Lessons from Ethiopia

I got a taste of Ethiopian orthodoxy, one of the most ancient Christian traditions, and I want to learn more.

Greetings from my beloved Kenya! I made it here fine, drove up to my “hometown” of Nyeri and am enjoying a day of rest and reflection (as well as a normal bed and a shower) before starting my Mt. Kenya climb tomorrow. Here’s my spectacular view as I write this:

There’s just not a more beautiful country, and I will not engage in any discussion of this point.

OK, now back to Ethiopia for the rest of today’s post.

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I am surrounded on all sides by worshippers draped in gauzy white, listening, chanting, praying. It is the Festival of St. George at the Church of St. George in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Worshippers at one of the churches at Lalibela, a sacred site in northern Ethiopia, that dates to the 12th century and is carved into the rock. I did not go here, maybe someday.

I had asked my new Ethiopian friend to arrange for me a Saturday tour of various orthodox churches in the city, but he insisted I go on a Sunday, to join the experience of a service.

"Are you sure I won't be disruptive?" I inquired, remembering attending church in Kenya as a child and the discomfort of becoming the center of attention just by my mere presence. I hated that feeling of scrutiny, of difference, of unearned privilege and isolating social power.

"No, no, no!" he insisted. "You will be welcome. You are welcome."

I was still hesitant. I peered out the car window nervously on the way, observing throngs of the devoted throughout the city, on their way to church.

When we arrived, my guide and I plunged into the tide, joining the flow of people who tried to get as close as they could to the church, but mostly standing still, listening to the lead of the priest--speaking in the ancient language of Ge'ez, no longer used outside of Ethiopian orthodoxy-- on loudspeakers placed all around.

Honestly, if there were any cause for alarm, any sign of danger, this could have easily become a stampede. As it is, it feels like the beautiful cloud of witnesses described by the Apostle Paul in talking about heaven.

No one pays me much mind, for which I am grateful. I am covered head to toe, with my own gauzy white shawl over my hair. From the back, I might blend in, unless one catches a glimpse of my pale hands. But more importantly, no one is here for even the possibility of of me.

They are here for St. George, a 3rd century Roman solider-turned-Christian martyr, who became Ethiopia's patron saint for reasons I never really found out. I will return to the church a few days later for a tour and ask the guide, Why St. George?

In and around St. George Church. It was built after the Ethiopian victory over Italian invaders at Adua in 1896. This is also where Emperor Selassie was coronated in 1930.

He looks at me like I am an idiot. "St. George was a martyr," he says simply, with a hint of exasperation. I decide not to press further, to refrain from bringing up the many other Christian martyrs Ethiopian Christians might have found equally inspiring.

But what do I know. I was raised in a comparatively toddler-aged Christian tradition. And like a toddler, American evangelicals think they are the center of the universe, the apple of Christ's eye. Ethiopian Christianity predates it by some 1,700 years. If they say St. George is the It Saint, well, I'm better off arguing with my teen daughter about the cultural relevance of Taylor Swift.

As foreign as this service feels--bizarre even--this is my heritage, too. I am a Christian, and this is in fact one of the oldest expressions of my very own faith. On my tour a few days hence, the guide--a deacon in the church, who has passed various scholarly, moral, and community-based tests to reach that esteemed position--will show me paintings of Christ on the cross. He will tell me that Jesus gave himself for my sins and conquered death with his resurrection. It's the same message I've been hearing for my whole life. It's only the packaging that's different.

As I stand in the crowd, I reflect on the long journey Christianity has made over time, space, and culture, the myriad of expressions and traditions and adaptations, some beautiful and beneficial, others destructive and ugly. I stand out in this crowd, but in the big picture, I fit right in.

I make a choice to put my fears, discomfort, and awkwardness in my back pocket. I decide to belong.

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A few days earlier, I had dinner with Zeb, a former classmate of mine from Kenya. He's Ethiopian by birth but had an international upbringing and education, including college in America. He returned to Ethiopia over twenty years ago and started an evangelical church.

I had assumed Ethiopian evangelicalism, which is mostly in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition, stemmed from and was influenced by American evangelicalism, as is most forms of African evangelical Christianity.

But he dispels me of this notion. As Ethiopians will proudly tell you, they are the only African nation never to be colonized. Ethiopian orthodoxy is entirely indigenous. And Zeb argues persuasively that Ethiopian evangelicalism is, too.

His dad was on the forefront of the movement here, beginning in the 1960's, after Emperor Haile Selassie had the Bible translated from Ge'ez into Amharic, allowing believers to read it for themselves for the first time. Many of them, including Zeb's father, had a spiritual experience while encountering scripture this way. And when they didn't find the answers to their questions from their priests, they went their own way.

Now evangelicalism is becoming almost as widespread and popular as orthodoxy. Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Ahmed Abiy, is himself a devoted follower. And unfortunately, the Christian divide is overlaying with other political and ethnic ones that are tearing Ethiopia apart. Christians of various sorts are making religious claims to earthly power. With my American ears, it sounds all too familiar.

Zeb is trying to bridge the divide. He's working on a doctoral study on reconciling African traditions to more modern forms of Christianity. As a pastor, he's trying to connect his congregation to orthodox traditions and to incorporate more of them into their practice.

I asked him what the theological link is between the two.

"There's a sense of mystery," he says. Yes, there is doctrine, but it's held more loosely in both forms of Ethiopian Christianity compared to the American sort. People's experience with faith is just as important. "It's less theology and more parable," he says.

He's part of a wave of African Christians who are trying to recover what has been lost from the onslaught of Western Christianity. I have previously discussed this with Malawian missiologist and professor Harvey Kwiyani, asking him, sincerely, what African theology even is, as American evangelicalism has so infused it. Zeb thinks Ethiopians Christians, more independent from and less influenced by the West, can offer a model.

But, he concedes, faith is always steeped in culture, it's always "contextualized," in academic parlance. That there is an American style of Christianity is not the problem. It's not even a problem, per se, that it has spread. The problem is it is blind to its own acculturation. It thinks it IS Christianity, rather than a cultural expression of it. It is theologically certain and rigidly doctrinaire, And fueled by the United States' overwhelming economic and geopolitical might, it has undeserved authority and privilege in the cultural exchange. Its influence is based on worldly, rather than gospel, power.

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Who knows what the "right" version of Christianity is. I don't think there is such a thing, actually. True faith of any kind is based on true love, worked out with humility, in community, through history and human progress. There is better and worse, more edifying and more damaging, expressions. Different traditions have always had both wrapped up together. Different traditions--and I believe different religions altogether--own tiny fragments of the mosaic of truth.

I believe faith is only true in so far as it connects us to each other and to things larger than ourselves. To the energy and force that is love, which pulls us away from our base, human instinct for self-preservation. When religion becomes tied to the defeating, selfish, fearful, divisive boulder that is tribalism, it sinks us to the bottom of the sea. It has lost the plot. It is utter, toxic garbage that pollutes the world and must be discarded.

People of faith--or none at all--must always ask themselves--Does our belief system open doors, heal divides, and bring us into closer relationship with other people of all kinds, especially those outside our religious tradition? Or does it prioritize certainty and rightness over connection and love? Does it start conversations or does it end them? Does it invite others into the eternal dialogue that humans have always had, about why we are here and how we can learn and grow as individuals, as communities, as links in the long human chain.

The power of love as expressed through human connection comes from humility, curiosity, comfort with our own vulnerability. When you're standing in a crowd of strangers who seem completely different from you, you can be afraid, you can be paralyzed by misunderstanding, you can insist that you're right, you can choose alienation.

Or you can make peace with yourself, find solace in mystery, get comfortable in your own skin, and choose to join in.

A few of the other churches I visited in Addis, including the gorgeous World War II-era Selassie Church.