Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai

by Vincent J. Donovan

Christianity Rediscovered is the story of how, among the Masai in Tanzania, an American missioner "rediscovers" the gospel message.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Nonfiction, Religion, Christianity, Spirituality, Christian Living

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Jadon Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this book challenged me in so many ways, from the relationship of church to salvation to the meaning of evangelism and mission. I was also particularly struck by the Massai tribe and the beautifully unique ways they interpreted the gospel through their cultural symbols and language. The image of God as a lion took on a new meaning in the imagination of an East African tribesman and my own thought world will be forever grateful for that.

[LuAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donovan’s book gives readers much to ponder regarding how the message of Jesus is presented. From his work with the Masai in Tanzania, he came to realize that often the gospel message carries much cultural accretion that is not present in the New Testament, such as Western hierarchical authority structures, missions buildings, lack of mobility in reaching new groups, even economic and political philosophies. He builds a strong case, highlighted with vivid examples of interactions with the Masai, of returning to the simplicity of missionary work as done by St. Paul by going to an area, preaching the gospel to communities until they make a decision about it and leaving the church there in the hands of local leaders. He advocates respecting the culture and recognizing the work God has already done within that culture by allowing local believers to work out how worship, leadership structure and even praying beyond the Lord’s prayer is done. Written in 1978, this message is just as relevant today as the Christian missionaries still take cultural notions with it when evangelizing, although I believe, at least I hope, there is a greater recognition and respect for the people we are presenting to. His message is also resonant beyond missions as we have all entangled Jesus’ message with our own political and economic systems and been “lead astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11)

[Emma DeGiovanni]

Quotes from my notes app:

"Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel." It was a role that would require every talent and insight and skill and gift and strength I had, to be spent without question, without stint, and yet in the humbling knowledge that only that part of it would be made use of which fit into the immeasurably greater plan of the relentless, pursuing God whose will on the world must not be thwarted.

Almost any solution is being considered except the one that would make us face, as honestly as possible, the authentic meaning and implications of New Testament ministry.

I said I wanted to talk to them about God, and he answered, "Who can refuse to talk about God?"

"If that is why you came here, why did you wait so long to tell us about this?"

As I look back on the whole adventure now, I am certain that if I had known the difficulty involved in the process of meeting a pagan people with a Western version of Christianity, I would never have had the courage to begin. Fortunately, my naiveté was boundless.

…suppose, instead of the thirty-three thousand missionaries of the type we have known, we had one thousand men of the mind of Paul, convinced of the method of Paul. I wonder what proportion of the world would be evangelized.

For us, too, he is the unknown God. But we are searching for him. I have come a long, long distance to invite you to search for him with us.

We had to believe that the gospel, the message of Christianity, the revelation of God to man, is for everyone, for the entire human race, for every people in every segment of that human race—as they are, where they are, now. Or else we would have to retranslate the mission mandate to: "Preach the gospel to all the nations— except to those who are not ready."

He said to me, "Of all the stories you told us, one I like most. It attracts me, the story of the man who left everything and led his people from the worship of a tribal god in search of the unknown High God. If you permit me, I would like to be called Abraham."

Perhaps the most enduring image stamped into my memory, and the one which gave me the most personal satisfaction, was the picture of Keti, with her baby strapped to her back, climbing the hills to the neighboring villages to tell them the story of Jesus Christ.

You thought you were searching for Engai. All this time he has been searching for you. God is more beautiful and loving than even you imagined. He hungered for you, Ole Sikii. Try as we might, we cannot reach up by brute force and drag God down from the heavens. He is already here. He has found you.

There are different ways to be heroic and the way of the missionary should be a hidden one. He is no longer a leading officer in the army of Christ the King, but a disciple of Christ the suffering servant. And if there must be a cross along the way, a cross in the form of violence and suffering, let it be reserved for him.

How necessary to recognize that the goodness and kindness of God has appeared to all men. How liberating to know that no matter who it is that plants, or who it is that waters, it is God who makes things grow.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for anyone interested in God's mission to rescue, renew, and transform all of humanity and all of creation, through Jesus Christ!

[Callie Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read! I enjoyed being able to step into the shoes of a missionary and learn more about authentic methods of evangelism.

[Sophia Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow, a riveting read from the get-go! Donovan deeply challenges many ungrounded presuppositions about what church life should be, and offers a wildly refreshing vision of beauty, love and eucharistic living among a people with radically different cultural convictions than those held by us in the global west. It’s hard to write theory on mission and evangelism that might be considered a page-turner, but Donovan has succeeded!

I am, however, hopefully that readers of this book today will be able to take his chapter on justice and development much farther and into much richer biblical rooting than Donovan is able to in this book. There’s a lot of potential there to connect his writing with real, biblical definitions for justice that go beyond his “turn the other cheek” emphasis, and would make for a more productive conversation (instead of one that seems to risk passivity). That being said, the chapter still presents a good challenge towards living a cruciform life and obedience to Christ above all earthly agendas.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read this book for school for the second time, and it's really pretty good. The storytelling is great, but beyond that, it is super important to read if you have any interest in Christian mission as a concept or a personal vocation. This books restructures how Christianity should be communicated across cultures in a helpful, challenging way, drawing on evidence from hundreds of years of ill-fated mission attempts in Africa (and worldwide). It has some moments of brilliance and is worth the read for all Christians. Despite being somewhat theologically complex, the book is approachable for anyone.

[Reign Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forever grateful the perspective this book gave me!!! I think it would challenge anyone when thinking of God’s saving plan for the world.

[An Te · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donovan has written a compelling account of how the Gospel is received by another culture, namely the Masai in Tanzania. He himself goes through the journey of questioning the symbols and means by which grace is conveyed in the Western church. I found this to be a profound revelation into how other cultures adopt the Gospel as their own message of salvation and hope of everlasting joy. 'The Gospel is after all not a philosophy or a set of doctrines or laws. That is what culture is. The Gospel is God's story. God's story.' Customs of shame and brotherhood are all utilised by the Masai as the central tropes for God's church. For instance, spittle, which is very costly and laden with meaning with the Masai, is used as a sign to express God's costly forgiveness towards us. And the orporor, brotherhood of the Masai, a term that is steeped in tradition, legend and meaning for the Masai is transposed into the church unit when one is baptised into the faith. It is remarkable how God can use concepts so rich (and alien) and meaningful to bring the church into being.

I guess this stems from the goodness of culture and God takes what brings people together to ultimately use as signposts to point towards himself. The church after all is a sign of Jesus and what he stands for, has done and will come to do as we wait, in great hope and joy, for His righting of what is wrong. Christians have all this in common; we wait in anticipation for the end to come knowing our work here on earth is to be redeemed, what little we have done to stem the tide and be salt and light to the world. God will see all this.

Donovan sees community as 'a group of people who are vitally related to one another, persons so vitally related that their very fate is in the hands of others in the community.' Costly indeed. And we have much to learn from this definition of community in the West.

I did like his critique of the priestly office. There are very few passages in the Bible declaring laity and pastorate. We are all to come to Jesus, the high priest and receive from Him what we need. There is no diasctintion within the priesthood and Donovan rightly, I feel, critique his own Catholic tradition for setting up this false divide.

Developmental aid from the West is rightly critiqued by Donovan. Development should be defined from the recipient culture, not the giving one.

The purpose of missionary work is touched upon too. Donovan rightly comments that 'missionary work is directed towards the establishment of that church, not to the continuing, permanent, pastoral life and running of that church.' This presents the 'choke law' where missionaries are overwhelmed by pastoral needs above their first calling to share the Gospel and found churches. This is scathing for most churches to hear but we are truly ready once your hearts and minds are set on fire by God. What more do you need? Equipment... Gospel of Luke Chapter 9 would suggest otherwise... You need very little but the word of God impressed upon your heart and searching for sheep to feed. Are you comfortable? Well, you shouldn't be.

And to finish, there is the most wonderful creed from the Masai. It summarises their acceptance of the Gospel. It is very beautiful. If you like this, you'd like the book.

'We believe in the one High God of love who created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe in the world. We have known this God in darkness, and we now know God in the light. God promised in his book the Bible that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good on his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man by the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari, doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry about their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live by the rules of love and share the bread together, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen'

[Keith Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably just me but the theology and presuppositions that go into this book show its age and mark it out as very clearly originating in 60s/70s era liberalism and dances dangerously close to revisiting the noble savage myth.

It is the reflection of a Roman Catholic Monk, in the wake of Vatican 2, as a Missionary amongst the Masaai. He decides to ditch the infrastructure of the established mission to go out amongst the people and simply preach. So far, so good. Yet Donavon is obsessed with trying to deconstruct his faith in order to eliminate the trappings he associates with, as an American, European Christianity (Specifically Roman Catholic). This includes the language around the Trinity, the place of Christ, and even many of the Jewish foundations of the faith that Christianity rests upon. This is part of a desire to reach a 'tabula rasa' form of the faith abstracted and translatable into any culture. Ironically, many of the things he blames as the product of 'White Europe' were derived from places like Israel, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, and Italy.

Donavon is keen to view the faith as a centrifugal force, ultimately it is a universalist one as in the final chapter he clearly states that salvation, he believes, is possible in any religion. This is in opposition, it seems to me, to centripetal emphasis on Christ. He denounces proselytism in light of this because it seeks to draw people away from the discovery of 'their God' (p156) towards other ideas of God. He laments the conservativism of many African converts because it looks in some ways very traditionally 'Western' and not 'African' enough. Yet 'African' here seems code for Donavon's theological liberalism, in this, I see it as perpetuating the colonialism he is so critical of. He's a white man telling Africans what to believe, who is critical of other white men telling Africans what to believe when it disagrees with him. There's an inconsistency in that and persevere form of essentialism and betrays a view of truth that is near incommunicable nature across contexts and instead must be abstracted into higher 'forms' which are then transformed. In fact, early on he states that he is against the attempt to help people groups understand different contexts (the Masaai 'High God' will be different to the American 'High God' and never the twain shall meet it seems).

At no point does he pause to reflect on how so many aspects of the faith he finds problematic are equally reflected in much older African Churches like those in Ethiopia, nor in the Churches of the earliest centuries in the North African region. That the principal architect of the 'Western' faith he tries to challenge was an African himself, Augustine. Christianity has been in Africa millennia before Donavon begins to talk about it in this book, yet you wouldn't think so to read it. This is indicative of the fact that, despite the rhetoric, Donavon is incredibly Western in his approach to the subject.

Being blunt I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, although his distinction between missional and pastoral work is interesting. I'm sympathetic to his chafing against the system of episcopal polity in Roman Catholicism (as a Protestant). The Masaai in many regards are portrayed very positively and I think, probably, would be suited to some sort of Presbyterian model of episcopal polity, that seems to reflect their tribal structures, - their view of God 'as a Lion' is very Monergistic too, so I wonder what someone like John Paton would do in a context like this. In sum, however, there are much better missionary accounts available out there. As a Protestant, I'd recommend Biographies of Sadhu Sundar Singh, Hudson Taylor, or John Paton over this.

I know this book is very highly praised in some circles but I would offer that says more about the circles than the quality of the contents of this book. In terms of ideal audience, I imagine there's a certain kind of Western Mainliner that would absolutely love this book.

[Peter Holford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book in the footnotes of a key text I was reading earlier this semester on intercultural discipleship. The way it was referenced "lured me" to find out more, and it has been a wonderful excursion into what I think must be a key work relating to missiology in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Vincent Donovan had spent 17 years among the Masai people of Tanzania when this book was published (1978). It is, in many ways, an extended reflection on what he learned while undertaking the task of presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to that ancient African people. The book opens with a fairly scathing account of the previous century of missionary activity in the area before he first arrived, which had involved proclaiming the church, and building schools and medical clinics rather than actually preaching Jesus. After being in country for a short while he realised that he needed to go back to basics and re-think the entire missionary endeavour.
This involved, for Donovan, "peeling away" from the gospel "the accretions of the centuries, and of Western, white, European, American culture, to get the the kernel of the gospel underneath" (p.70). In doing so he recognised the essential ethnocentrism that had been pervading the missionary work - more than that, the idolatry that had beset the Western church.

A missionary facing an alien pagan culture, to be an efficient instrument of the gospel, has to have the courage to cast off the idols of the tribe, of the tribe he came from. (p.89)

The two main idols of Western Christianity he identifies are individualism and the love of organisation. He shows persuasively how this idolatry had impeded the progress of the gospel in the African culture and people he was seeking to reach.
Donovan adopts an entirely different approach to the one he was trained for and which he inherited from his missionary predecessors, and begins to teach the Masai about the man Jesus, one village at a time. He saw his job as presenting the "naked gospel" in the language and thought categories of the Masai people and then allowing them to make a communal decision whether or not they would like to follow Jesus. Some did, and the elders and the people of each village made the decision collectively. When they were baptised, they were baptised together. When they celebrated Eucharist, it was a genuine, day long act of participating in koinonia, in Christ, and in the lives of one another. Donovan's accounts of both sacraments as enacted by the Masai I found moving.
Year later (1992, revised 2002), Stephen Bevans wrote & published his classic text, Models of Contextual Theology and classified Donovan's form of contextualisation as "the anthropological model." In this model, indigenous cultures are highly valued and considered basically good and trustworthy. The model has some basis in scripture, takes context seriously and starts where the people are at. The negative side of the anthropological model (according to Bevans) is that it is prone to "cultural romanticism." I can see this latter dimension clearly evident in Donovan's work: his descriptions of African culture and life are endearing and inspiring.
Read this book if you want to see how one man got back to basics with preaching Jesus to an African nation, and be inspired by the power of the gospel of Christ when presented clearly and without cultural, ideological or ecclesiastical strings attached.

[Keith Messer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book challenged and encouraged me in many ways, here are a few:
• Community is crucial in people following Jesus. We seem to have shifted to think about individual conversions almost entirely, but God is communal, the world is communal, our salvation focus should be communal.
• choke law is something I fear. Which is the pastoral work needed for new and many Christians chokes out the possibility of further evangelization.

1. What is the purpose and meaning of missionary work Must be finish able, leave the task of convincing the world of sin to the Holy Spirit,
2. What is a missionary? A Social Martyr, cut off from his roots, his stock, his blood, his land, his background, his culture.

- Western Christianity does have things to learn from African or Asian or Latin Christianity.
- People know about sin but do they know about forgiveness of sin? This is what we must communicate to people and show them the way for them to be forgiven.
- God has searched for you, he is the Lion of Judah.
-Christianity must be shared in a way that it is clear that the message can be rejected.

•”We should not set out to evangelize everyone but to evangelize a ministry in every section.”
•”A missionaries greatest contribution to the people for whom he works might well be to separate them from God, free them from their idea of God.”
•”perhaps the really surprising thing that the man Jesus did in his lifetime was to show us not only what God is, but what man is.”
•”the command to go out and preach the gospel has become subtly transformed into, “”stay here, take care of what you have. Let others come to you.”””

[Alex Tongue · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's super fitting that this book came out the same year as Said's Orientalism, both in how it addresses colonialism in mission work and how it sometimes ever-so-sightly misses the mark on being decolonizing. Donovan's one weakness is that he occasionally generalizes the Masai to all of Africa, but it feels like a fault of wording and not of mentality. However, if we read him in light of Said (and to an extent, Foucault) his usage of "African" isn't insignificant and should be mentioned. I'd be curious to read Fanon against this book, but I get the feeling Donovan really tries to preserve the agency, dignity, and rights of the Masai so it might not do much.

Outside of all the postcolonialism talk, the book is marvelous. It's super refreshing, sweet, and challenging. It made me reconsider my own views on mission work... and even how I should operate in community.

The jewel of the whole book is showing how cultures are imbued with all the necessary components to know the gospel. Westernization is completely unnecessary... and probably evil. The way the gospel manifests in the Masai culture is BEAUTIFUL and lovely. I learned a lot more about Jesus by learning how another culture knows Him.

God is the lion.

[Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donovan died in 2000, and this book is a re-issue of his original publication. Donovan went to Tanzania as a Catholic missionary (he was a priest) and worked among the Masai tribal peoples. His work there cause him to reconsider everything he knows about missions and evangelism and to "re-think" Western Christianity as he questions what it means to "bring the gospel" to a new culture. What exactly are we sharing--culture? buildings? Institutions? Jesus? Worth asking the questions of the church today as well.
This volume includes reflections by those who knew him in the church/mission context and by his sister.

[Zachary Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 1950's a Roman Catholic missionary surveys his mission and discovers that after 20 years of work a mission covering 5,000 square miles has a great hospital, 4 fine schools, and exactly 2 practicing Christians besides himself. He comes up with the novel idea of doing nothing more and nothing less than talking about God with people who had never heard the Gospel. This book is a reflection of what, exactly, it means to "talk about God" with people who haven't heard of Jesus. An interesting read in an increasingly secular age when many in the Church can still do little more than talk to the already converted.

[Nina Tweddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the Lent Course book set for this year by my church, therefore I have been reading it one or two chapters per week to complement the weekly talks given on the same subject.

The book was written in the '70's and some bits of it have aged better than others. Nevertheless, it has been an interesting read and a thought-provoking one.

It challenges our perception of evangelism & mission. Also how much our expectations of "church" in other cultures is skewed by thinking that "our" way of worship is the "right" way. It highlights the gifts of all people in embracing faith in a way that can be true to their culture. Not right or wrong but simply different.

[meloh · Rating 5 out of 5]

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
(Romans 10:15)

How beautiful are the words of hope, words of love, words of possibility that are found in the Gospel, lovingly intended by God for all peoples, cultures, and languages, as truly bearing a distinct experience of God, and a distinct song of worship to offer at the throne of God in the eternal Kingdom that awaits the entire, global, timeless brother+sisterhood of God!

How beautiful are the discoveries, challenges, and ponderings Donovan offers here from his own encounter of the good news and a new culture, from his own walked safaris.

How beautiful is the High God, the Lion, the Savior God!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Father Donovan explores what being a missionary to the Masai really requires. He throws the classic approach to missionary work under the bus and implements his own approach. Copying the work of Paul he establishes a year long communication with each community with the aim of convincing them of the truth of Jesus Christ.

[Caleb Barron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account and personal analysis of someone attempting mission in a counter-cultural way. Not only that, but a rediscovery of faith and religion altogether through the eyes of a new culture. Some of it has not aged perfectly and it definitely speaks from a specific time and perspective, but you can pick through and find some incredible discoveries of your own.

[Molly Roets · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was challenging and delightful to discover along with the author the unique ways seeds of gospel were implanted in the Masai culture. With humility, he strips the old paint off the substitutions missionaries and churches have erected in place of evangelization- the schools, hospitals, etc that while not bad, are not a true representation of tribes worshiping their creator.

[Stephen J. Shimek · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Jesus would speak of the Kingdom in 2020

Indescribable! Creative breakthrough! Every Christian who thinks should take it to heart.
Equally as pertinent to the Nones as to the Masai.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donovan's witness is highly engaging and valuable to anyone interested in cross-cultural communication. It is specifically about one missionary's experience who sought to share the Christian gospel, but Donovan's observations about cultural baggage are valuable in many sitautions.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book truly transformed my outlook and understanding of the Gospel beyond a Western cultural phenomena to a worldwide path to redemption.

[Wesley Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really invaluable insights from a truly remarkable man. Unfortunately, some pretty significant theological compromises and missteps.

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book - strip Christianity down to its bare bones so that other cultures can flesh it out with their own expressions. How much beauty has Christianity lost because we insisted on our own culture’s version of it.

I love the magic of seeing something so familiar through other cultures’ eyes. Reading how the Maasai retell the parables, create a liturgy, or perform a baptism ceremony is so neat.

But actually the book is not very much about the Maasai. It is more about the universal, communal practice of Christianity.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still relevant, Still actual.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vincent Donovan was a missionary to the Masai tribe of Tanzania. After struggling with his mission and the ineffectiveness of it, he begins to search for something that would work. What he finds is that Western Christianity was the biggest impediment. With this revelation he discovers that the simple Gospel and the methods of the early church were needed in this time and place. This book is the story of how it developed.

What I find interesting is that his discoveries forty to fifty years ago are very relevant to our mission in the United States church today. As we struggle with anemic faith communities and declining influence in the post-Christian west, we must accept that something is not right and begin our search. I believe our search will lead us back to the Gospel that transcends culture and the simple, incarnational methods of the early church. Here are the dog-ears, underlines, and brackets from this book:

pg. xii - the current irrelevance of church life
pg. xiii - sending young people forward in faith - not to where they were or where you are
pg. xiii - the Gospel in the midst of human life, as it is lived in the neighborhoods
pg. 54 - the troubling questions of Masai, or of all life
pg. 64 - the Gospel message presented to the community (finding it, working within it)
pg. 65 - America's greatest need - finding community again
pg. 68 - stumbling blocks for American Christians - individualism and love of organization
pg. 69 - the minister, or priest becoming a servant of the community
pg. 70 - Ndangoya describes the burden carrying community
pg. 78 - 90% of American church resources spent on itself
pg. 79 - self-serving, salvation-of-the-individual as a masquerade of authentic Christianity
pg. 79 - "do it good (church activity) and the world will come to you."
pg. 97 - missionaries spreading our ills and weaknesses
pg. 105 - Christian "witch doctors"
pg. 107 - western school system disrupts the good things of Masai culture
pg. 127 - the Gospel as the door to true human development
pg. 140 - the nomadic Masai church
pg. 141 - Evangelization is not propaganda
pg. 151 - Western culture brought capture and subjection to Africa
pg. 157 - searching for the God of Abraham

[Brandon Stiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. This book radically challenged my preconditioned thoughts on what missions, intercultural involvement and even the Christian faith are. "Christianity Rediscovered" is an incredibly apt title. Over the last couple months that I've been reading it, I took my time and really pondered the things that Father Donovan discussed and shared about his time evangelizing the Masai of northern Tanzania, so much pondering in fact that I couldn't possibly fit it all into this review, but I'd love to talk to you about this book.

The biggest takeaway for me is the sufficiency of the gospel. Donovan goes into these villages and systematically delivers a contextualized gospel that will make sense to his Masai audience. Over the year of teaching, the villagers receive understanding about God, Jesus and how to follow Christ, nothing more and nothing less. He doesn't feel as though he needs to change their culture, but rather bring their culture under the headship of Christ. He doesn't promise them he'd build a well or start a school or anything like that to persuade them to accept the message. He just preaches the gospel, that comes first.

In light of my work in this same area of the world, I find his approach not only challenging but inspiring. We often get caught up doing other work like the mission compound that Donovan came out of. But the gospel must come first and in the midst of a religious people like the Masai, there is good opportunity to discuss matters pertaining to God and witness of Christ to them. Instead of putting the development work before the gospel, Donovan believes (and has convinced me) that it goes the other way around, "true human development is impossible without the gospel. The gospel is the door to true human development."

This is truly a powerful book and his tested insights will blow you away. I highly recommend this book to any believer, especially those that are involved in missions (as all Christians ought to be).

[James Titterton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 'Christianity Rediscovered' Vincent Donovan, a Roman Catholic missionary from the USA, reflects on his experience evangelising the Masai people of Tanzania in the 1960s. Having become disillusioned with the model of mission he had inherited, he sought to engage with the Masai in a new, more Biblical form of mission: nothing more or less than telling them the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his mission to the Masai, Donovan realised that he had to strip Christianity of its Western cultural trappings and preach the gospel in an authentically African form that his hearers would understand. He also realised that a similar cultural divide exists between contemporary Western society and the Church, which must be bridged in the same way.

I found this book inspiring. Donovan challenges his readers to make the same mental and spiritual journey that he had to take before he could preach the gospel to the Masai: laying aside the preconceptions and cultural accretions of our Western heritage to find the eternal message of ‘the High God’ and ‘the man Jesus’ that crosses all cultural boundaries. This also challenged me to consider how to apply Donovan’s methods to modern Britain, which can seem even more alien to Christianity than Masailand.

Donovan’s honest, loving engagement with the Masai and their way of life was a beautiful thing but I was concerned that, in his desire to give them nothing more or less than the gospel, he left these young church communities unsupported to face the perils of heresy, schism or sectarian violence that might lie ahead of them. Some form of connexion between these new churches and the established Church could have been helpful for both communities. Donovan did request that priests be ordained from among the Masai but this was rejected by his superiors.

[Adam Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad I came across this book. In spite of its age, it is still completely relevant and more needed than ever in the church of 2013. There have been few books I've read that I've bookmarked to this degree. It was epiphany after epiphany, page after page. I've walked away with a much deeper understanding of what mission should look like, the struggles and freedoms of introducing the pure gospel to unreached people groups, and had my theology bumped around quite a bit along the way. I never knew how many assumptions I had about the faith and how I would one day present it to people completely unaware of it. I thought I was "cultured" and insightful but I was far from it.

The author does a great job of showing that Jesus can be found intrinsically in pagan cultures and that they are only needing to have Jesus revealed from the shadows to fulfill who they are as a unique people, not to destroy that uniqueness in some ethnocentric but well intentioned push of western interpretation. There is value in who people are as a group, and there is infinite value in the freedom Christ brings. Those two simply need to be brought together, and when they are, beautiful life blossoms.

Read it, even if you have not plan of overseas mission work. I assure you it will impact your life. (Also, like almost any book, I found issues with parts of the author's interpretation of scriptures, especially in the last chapter. That being said, it is still highly valuable and challenging and for that matter, it should be.)