THE BIBLE

'In representing God's interest and action on behalf of humanity, the Bible describes and proclaims the story of God and its personal connection with the stories of the people of this world. The Bible makes for community by bringing pastoral attentiveness to bear on matters of family, home, society, and church. Far from dividing the world between winners and losers in a standardized market, the Bible offers limitless space for personal improvement and cultural variety. The Bible is not just about willfully putting a book between religion and us, but rather it is our assurance that we can know God as one who speaks and woos us personally, not as one who writes and threatens us anonymously.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.116.

LANGUAGE

'Traditionally the hallowed language of religion is designed to mystify, to intimidate, to incriminate, to overwhelm, and to induce a mood of guilt and moral peril. A recognized trait of religions is encouraging a superstitious tendency in their followers to like best what they understand least. That made sincerity in the religious life an elusive commodity.

In his plain use of religious discourse, however, Jesus departed radically from that tradition.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.100.

CHRISTIANITY

'...as one region of Christian impact declines, another region rises to take its place, like a relay race in which fresh energy is drawn from the reserve to sustain the momentum.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.83.

WESTERN CHRISTIANITY

'...the West should get over its Christendom guilt complex about Christianity as colonialism by accepting that Christianity has survived its European political habits and is thriving today in its post-Western phase among non-Western populations, sometimes because of, and often in spite of, Western missionaries. The religious strife and conflict that accompanied the political domestication of Christianity in Europe have not been repeated with the rise of world Christianity, and Europeans should therefore should be assured that strife and conflict, and their accompanying territorial upheaval, need not follow Christian expansion.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.74.

CONVERSION

'The individual act of conversion is not a rejection of community but the occasion for community.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p.45.

EUROPEAN CHRISTIANITY

'About the decline, the statistics are unequivocal. But beneath and beyond that has been a strategic retreat into isolation where the spirit seems to be wilting. It has taken the form of a mood swing in which people have been preoccupied with taking stock, with the setting sun and lengthening shadows, with memorial armbands, with shades of gray, with requiem. As Sir Edward Grey declared, brooding on the clouds of his time, the lamps have gone out all over Europe. The religious imagination seems to have been hit with a bout of melancholy as it labors with strains of "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide" and "The Day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended, / the darkness falls as Thy behest." It's the solemn vespers without the Gloria, and is a far cry from the confident, robust tones of "Onward, Christian soldiers," "The Son of God forth to war," or "Stand up, stand up for Jesus!" A dark, ominous drumbeat seems to rumble through the music of the filial hymn "God of our fathers, known of old ... lest we forget, lest we forget." It's as if Europeans have the Nunc Dimittis constantly on their lips, and so regret having to celebrate Christmas or Easter. Maybe too much history is a bad thing.'

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, p. 29.