June 16, 2004

"Another mosque?!" I remarked again with chagrin. Tim and I were traveling through Malawi and Tanzania en route to Sudan a few months ago, and it seemed like every little town on the highway had a mosque. White stucco walls, little crescent moon motifs stenciled along the top of the wall, and minaret steeples painted green- the buildings were aesthetically pleasing, but spiritually disconcerting. Malawi and Tanzania are far south of the Muslim heartland, the Middle East, so I was grieved to see so much Muslim activity so far afield.

According to Operation World, 21st Century Edition, 32% of Tanzania and 13% of Malawi are Muslim. The historical charts (in Op. World) for both countries show that the traditional tribal religions which dominated a century ago have largely been replaced by Christianity and Islam, Christianity having made the larger gains. That’s good news, but it would be foolish complacency to rest confident that last century’s success will continue by default.

On our trip through the region earlier this year, I had an interesting conversation on global politics with a Malawian pastor named Nedson. He warned us that within ten years much of Africa may become dominated by Muslims who will close the door to Western missionaries. The extreme hostility of both government and populace which Christians face in many Middle-eastern countries gives credence to this prediction.

Pastor Nedson said that in Malawi Muslims are gaining control in government, education and especially commerce. I am told that being a merchant is a strong vein in Muslim culture. In Zambia last year I did notice that a lot of retail shops were owned by Muslims, quite disproportionate to their 1.4% share of that population. In Malawi, Nedson fears the day may soon come when his ministry will not be able to rent office space in Blantyre because practically all the commercial real estate will be owned by Muslims. As the Muslim presence in commerce increases, many nominal Christians will probably defect to Islam to curry favour with their Muslim employers.

He claims that foreign Muslims invest their money in helping local Muslims establish business enterprises. In the end, the local people have something tangible and permanent to show for it- property. Western missionaries, by contrast, spend a lot of money on equipping themselves (vehicles, houses, computers, etc), and when they leave they liquidate the assets and return the residual funds to their mission board. The Muslim approach wins more affection, and is gaining them financial leverage in society.

According to Pastor Nedson, the Muslims are successfully persuading many people that the Western churches and governments come to Africa to enrich themselves at the expense of the black people, while the Muslims have the best interest of the blacks in mind. Sadly, some who pretend to be ministers of Christ provide good grist for their mill. Pastor Nedson claimed that one famous televangelist terminated negotiations on visiting Malawi because the hosting churches could not meet his demands: $10,000 expense account, 1st class airfare for his entourage, the best hotel rooms and the best motorcade. This he demanded from churches in a country where the average annual income is $210 (usd). I have seen a few of his American broadcasts, and was convinced he is a charlatan, so I found this account credible.

"You know," the Pastor said, "that America is the most hated [nation] in the world?" That is not his view of America, but rather his warning to us about the mood on the African street. I have traveled in eight different African countries now, and everywhere the Africans have been only friendly, never hostile (and I am not wearing a Canadian flag, so I get mistaken for an American often). Today, Africa is a very welcoming place for Westerners to do missionary and humanitarian work, but that would be a poor reason to disregard this pastor's warning about what is brewing for the future. On a similar note, in April, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told French newspaper Le Monde that Americans had never before been so hated in the Arab world as they are now.

As a reason why Africans are increasingly looking to the Muslims for leadership rather than Westerners, he cited resentment that the West causes most of Africa’s wars. Westerners are the power brokers who support one African leader against another, and all the weapons are supplied by the West, he said. I objected that the vast majority of the weaponry in the third world’s conflicts is from the east European Communists, and the Chinese, who often clone Soviet weapons. Leaving aside the Chinese contribution, he said that Russians and Americans are all Westerners, there is no difference. That was a novel view to me. I grew up in a world divided between the NATO alliance of the Western capitalists and the Warsaw Pact of the Eastern communists. We always thought of the Soviets as a polar-opposite ideological rival. Now I was being told that to Africans, the Soviets are just the eastern wing of the Western, European world. I am not a scholar of African political history, but I believe it is true that the outcome of many African power struggles in the post-colonial era has been determined by assistance (money/armaments) for certain factions from NATO, Soviet or Chinese governments. In the cold war, the choice for African leaders was whether to seek American or Russian support. Today, according to Pastor Nedson, everything from Alaska to Siberia (going eastward, not just hopping the Bering Strait westward) is one group choice, the West, and the Islamic world is an increasingly attractive rival choice for Africa’s confidence.

I look at all this on two levels. As a Canadian citizen, I see the spread of Islamic society as a threat to Western peace and security. But being a Canadian is secondary. I am first and foremost a Christian, and my citizenship is in Heaven with Christ Jesus, and it is the advancement of His kingdom which is my chief concern here on earth. The threat of Islam is not ultimately critical for those whose lives have been made right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. To Muslims, however, Islam is a deadly problem. Their false religion keeps them from finding peace with God in Christ, and thereby keeps them in the path of sin and death, ultimate eternal death. If Christians do not work to spread the light of Jesus Christ, the darkness of Islam will envelope the people instead. Not just for the sake of our safety, but for the sake of their souls, we need to counteract Islam with the Gospel.

"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." Philippians 2:10

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12

In Christ,
Lawren M. Guldemond
Frontline Fellowship

"As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth living; but O, how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!" -David Brainerd