Seeking the Guidance of the Spirit

A Letter from Josh Heikkila, mission co-worker serving in Ghana

Fall 2024

Subscribe to my co-worker letters

Dear friends,

Many Westerners who come to Ghana are from strongly secular backgrounds and have little interest in religion, if not an outright hostility to it. I frequently get asked by church-going Ghanaians, “Why do Europeans and Americans, who were once enthusiastic supporters of missionary activity, no longer seem interested in Christianity?”

A chief being carried as part of the traditional annual harvest festival

People see a Western dedication to things like human rights, but when it comes to religion, not necessarily so much. When I meet more conservative religious people in this part of the world, I often get told how our Western cultures need to return to faith in Jesus Christ or risk eternal damnation. I guess this message is not unique to Ghana, but one that surfaces in conservative religion everywhere.

A major focus of church life in Ghana is a profession of faith in Jesus and ‘winning souls for Christ,’ and I appreciate the desire people have to share a faith that is deeply meaningful for them. It’s my conviction, though, that Christian faith needs to be more than believing in Jesus so you can enter heaven when you die. It needs to be about grace, compassion, reconciliation and justice in this life and this world to resonate with most of the people I know.

Perhaps one difficulty of cross-cultural interaction is the ability to look at other people in nuanced and complex ways. To interact with them and appreciate them for the strengths of their cultures; to take note of what appears to be the challenges; to listen to people from within these cultures in humble and respectful ways, hearing their own appraisal of how things are, before placing a judgment of our own on them. It can be much easier, though to jump to biased conclusions and make quick blanket assessments.

There’s a saying attributed to Mark Twain that goes, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness … Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” While it’s a nice quotation, I’m sometimes skeptical about whether it’s true in practice.

From what I see, superficial exposure without a deeper level of engagement can actually reinforce the biases we bring with us from our own cultures. There’s an interesting article in National Geographic that explores this idea:

In his 2019 study of westerners on a bike tour in Cambodia, [Joseph] Cheer found that despite the prosocial aspects of the experience – visiting local non-governmental organizations, interacting with local Cambodians – post-tour interviews revealed that the tourists didn’t understand the cultural context of the outing. The visitors leaned into problematic tropes like ‘happy,’ ‘lovely,’ and ‘generous’ when describing locals or simply saw Cambodians as service providers.

(nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/does-travel-really-lead-to-empathy)

In other words, even travel designed to engage people in more substantive ways doesn’t always end up ridding us of “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” We need to go deeper and work harder.

One of the women, who attend to the traditional shrines in Accra, who are known to channel spirits

Recently, one of the neighborhood councils in Accra called on the President of Ghana to sign a proposed bill that would further criminalize and punish anyone supporting, identifying, or living as LGBTQ+. The traditional chief of the Osu, Accra, community said about the bill, “I am appealing to the President to ensure that the right thing is done by signing the bill into law to prevent Ghana from incurring the wrath of God.”

In rhetoric like this, Western cultures are typically portrayed as the source of LGBTQ+ practices, cultures that have strayed from God and are now trying to impose their ways on Africa. When I hear rhetoric like this, I need to stop and take a deep breath, because I’ve come to realize how easy it can be to respond in a similarly accusatory manner.

Each year in August, for example, the people of Accra celebrate the maize harvest, and the festival includes colorful and interesting processions by chiefs and traditional priests from Accra’s numerous neighborhoods. In the local culture, women tend the traditional shrines, and they are often known to channel spirits. During the festivities, it’s not unusual to see them overtaken by one of these spirits – dancing, shaking, and expressing the spirit in a lively way.

If an outsider wanted to, they could probably choose to weaponize scripture, to portray these traditions as idol worship and divination – practices that the Bible condemns as being anathema to God. (And in the past, Western missionaries were known to do just this!) But would condemning something one is unfamiliar with lead to any greater understanding? From what I see, we tend to be generous with ourselves and can imagine how our own cultural practices live in creative tension with scripture. When we see another culture’s unfamiliar practices, though, we are much more likely to name them as wrong. 

When I think about how quick we can be to judge other people and cultures about whom we know very little, the words of Jesus from Matthew 7 of course come to mind: 

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own? … You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Maybe it’s about time we stop judging other people, and rather first start with self-examination. Or if we do want to talk with others about ways we think they could change, we need to do it respectfully and compassionately, within an already existing relationship of appreciation and love. If done in any other way, the judgment of others will make us into the hypocrites Jesus says we can be, and it will only foster animosity and division.

I hope in my role as West Africa Regional Liaison, I can help all of us in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) engage with partners in West Africa in ways that do in fact break down our prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. But I can attest myself, this is not an easy task! We always need to slow down and pray for the Spirit’s guidance as we endeavor to do it.

Blessings to you,

Josh