But there are millions of Africans who are Christians. Ethiopia has been Christian for nearly 2000 years, longer than most of Europe. And we see little cultural advancement. Central America has been Christian for 500 years.
True
Actually Africa declined culturally a great deal when colonialism ended. They simply were not equipped to govern themselves. The improvements there in the last 25 years, however, has been remarkable. There are still too many states run by madmen but (despite ebola and everything else) stability is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Just as one example:
At the end of the cold war only three African countries (out of 53 at the time) had democracies; since then the number has risen to 25, of varying shades, and many more countries hold imperfect but worthwhile elections (22 in 2012 alone).One more item:
in 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity; now there are 390 million, and it is expected by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa. The number of Catholics in Africa has increased from one million in 1902 to 329,882,000. There are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people.
My church is active in several urban ministries, and I myself regularly work in two of these: a free clinic and a prison youth ministry.
What I see is this. The blacks who regularly attend my church are doing quite well. They tend to marry one person for life, and expect the same of their children. Most of those children rise to their parents’ expectations.
However, the blacks that I see in prison and in the free clinic have one thing in common. They do not marry. It’s not only that they have children out of wedlock, but it’s that they don’t even seem to aspire to marriage.
One thing Christianity does to change the culture is to create the expectation of lifelong marriage, which results in children who benefit from committed two parent families.
Obviously, the main thing Christianity offers is salvation through Christ’s grace, which not only ensures an eternal citizenship in heaven, but also the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work here on earth.