I recently read an interview in Modern Reformation magazine with Joseph Byamukama, founder and team leader of Veracity Fount, an organization in Kampala, Uganda (where he lives). Joseph has an Mdiv. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is currently working on a PhD. in New Testament intertextuality from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. As someone who has wrestled with the issue of affections vs. intellect in the American church, I found this brother’s perspective (who has studied and served in the church on three continents) fascinating.
Joseph explained that Ugandan Christians prioritize the heart over the mind, almost universally. Close to 90% of Ugandan pastors have no formal theological training and don’t think they need any. I have trained pastors in Nepal who were starving for training, so I find this shocking and disturbing. Many Ugandan Christians have adopted the perspective of a friend of Joseph’s who warned him about seminary in the US by expressing his concern that “the text will overcome the Spirit.” This man had 2 Corinthians 3:6 in mind, but Paul warns about the letter killing, not the text. The text of the gospel is the water of life (John 4).
Joseph points out that this mindset has opened up the Ugandan church to dangerous cults, false teaching, and postmodern notions that undermine the reality of truth. It has allowed the proliferation of the prosperity gospel to the extent that in many areas there are no churches actually preaching the Bible in any serious way. Many Christians there have been driven to atheism and agnosticism because they have been frustrated with the disparity between the promises of the hucksters and the reality of life in a broken world.
Joseph, in citing Deuteronomy 6:5 (“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”), points out that the Hebrew text of that verse does not include two words for heart and mind. It has one word for both. The heart, according to Bruce Waltke, “denotes a person’s center for both physical and emotional-intellectual-moral activities.” As Joseph puts it, “in biblical language, the intellect and the emotions are inseparable…we cannot properly love God with what we call our hearts without loving him with what we call our minds.”
Joseph is hopeful for the continent of Africa, as so much of the church is composed of young people (the median age in Uganda is 16 years), and literacy rates are increasing. The greatest challenge is resources, both money and people. The need is great, and the laborers are few.
It occurred to me that the challenges in the American church are similar, though less extreme. Our resources are infinitely greater, though not as much here in the “nosebleed” section of the country. The danger of false teaching and shallow teaching is the same, and the burden on pastors is great. Even though we live in a spiritually barren part of the country, New Hampshire enjoy a far greater number of solid Bible teaching churches than exist in the 2/3 world.
Also, while we recognize the danger on one side, we see the equal and opposite tendency for theologically rich churches to keep their (financial and human) resources to themselves. We see an over-emphasis on the mind to the detriment of the emotions. We see orthodoxy championed and orthopraxy neglected. Far too many solid Reformed churches are content to feed their own sheep while leaving evangelism and mercy ministry to other evangelicals. This both impoverishes our people of opportunities to enlarge their hearts for God and neglects our calling to extend God’s kingdom.
I’d like to challenge myself and all of us to redouble our commitment to live out Deuteronomy 6:5. We have a tremendous heritage of theological and Biblical commitment in the PCA. I believe that we have borne that well at CTR. We also have a commitment to express the gospel with passion in worship and with purpose in our city. Let’s not fall prey to a false choice between head and heart. Let’s pursue our God and our community with both.
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