Dear Dr. Obadiah Mailafia,
Shalom and many thanks!
What a day this has been so far! First I was woken up my most Roman Catholic friend Robert Feely who left a message on my cell phone informing me that today is a feast commemorating Jesus being presented at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem by his mother Mary and her husband Joseph the carpenter. A few minutes later I was reading some sentences from "Some Kind Of Incumbency Factor, Nevertheless" that brought this picture to mind. After which I read your letter.
I'm flattered that I was not addressed as "Dear Cornelius Ignoramus" as that by itself alone would not remove the addressee far from human error or absolve me of any claim to omniscience or infallibility. I*m grateful for all the matters you have taken up beginning with the troublesome rather inclusive statistics that usually show up encompassing the whole continent from Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia to Cape Agulhas in South Africa. But, may I hasten to free myself from any blame with regard to your claim that I said or in any way implied that when you add the already suspect figures 53% Muslim to 38 % Christian the remainder 9% of the continent's population are "animist" – since I never said any such thing and I should hope that among that remainder could be counted a sizeable number who are adherents of Olodumare and perhaps a much tinier fraction who belong to the class of sceptics known as atheists and agnostics, infidels, disbelievers and unbelievers, not to mention that vast majority which from the Christian missionary point of view are heathen and from the point of view of Islamic mission are mushrikun / idolaters, idol worshippers and I guess that would include the witches, wizards and magicians of the African Continent and its Diaspora.
For me the lines of demarcation between faith and folly are drawn here:
Faith and Folly: The Occult in Torah Perspective by Rav Yaʻaḳov Mosheh Hillel
There might be a school of Pan-Africanist thought that wants to subtract or exclude North Africa - mainly the Arabs and the Berbers from the equation or the definition - but is that not a blatant illustration of barbaric racism and conscious apartheid tribal-ism? The proponent of the idea "Africa Must Unite" was himself married to an Egyptian, was he not? And if indeed the continent is one -as the late Muammar Gaddafi left it, then why should we divide it on the basis of ethnicity? Or any other differences/ diversities? The consolation is that contrary to what you say it is Islam and not Christianity that is the fastest growing religion in Africa and in the world) and indeed Islam is spreading southwards, faster than the Sahara Desert currently being blown by the Harmattan winds.
More important matters: For a surety the Ark of the Covenant is not in that rumoured location in Axum.
Secondly, re "a little Jewish sect" : it was an error of omission and I had meant to write "Christianity started off as a tiny Jewish sect - or as a heretical sect –but still well within the Jewish fold" ( Please take a look at Jesus from Judaism's point of view)
Thirdly, you must disabuse yourself of the idea and repent for attributing to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef the heinous idea that he "revealed that he had seen the Mashiach. He revealed Him to be Yeshua" (Jesus). He did no such thing! This is completely untrue and nothing less than a malicious and demonic fabrication aimed at sullying the good name of the Rabbi. What was sensational is that another rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri is purported to have left a hand written message which I have also read and which some people have interpreted to mean that Yahushua (Jesus) is the intended Messiah.
C.S. Lewis, yes he (according to his autobiography) wrestled with the idea unsuccessfully and came to the conclusion that Jesus is his Redeemer or as he put it, that "God is God". I read most, if not all of his religious stuff in 1985 – and his children stories, the Narnia stories in particular are the moral diet (distinguishing right from wrong) on which a lot of Swedish kids are brought up...
Ah yes, North Africa! I spent two months in Alexandria in Egypt in 1991 - visited Ahmad Badawi in Tanta (and spent two months in Cairo - almost wound up in Gaza -…. long story) indeed some people are not aware of Alexandria's place in the history of Christianity or indeed and for me too only during my visit to Turkey in April last year did I commune with St. John at his burial site in Ephesus – forgot to leave a stone/ pebble and also visited the Mother of Jesus' burial site just a few yards away from St. John's. Many extraordinary things happened that evening but since I also visited the nearby mosque where I did something ( made a small donation) I don't know what I should attribute the occurrences to, suffice it to say that whether we are impervious to and not impressed by miracles or not, I am systematically reading the so called New Testament
I am happy to the point of being thrilled that you have this conviction in common with Edward Wilmot Blyden when you say that "The Christians of Africa do not buy into the redneck fanaticism which sees Christianity as being in mortal, antinomian conflict with Islam. "
I am stunned that you say that you or indeed anyone else could say that they "have no evidence that he expressed a 'preference' for Islam over Christianity" - the evidence is overwhelming and explicitly so- and that is an aspect of Edward Wilmot Boyden that I know most vastly and most thoroughly and so should you if you are familiar with his collection of essays that were published in 1887 under the title "Christianity Islam and the Negro Race" – and it is universally known from his own incontrovertible words that Edward Wilmot Blyden preferred Islam to Christianity in Africa. unfortunately I cannot quote from it right now because at this very moment the book is not on my shelf or cellar - since I have lent it out and can't even remember who to ( lesson : don't ! Do not lend out books , records, CDs ) but please take my word for it - and to be as brief as possible let me quote from the middle of page 124 of the collation of his words, sermons, polemical articles, pamphlets and other books on the matter in Hollis R. Lynch : EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN, PAN-NEGRO PATRIOT 1832-1912 :
"In 1889, to years after the publication of his book Christianity Islam and the Negro Race, Blyden returned to the United States as a much more widely known and controversial literary figure than ever before. His white colonization friends were chagrined at his trenchant criticism and public rejection of sectarian Christianity, and his strong sympathy for Islam, but their attitude was for Blyden further proof that even the most well-meaning white men could never understand the viewpoint of a Negro patriot. It was widely but wrongly reported in the American press that Blyden had become a Muslim, and he did little to dispel that impression. Indeed, during this stay in the United States, he gave serval lectures on the Koran and Islam in West Africa." (Note 64 – refers to C Eric Lincoln's "The Black Muslims in America" (Boston 1961) and E. Essien Udom's "Black Nationalism: A Search for Identity in America" (New York, 1962)
This reply will be completed in my next posting in which I shall address the misgivings you expressed in your last paragraph - matters of great concern to us all - and in which I also intend to thoroughly convince you with the necessary evidence of Bylden's position on Islam vis-à-vis Christianity in our part of Africa.
Sincerely
Cornelius
On Sunday, 7 February 2016 11:45:24 UTC+1, Obadiah Mailafia wrote:
Dear Cornelius Magnus,
Greetings! Thanks for your commentary on Christianity, Islam and Christianity. When you say Africa's population is 53% Muslim and only 38% Christian, with the rest 'animist', I am compelled to ask, which Africa are we talking about? There is the fictitious, 'pan-African' Africa that includes the Mafghrib and Egypt. You and I know that this is not the 'real Africa'. I used to live in Carthage, Tunis. These people don't really regard themselves as Africans at all. They only do so when it is convenient and advantageous for that moment. They see themselves first and foremost as Arabs. How many Arab Africans, for example, are in this "African Dialogue Forum"?
So, when we lump everyone as being 'African', we aren't saying very much. In Egypt, of course, some 10 percent of the people are Christian; a people under savage persecution centuries – it's a miracle they have survived. I once invited to Tunis my 'father' and mentor, Rev. Dr. Johann Boer, a Dutch-Canadian missionary who served in Nigeria for 3 decades. I took them to the ruins of the ancient churches and monasteries of Carthage. He was moved to tears. People do not easily remember their history. The whole of North Africa was predominantly Christian. St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a village across the Algerian border. He came to study in the seminary in Carthage. Together with St. Ambrose and other Africans, they literally laid the foundation of the Latin Church. The old cathedral in Carthage, which has been turned into arts theatre by the Tunisian government, has produced no less than 3 black Popes.
No, we should never speak as if Christianity is alien to Africa. In fact, it is more indigenous to Africa than it is to the West. The Desert Fathers of Egypt were the first to institute the practice of monasticism. There are also the monopysite Ethiopian Copts, with their rich tradition of spirituality centred in the mysterious rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and the ancient Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, where it is believed the most sacred object in Jewish spirituality, the Ark of the Covenant, is kept.
Edward Wilmot Blyden was a remarkable man – regarded by most of us as "the father of pan-Africanism". He wrote about religion in the new Africa with great wisdom and sensitivity. But I have no evidence that he expressed a 'preference' for Islam over Christianity. He was a preacher and evangelist with a Doctor of Divinity degree. What he really said, to my understanding, is that we in Africa must evolve a modus vivendi between Mazrui's "trinity" of Christianity, Islam and Traditional Religion. I believe that Ethiopia and Eritrea (minus the dictatorship) offer a model of peaceful c0o-existence between Christianity and Islam. In Senegal, Mali and Cote d'Ivoire, Muslims and Christians live largely peacefully. They see themselves as Africans and they have no illusions regarding the bersekeries that Arabs have committed against the African people – and still do in Mauritania and Sudan.
Christianity a 'minor Jewish sect'? This must be the understatement of the millennium.
The claim of Jesus Christ is a serious, overwhelming claim that has been confronted by the greatest geniuses of all time. No book comes close to the Bible in its sheer record of publication. Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world. The Chinese are turning to Christianity in their millions. He claims to be Lord. Ironically, each time Christians are persecuted and killed in northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Egypt and elsewhere, more converts are won. People are beginning to ask, between the killers and those who preach love and peace, who are the genuine children of God?
The writer C. S. Lewis says that claim is totalitarian and does not give room for any equivocation. He must either be a lunatic, liar or Lord. What we think of Him makes all the difference to our spiritual destiny.
There is a new movement to bring together Jews and Christians in a new oecumene that will hasten the return of Yeshua ha Mashiach. It is a movement that reached its most dramatic moment when the most revered Rabbi in Israel, Rabbi. Avadiah Yosef, Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi in Yerushalaim, revealed that he had seen the Mashiach. He revealed Him to be Yeshua. World Jewry can never be the same again.
The Christians of Africa do not buy into the redneck fanaticism which sees Christianity as being in mortal, antinomian conflict with Islam. No. Muslims are also God's children. Anyone who hates Muslims or anyone else – including lesbians and homosexuals – does not know the Lord. Of course, we know that He hates sin and everything that grieves the Holy Spirit. But He loves the sinner and He weeps for the lost. He came mainly for them and it is for them that the whole universe groans for the revelations of the children of God, to echo St. Paul.
Christianity, far from being a 'minor Jewish sect', is the most audacious spiritual message in the entire history of Humanity. It is not a religion – forget this Europe and their cupidity in turning the Light into an ideology of power, domination and racial bigotry. There is only one question: What did you do with Jesus Christ? Did you walk in His spirit or did you crucify Him once again? Christ is being re-crucified today by Fulani marauders in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, by Boko Haram, by ISIS and the lot. But then, very soon – sooner or later -- everyone will have to face Him to answer that question.
Obadiah Mailafia
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 5:49 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:--The Africa of which she speaks so powerfully is the second largest and second most populous continent in the world.Today, 53% of Africa's population is Muslim whereas Christianity in Africa can boast of 38% of the continent's population. Of course, Islam is winning the battle for converts – and this, despite its ban on the consumption of al-cohol and perhaps because of some of the reasons outlined in Edward Wilmot Blyden's Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race – in which he expresses a personal preference for Islam basically his claim being that Islam is a little closer to the natural ( fitra) and naturally closer to African cultures and the so called African way of life, to begin with.
In context, this is from her (the speaker's) preamble, on her way to "there must be a cultural revolution" and the continent coming into "revolutionary consciousness":
"The other weapon that imperialism uses which is a challenge for Pan-African Renaissance is religion. Some of us, you know, with all our rhetoric – it's shocking, we are still deeply Christian, deeply Muslim, deeply this, deeply everything but African. …" (not clear… some laughter from the crowd) "And we can't understand as long as you continue to see and to understand God and the creator through the lenses of another race you will never know freedom in your life – never! Religion is a cultural understanding of the spiritual…."etc etc. etc.
It's not as if Christianity (a little Jewish sect) was ever imposed wholesale wherever it travelled from Jerusalem – to Rome, Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt and the rest of North Africa (before the advent of al-Islam) and what's now known as the West, its wholesale conquest of Europe, North and South America etc.….
There is this something known as contextualisation . Nowadays, the mass is celebrated in the Igbo Language because Christianity has adapted/ been adapted to its various localities in Africa South of the Sahara, although I do not know the extent to which it has been adapted in e.g. Nigeria to accommodate the exigencies of local traditional cultures (such as polygamy) that flourished before the advent of Christian mission – Christian missionary zeal attempting real-time fulfilment of the great command
This little practical item that occurs in this Sabbath's Torah portion has been acted upon in Nigeria for example with tremendous zeal, but perhaps not as Torah induced zeal?
Shemot 22: 17 in my Torah: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live"
It's Exodus 22.18 in the Christian Bible
The stone Chumash not reads: "17. A Sorceress. The court-inflicted death penalty applies equally to male and female sorcerers, but the verse uses the feminine because this activity was more common among women ( Rashi)…. By definition, sorcery is an attempt to assume control of nature through the powers of impurity and thus to deny God's mastery. "You shall not permit to live." This is a stronger expression than simply stating that she incurs the death penalty. Those who engage in sorcery are extremely dangerous to others, because of the corrosive and enticing nature of such an activity. Regarding such great dangers, the Torah exhorts the nation to root them out zealously. (Ramban) "
In Africa people identified as "witches" are being rooted out by the death penalty / summary executions without trial ( as was the historic case of Christianity's extermination of alleged witches in Europe from the Middle of the fifteenth century
On the whole, m
issionaries have tended to regard indigenous African religions as witchcraft…
What I don't know and have never investigated is whether or not the death penalty for people who are alleged to be witches in Nigeria is a pre Christian and pre-Islamic cultural tradition – and arising from that , with or without a "cultural renaissance" or revolutionary consciousness " what is to be done ? Is it high time that that these executions were brought to an end?
Only asking this one of a dozen questions,
Cornelius
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