Finding Jesus in Congo

I thought I had one more brief Kinshasa post to write, about religion. But my dreams tell me that what I have to say about that may take more than 500–600 words and be more personal than I thought, so we’ll see. Warning: this post may be extra long.

I wake with dreams about various church groups meeting in the same space and about moving from one to the other with some regret and difficulty because it involves breaking ties. My husband moves ahead of me by joining a “rival” choir belonging to another church group. A wedding is involved.

As far as I can tell, most of my recent dreams have been set in Africa although that is all I can remember of them. This one was not, but it had an African feel to it, lively groups crowded together in small, hot spaces. I don’t know exactly what the dream means but it triggered these thoughts.

Yesterday, missing our conversations, my traveling companion Nina and I met at a halfway point between our homes (wish you’d been there, June). Among other things we talked about being reconverted to simple Christianity, about passing through the deconstructing, postmodernist rejection of the original faith we were taught (a stage where many of our friends and fellow church members find themselves) and finding the living Jesus. We talked about how, in my case at least, the Congo experience was contributing to that.

For years I have been finding and experiencing my own spirituality, but it has not been all that closely tied to Christianity. Only in the last months—a year perhaps—have I been thinking of myself (once again? for the first time?) as a Christian, not just one who is part of the Christian tradition. If anything, I have considered myself more Mennonite—with all its cultural implications and baggage—than Christian. Christianity seemed limiting. OK, so maybe I was a Holy Spirit Christian, not so much a Jesus Christian.

For most of my adult life I had been putting Christianity on hold, not rejecting it but not fully embracing it, either. It was the background, the setting, the impetus for what I felt was my real spiritual experience, which began evolving in my early 30s, triggered not by church but by yoga. I treasure every bit of my own unique experience of the Divine, which has many connecting points with Christianity but not always with the Christian community. Does this make sense? Probably not. It’s hard to explain. I’m not sure I understand it myself. In short, my spirituality has been anything but simple.

There is something, however, about the combination of worshiping at a somewhat traditional Mennonite church, witnessing conversions and baptisms of people close to me, and the Congo stories and experience that is drawing me back? across? into a less encumbered, less skeptical, less complicated faith.

I come back from Kinshasa with a deeper respect for old-fashioned religion, hallelujah Jesus-love, simple faith. I was getting that already by working with the story project (The Jesus Tribe: Grace Stories from Congo’s Mennonites, 1912–2012, to be published later this summer). I have to say the stories influenced me, even though I don’t take all of them at face value. I think there are some self-serving aspects to many of the testimonies but even those do not ring false. People met Jesus. They were saved. They were changed. God makes things possible that humans cannot achieve. Yes, the Congolese church has many problems, what church doesn’t, but something real shines through in the stories, something real happened despite all the mistakes the missionaries must have made and despite the corrupting influences in a society where the church can serve as a fragile ladder to survival, education, and even power.

I am still suspicious of religiosity. I can’t even write simply about simple faith and yet I was moved by it. I was moved by the Congolese Mennonite Christians’ practice of praying aloud at every gathering and before every meal, even in restaurants, once I got beyond the uncomfortable reminders of my own childhood (we kids eventually persuaded our parents to stop praying in public places). Perhaps there is no such thing as silent prayer for Congolese Christians because even when people were asked to pray their own prayers they did so in a full-voice chorus that rose like a Pentecostal cloud to heaven.

I saw how unembarrassed Congolese people are in general about declaring their allegiance to Jesus. The signs are literally everywhere. You can’t look to the right or the left without seeing a shop or taxibus with some sort of Christian-reference name. “Christian Coiffure.” “Christ the King Pharmacy.” “Rehoboth Express.” “House of Faith Mini-Supermarket.” A van emblazoned with the slogan, “Everything is under the authority of God.” You can dismiss this as superstition or take the forthright declarations at face value. Who are we to judge?

I was moved by the church services, the gospel-jazzy harmony singing and freedom to dance. It’s not so different from African-American church in that regard. But I felt freer to respond to it there than here. I never even go to black church services here. It’s as if my own culture and my own country are too complicated for me to handle. I have the sense, delusional no doubt, that I can relate more simply, at an open human level, to people who live in a place that is totally foreign. I lose my self-consciousness.

Above all, a real faith kinship shone through the conversations we had with many individual Congolese Mennonite Christians. Congo was a revelation of the truly global nature of the Jesus Tribe—where any two or three of its members are gathered together. I was able to participate in church and the Christian community there without any trace of discomfort or condescension. It offered me something I needed—joyful fellowship, music, dance, forthright prayer. I’m still thinking about what all of this means.