As an atheist...Africa needs God

Africa isn't called the Dark Continent for nothing...

Africa remains sullen and seething while the rest of the world moves forward.

What ails Africa?

Africa gains stability in one area only to collapse in another. Africa fatigue infects the world, manifested in the mechanical forking-over of money, most of which slithers on well-greased tracks into the hands of dictators.

...a commentary appeared in the London Times Online by Matthew Parris...raised in Africa and had just returned from a visit to his home state of Malawi. He came to the opinion page with an uncomfortable conclusion, stated in his title:

"As an atheist, I am truly convinced that Africa needs God."

Moreover, Africa doesn't just need God—Africa needs Christ, and the transformation of the Holy Spirit.

In a key scene of Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina and his driver Gregory turn inadvertently, at night, onto a road that they gradually discover is strewn with corpses. "Why do these things happen?" Paul cries. Gregory answers, not too profoundly, that hatred has somehow broken loose. The unspoken question is, Why hatred?

The real question is, Why love?

We know by now where human nature often ends up: A wrong turn down a dark road, and suddenly we're bumping over bodies in a late-model van. Africa is where chaos consistently chooses to rule these days, and the reason for that is too complicated for me. But Africa is the world, in that the veneer of civilization is thin everywhere, and what is not vigorously upheld will inevitably slide.

 "Africa does need God," wrote one respondent. "Unfortunately, I think God has given up on Africa." God does not give up. And we, who know that transforming power Matthew Parris can only talk about, must not give up. Why love?...Because He first loved us.

(excerpted from Janie B. Cheaney | WorldMagazine)