are using their bank accounts in an attempt to lure African Christians into following their lead.

From the lure of tourist dollars to the mountain of money that comes from NGOs and governmental agencies, Africa is being pressured into accepting and adopting what has become normal in the West.  Where this is focused is often upon the youth -- minds ripe for the seeds of an evil missionary impetus designed to change the future if they cannot change the present.  What has happened in Europe and in America only proves that it only takes a generation to effect a sea change in sexual morality.  The Methodists in America got tired of their African counterparts interfering and slowing down the move of their progressive sexual ethic and so they enacted a great divorce globally as well as locally.  Others work through ecumenical endeavors such as the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation to put strings on the flow of money into African churches.  Still others, provide for the distribution of things to promote what is largely still illegal or immoral in Africa -- such as sexual lubricants designed in particular for homosexual behavior.  Perhaps the worst offender, however, is technology.  The internet has become the primary tool by which the West hopes to normalize in Africa what is abnormal there but all the rage in the West -- internet porn is a vehicle of the change of values!  I could say more but I think you get the picture.

For Africa to resist, it will not simply require their own personal fortitude but the help and cooperation of those in the West who have now bowed down to the gods of pleasure without cost or moral judgment.  This is a time for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and for faithful folk in other churches to extend their support so that Africa does not fall.  We ought to be both grateful for and inspired by the resistance currently shown against this onslaught of change by the Western missionaries for evil.  But we dare not leave these courageous brothers and sisters in Christ alone in their witness.