Author: Ned Martel
Publication: The New York Times
Date: December 2, 2003
URL: http://www.wwrn.org/parse.php?idd=8898&c=61
Add Africa to the list of dangerous
arenas where Christianity and Islam are clashing. Anyone charting global
hot spots may know as much, but viewers of "Battle for Souls," on the Discovery
Times Channel tonight, can get a lesson in compounded pain. The continent
is already gasping through pandemics of poverty and AIDS, so bloodshed
among true believers seems to inflict new lacerations on broken limbs.
"Battle for Souls" leads viewers
into the riotous troubles with a focus on unrest in Nigeria. Christians
dominate that nation's southern region; Muslims have large communities
in the north. In the overlapping central strip, missionaries and evangelical
Christians can count conversion successes, aided by Western methods of
population mapping and televised Gospel messages.
Some Muslims in the area have shored
up their resolve with stricter adherence to the Koran. Interpretations
include sentences like death by stoning for adulterers and amputations
for thieves.
Intensity on each side has led to
unrest in the streets, including church burnings. Victimization and retaliation
have begun a violent interplay, and the program shows how blame can be
assigned to aggressors in both faiths. The Muslim and the Christian avenues
to salvation might be seen as peacefully parallel in some parts of the
Northern Hemisphere, but the African paths have dangerous bends. "Islam
and Christianity do seem set on a collision course," says Philip Jenkins,
a Penn State professor of history and religion.
Many rural communities are in need
of much healing, and religion provides aid, both spiritual and practical.
"In Africa you virtually have to depend on divine intervention to have
things working for you," explains Timothy Ulondade, a missionary in Nigeria.
He mentions prayers that spigots will yield water and phones will have
dial tones.
The program follows a pair of American
missionaries who have brought both Christian messages and indoor plumbing
to a poor Muslim community called Blindtown. The missionaries, Bill and
Dorothy Ardill, a married couple, pay respects to an emir who tolerates
their proselytizing. Presumably, his constituency is better off with Christian-financed
services, even if the exposure to these Westerners leads a few Muslims
to convert.
For more than a decade the Ardills
have run a surgical clinic and an after- school center, while raising children
of their own. Dorothy Ardill covers her head in a Muslim area, so as not
to cause a riot, she says, and she touts her openness while Gospel-spreading
as a form of respect. "We are not stealth," she says.
Another Christian missionary talks
for broadcast only with his face obscured by dim lighting and video digitizing.
"John," as he calls himself, will soon take his wife and two children into
a country where his proselytizing is illegal. Still, he says he feels protected,
if not from prosecution, then certainly from damnation.
"The safest place for us to be is
in the center of God's will," he says. He adds his view of Islam, which
he hopes to supplant, convert by convert: "I simply don't believe that"
Christianity and Islam "are coeqeuals," he says. "I believe that one is
the truth and the other is not."
Larger strides in spreading Christianity
are accomplished not by Westerners but by Nigerians like Bishop David Oyedepo.
His Canaanland megachurch can hold 50,000 worshippers in a jubilant session,
sent out over the airwaves. The complex, with buses and broadcast equipment,
is financed "not one dime from America, not one penny from Europe," Bishop
Oyedepo says.
The Muslims must feel somewhat threatened
from all the growth of a rival faith, but the program is less comprehensive
in showing them on camera. Some militants may be responsible for a spate
of church burnings, and the program does not get deeply into which faction
first got violent. Aggression can come in many forms, the program deftly
shows, and perhaps Christian missionary zeal intrudes dangerously in a
Muslim's most guarded sense of self.
"Battle for Souls" looks carefully
at an untenable problem and leaves a viewer anxious about the prospect
of more Muslim-Christian outbursts. The producers follow big ideas about
theology and poverty wherever they lead, and the concluding segment tracks
an ambitious Nigerian Pentecostal pastor who plans churches in each of
Brooklyn's ZIP codes. Such meandering undoes the narrative, but teaser-heavy,
"Dateline"-style storytelling would surely oversimplify a delicate discussion.
BATTLE FOR SOULS
Discovery Times Channel, tonight
at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time
