Faith and Dogma in a Cultural “Third World”

By Sybille Ngo Nyeck

[Updated April 7, 2004]

“We believe homosexuality and the blessing of same-sex relationships are contrary to Holy Scripture, and to moral law in the Third World . . . The Anglican Province of the Congo condemns every immoral act which promotes active homosexuality as a cultural norm . The Gospel purifies all cultures and must be in agreement with Holy Scripture. . . The Anglican Province of the Congo calls upon all Christians of good will . . . [to understand that] homosexuality is ravaging the western world and to pray for their return to God in true repentance." (The Most Rev. Fidele Balufuga Dirokpa, Anglican Archbishop of the Congo)

Recent developments within the Anglican Communion in response to the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop have shown a growing split between church conservatives and liberals. This episcopal consecration in the U.S. Episcopal Church has not only intensified these existing divisions; it has also given birth to new alliances within the church and with the ecumenical and interfaith community.

The Roman Catholic Church, which has not yet come to terms with its scandals of protecting pedophile priests, has threatened to break off dialogue with the Episcopal Church (ECUSA). [The Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission did meet, however, from Jan. 28 - Feb. 3, 2004, to discuss the doctrine of the assumption of Mary, an issue that has divided those churches for years.] The Russian Orthodox Church has now broken ties with ECUSA, including joint humanitarian actions. Ecumenical relationships now seem to rest not on faith itself, but on alliances partly based on subscriptions to a dogmatic and cultural “norm.”

To justify his positions, Archbishop Dirokpa denounced the acceptance of homosexuality as a “cultural norm” at the cost of holy doctrine. According to Dirokpa, “The gospel purifies all cultures.” Nevertheless, a culture cannot be in principle “impure” because it is the seal of the experiences of life in its communities. It is the tendency to disown the culture that makes it a perversion.

The standardization of “Holy Scripture” for cultural purification is a dangerous enterprise. It zealously promotes ignorance and disregards what basically constitutes the soul of a nation. The assumption of a “cultural norm” is a denial of the culture itself.

The standardization of “Holy Scripture” for cultural purification is a dangerous enterprise. It zealously promotes ignorance and disregards what basically constitutes the soul of a nation. The assumption of a “cultural norm” is a denial of the culture itself.

The gospel (the Good News) valorizes cultures by infusing into people's hearts what the “standardization of the culture” steals from them: a critical conscience. It is a result of the “bad news” that dogmas wage a war against freedom by promoting an ideology of self-hatred.

What can we learn from the fact that “as early as the 16 th century, there were reports of cross-dressing priests in the kingdom of Congo” (in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC] and Angola)? In 1732, French missionary Jean Baptiste Labat described the role of the Ganga-Ya-Chibanda as a male priest who wore women's clothing, was in charge of sacrifices, and was known as “grandmother.” What should we do with that information and the 1930 report that identified the “Kundó women in what is now DRC . . . as yaikyá bonsango (source: Marc Gevisser & Deborah Amory, Encarta),” the equivalent term to the word “lesbian”? If homosexuality is contrary to ethical law in the “Third World,” as suggested by Archbishop Dirokpa, that may be partly due to societies that have been “purified” by the “scripture” that has been used against indigenous cultures.

At any rate, the cultural and the historical reality in many African countries contradicts the thesis of the existence of a sexual “norm” in either indigenous societies or the so-called economic “Third World.” The attempt to create a “moral law in the Third World,” an obscure definition, can only be done by the sacrifice of indigenous identities. They have been preemptively declared “impure” because they are situated out of the field of written scholarship – since indigenous communities rely on oral tradition. On the subject of homosexuality, a forgetful collective memory considers this dogma to be a classical truth.

The irony is that the call for some people to repent (i.e., gays and lesbians) is rarely echoed within the church's own chapel. So what is this hypothesis of a “'moralistic' Third World” all about?

In 1994, the National Catholic Reporter published the results of a survey done by Sister Maura O'Donohue on the sexual abuse of nuns by Roman Catholic priests, as considered in several “Third World” countries and the United States. Some priests had turned from brothels to nuns and secondary school girls as they saw them as a safe refuge against contracting HIV/AIDS. The nuns who were impregnated by priests were simply sent away from their convents. Some of their babies were officially declared “fatherless.” Others had abortions in missionary hospitals. The condom that was publicly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church found absolution as long as it helped these brothers and sisters.

On the one hand, the libidinous escapades of the Roman Catholic priests jeopardized the lives and vocation of the nuns. On the other, the sexual exploitation of women left priests and bishops untouchable. The monstrosity of the facts; the duration of the secrets; and the number of priests and nuns involve in Africa helped Sister Maura to conclude:

• The problem of the abuse of nuns by priests in the developing world is serious.
• The majority of sexual abuse was recorded in Africa even though the problem is not confined to Africa.

Marie McDonald, MSOLA, in her presentation on the problem of the rape of African nuns in Rome on November 20, 1998, raised an important concern: “Celibacy/chastity is not a value in many countries . . . Religious life could provide an alternative choice, but is there a real choice for a chaste celibate life?”

The horror is that when it fits us, we tend to accommodate injustice in the name of tradition. It is therefore not surprising that the sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys in the church has never raised a concern for church realignment, the threats of schism, or the breaking of inter-denominational ties.

Everyone has the answer. The problem of the sexual abuse of women, young girls and boys is not limited to the Roman Catholic Church. We only note that the so-called “purified” Third World – that which is supposedly not infected by homosexuality – still has a lot to deal with in its own chapel. The horror is that when it fits us, we tend to accommodate injustice in the name of tradition.

It is therefore not surprising that the sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys in the church has never raised a concern for church realignment, the threats of schism, or the breaking of inter-denominational ties. Tradition is placed on a pedestal when it comes to justifying: cultural apartheid (“my tradition is the best one; what does not fit in my box has to be purified”); racism; sexism; homophobia; the rape of women, girls and boys; etc. . . The theory is only applied in one way: we fight any recognition of homosexuality in other cultures while calling for purification and repentance. However, the election of V. Gene Robinson to the episcopacy is far from being a whim of a cultural agenda. A conscientious reading of the recent developments within the U.S. Episcopal Church highlights its willingness to move beyond hetero-normative paradigms.

“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on the tablets of the stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

The holiness of scripture is not to be sought in its infallibility or in the mechanisms that make it accessible. Scripture has no life apart from actual, integrated lives, and no eternity but that which is given by a culture of freedom where minds are awakened. Scripture gives what it receives: dogma from dogma, faith from faith. Homophobia is not a legacy of scripture; instead, it has been a contribution to scripture.

Sybille Ngo Nyeck is a native of Yaounde, Cameroon. She is a regular contributor to A Globe of Witnesses, and her online column is Colors of Conscience . Sybille may be reached by email at sybeck77@yahoo.fr .