Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts
by Gailyn
Van Rheenen
(A Book Review by Robert L. Waggoner)
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" Ephesians 6:12.
Since the way people think determines the way they behave, then missionaries and others need to learn what people think in order to know why they behave as they do. Only when Christians understand the thinking and behavior of non-Christians will they be able to change their thinking and behavior to that of Christian thinking and behavior.
Gailyn Van Rheenen, who was a missionary for fifteen years in the African country of Kenya, knows what it means to live among people who think differently. The reading of his book will not only help Christians understand the behavior of those who live by an animistic worldview, but also will inform Christians how Christian thinking overcomes animistic thinking. While this is especially true for missionaries and others who travel across cultural boundaries, it is also important for Christians generally because the spirit world of animism was a part of biblical environment and is prevalent even in America today.
While the thinking of Americans is generally based upon contrasting worldviews of theism and humanism, the thinking of at least forty percent of the world's population, including many Americans, is generally animistic. Dr. Van Rheenen defines animism as "the belief that personal spiritual beings and impersonal spiritual forces have power over human affairs and, consequently, that human beings must discover what beings and forces are influencing them in order to determine future action and, frequently, to manipulate their power" (p. 20).
The practice of animism may be illustrated by a couple of incidents from my own missionary experience. Recently, while with a mission team at St. Cuthbert's Mission in Guyana, a baby was born. Following the birth, the family used a pencil to put a "bull's-eye" dot in the center of the baby's forehead, just above the eyebrows. When asked why they did that, they declared that it was to keep the evil spirits away.
The other incident happened about twenty-five years ago when I was in a Bassa tribal village in Liberia, West Africa. My interpreter told me that when a new child was born, the villagers would bring the oldest and ugliest woman they could find to the hut of the newborn to curse it. When I asked why, he informed me that they believed that if the living demonstrated a desire to do harm to a child, then the child's ancestors would come to its defense and bless the child.
Now you may be asking, "How, apart from a missions context, is an understanding of animism relevant to American Christians, since American Christians generally have a secular rather than an animistic cultural backdrop?" The fact is that because Americans live in a humanistic culture of secularism and scientism, the thinking of American Christians may swing to the opposite extreme of animism and altogether discount the present existence of evil spirits. Dr. Van Rheenen notes that Western theologians have reflected a secular spirit toward the subject of spiritual powers in biblical writings. The Bible not only recognizes the existence of demons and their evil powers, it also declares that Christ, by his resurrection from the dead, has overcome Satan and his demons (Colossians 2:15; I John 3:8; Revelation 12:10).
Published by William Carey Library in 1991, Dr. Van Rheenen's book is a popular presentation of his doctoral study in missions. Its ten chapters are divided into three parts - Understanding Animism, Thinking Theologically in Animistic Contexts, and Analyzing Animistic Practices and Powers. A conclusion presents "Sin and Salvation in Christianity and Animism."
Probably most interesting to American Christians will be chapters five and six. Chapter five notes biblical references to animistic ideology and contrasts the worldviews of Christianity and animism. Chapter six is about kingdom theology: introducing animists to Christian theology. This is a valuable reference book, not only because of its treatment of Christianity in opposition to animism and of its rejection of secularism in understanding theism's conflict with evil spiritual powers, but also because it is well indexed by subjects, names, and scriptures.