Christianity Is Eastern
Christianity
is not Western. Christianity is (Middle) Eastern. We need to go back to the world
of first century church to sort out claims groups have made and creative interpretations they have come up with. Understanding the historical context is indispensable to interpreting Scripture.
Romanticizing things ancient and exotic without rigorously examining the evidence is a sure way to unreality. A spate of articles published in Western media since the early 1980s especially seem to share several things in common. First is an observable frustration with Christianity in general and politicized North American evangelicalism in particular. Secondly is the search for a ‘pure’ form of Christianity—a form that is untainted by Western colonialism and ‘missionary adventurism.’ Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity somehow fits the latter bill.
Romanticizing things ancient and exotic without rigorously examining the evidence is a sure way to unreality. A spate of articles published in Western media since the early 1980s especially seem to share several things in common. First is an observable frustration with Christianity in general and politicized North American evangelicalism in particular. Secondly is the search for a ‘pure’ form of Christianity—a form that is untainted by Western colonialism and ‘missionary adventurism.’ Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity somehow fits the latter bill.
Ethiopia
did repulse European colonialism. Her rock-hewn
churches and ancient manuscripts (Book of Enoch
and Book of Jubilees,
Illuminated
Gospel, etc) continue to be the researcher’s gold mine—at times no more
than for
supporting a line of scholarly argument.
Six hundred monasteries spread across the nation and ‘discovery’ of the 'lost'
Ark
of the Covenant have increased interest in church
forests, among others, and in mysteries waiting to be unraveled.
The
search for ‘lost’ something and the promise of fame and fortune is nothing new.
To mention but a few adventurers, see, James
Bruce; Rasselas
Prince of Abyssinia (Ethiopia); French poet and gun-runner Rimbaud;
Samuel
Coleridge’s Kubla Khan; and The
Sign and the Seal: The Quest for
the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
Perhaps
the worst offenders in all this are widespread biblical illiteracy and cultural Christianity; the latter, we
might add, is cliquish and qualitatively different from biblical Christianity!
In other words, scriptures are there to point us to Jesus; Jesus is the One who offers forgiveness
and a new way to be human: ‘You study the Bible (Jesus said)… because you suppose that you’ll
discover the life of God’s coming age in it. In fact, it’s the Bible which
gives evidence about me! But you won’t come to me so that you can have life (John
5: 39-40; 20:30-31, NTE).
To paraphrase Pliny the Elder (ad 23—79): “Ethiopia always brings [us] something
new.” The concern however for followers of Jesus is this: anything that distracts from God’s revelation in the Risen
Jesus the Messiah diminishes life.
We urge you to read articles by Dan Paterson and others with the above note in mind. Please check out the recommended titles following this article. Thanks. Ed.
Christianity
in Ethiopia
By
Dan Paterson | patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/02
When
the typical American thinks of Christianity, he or she usually visualizes a
religion of western Europe and the New World. If we consider the issue
for a moment, however, we must realize that Christianity is actually a Near
Eastern religion. Its spread into Europe and especially into the New
World came relatively late. Indeed, Christian missionaries were preaching
in Africa, India, and even China when the English were still mostly pagans.
Christianity
took root in Africa long before it dominated Europe. In apostolic times,
Philip converted an Ethiopian eunuch who was the treasurer of “Candace” (Acts
8:26-40). (“Candace” is not a name but a title given to the queens of the
African monarchy of Meroe, in Nubia, in the modern Sudan.) Presumably, he
returned thereafter to his assignment at court, perhaps founding a small
Christian community in the Sudan in the first century AD. African
tradition maintains that this eunuch–whom it knows as Qinaqis–preached in
Ethiopia as well. In the following centuries, Christian teachers and
merchants slowly entered Africa along the trade routes of the Nile valley, the
Red Sea, and north Africa, which became home to both Tertullian and Augustine,
two of the greatest early Latin Church Fathers.
In
the early fourth century, a Christian merchant named Frumentius was captured by
pirates in the Red Sea and sold into slavery to Ezana, the pagan king of
Ethiopia. As a slave at court, Frumentius demonstrated great skill,
eventually (like the biblical Joseph) becoming an important minister of the
king, who converted to Christianity around 347 AD. Frumentius was then
consecrated as the first bishop of Ethiopia. Thus, only a few decades
after the Roman emperor Constantine embraced Christianity, Ethiopia had become
a Christian kingdom. Although full conversion took centuries,
Christianity has remained fundamental to Ethiopian identity ever since.
But Ethiopian traditions link their
country to biblical history at an even earlier period. The Queen of Sheba
and King Solomon are said to have had a son, David Menelik. Upon the
apostasy of Israel after the death of Solomon, say the legends, Menelik was
commanded by an angel to take the Ark of the Covenant and a group of faithful
Israelite priests and flee to a new promised land, Ethiopia. Ethiopia
thus became the true Israel. Through David Menelik, medieval Christian
Ethiopian kings claimed descent from Solomon, preserving their Solomonic
dynasty until the twentieth century. The Ark of the Covenant, which David
Menelik brought to Ethiopia, is said still to exist in a church there, from
which it is carried in procession once a year, guarded by a beautiful canopy
from the gaze and touch of the profane.
Although
the links have sometimes been tenuous, Ethiopians have maintained ties with the
Coptic Church of Egypt for centuries. Nonetheless, Ethiopian Christianity
has remained independent in many ways. Like the Egyptian Copts,
Ethiopians accept a monophysite Christology that was condemned as heretical by
the forerunners of the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholics in the fifth
century. Ethiopian independence is most clearly manifest in their canon
of scripture. In addition to the traditional books of the Bible,
Ethiopian scripture includes the book of Enoch. Although fragments have
been found in Aramaic in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the book of Enoch has been
preserved in its entirety only in Ethiopic manuscripts.
Christian
influence in Ethiopia manifests itself at all levels of society. The
great churches at Lalibela, for example–dating to the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries–represent a unique form of Christian architecture–churches entirely
carved from rock. Christian themes infuse Ethiopian art in the fine metalwork
of religious implements as well as in painting and manuscript
illumination. Biblical figures are often depicted as Ethiopians, with
black African features and traditional garments, just as medieval and
Renaissance Europeans painted Christ and his apostles as northern Europeans
dressed in then-contemporary clothing.
Today
there are some thirty million* Ethiopian Christians throughout the world.
In Jerusalem, Ethiopian monks, priests and pilgrims are a common sight.
Tall and ruggedly handsome in their white pilgrim robes, they can be heard
singing psalms in Ethiopic and shouting “hallelujah” in a city where they have
maintained a small independent Christian community for over a millennium and a
half.
*
Ethiopian Orthodox 43.5%, Muslim 33.9%, Protestant 18.5%, traditional
2.7%, Catholic 0.7%, other 0.6% (2007
est.)
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