What 18 Years in Africa Taught Me About American Christianity

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I’d taught the parable of the Prodigal Son dozens of times in American churches. Always the same themes: individual sin, personal repentance, the father’s unconditional love.

Beautiful. True. Complete.

Then I taught it in Africa.

And suddenly, it wasn’t complete at all.

Same parable, same verses, same text. But the questions people asked, the details they noticed, the implications they drew, things I’d somehow missed for twenty years. Not because they were smarter or more spiritual, but because they weren’t wearing my cultural blinders.

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The Lenses We Don’t Know We’re Wearing

Eighteen years of ministry in Africa—teaching, training leaders, learning from believers whose Christianity looked nothing like mine—and I can pinpoint the exact moment I realized something was wrong.

Not with their Christianity. Not with mine.

With the idea that either of us could see clearly without the other.

I was preparing to teach a series on Jesus’s parables, rereading them as I’d done countless times before. But this time, I kept noticing things I’d never seen. Details I’d skipped for two decades suddenly became obvious. Implications I’d somehow filtered out.

The problem wasn’t the text.

It was the first time I’d ever had my cultural assumptions challenged.

Before we go further, let me be clear: This isn’t a “American Christianity bad, African Christianity good” story. That would be its own kind of blindness.

African Christianity has its own cultural lenses, its own blind spots, its own ways of domesticating Jesus that fit local contexts. Prosperity theology runs rampant in many African churches. Tribalism and ethnic division plague African congregations just as racism plagues American ones. Patriarchy and power dynamics create their own problems.

The point isn’t that one culture gets Jesus right and the other doesn’t.

The point is that distance gives perspective.

When you step outside your own cultural water, you can finally see that it’s water. And that realization—that your “normal” interpretation might be your culture talking, not universal truth—changes everything.

Like fish that don’t know they’re wet, we don’t realize how deeply our culture shapes what we see—and what we don’t see—in Scripture.

What American Culture Filters Out

Here’s the uncomfortable truth I learned—and it’s going to bother you as much as it bothered me: Every single culture reads the Bible through lenses they don’t even know they’re wearing.

Including yours. Including mine.

For American Christianity, those lenses include individualism, capitalism, meritocracy, the Protestant work ethic, and middle-class stability. These aren’t just cultural values; they’re glasses we don’t know we’re wearing. And they filter out anything that doesn’t match what we already believe.

We can’t see what we’re missing.

Because we can’t see the glasses.

Living outside that water changed everything. Watching believers read the same texts with completely different assumptions? Like someone flipping on lights in a room I thought was already bright.

Suddenly, I could see my own shadows. Not because the other culture had it figured out, but because distance provides clarity that proximity never can.

That moment changed everything—not just how I read that parable, but how I read every parable. Because once you see that culture shapes interpretation, you can’t unsee it. You start wondering: What else have I missed? What other dimensions of Jesus’s teaching has my cultural water made invisible?

The answer, I discovered, was almost everything.

How Individualism Hides Community

In America, the Prodigal Son was always about individual salvation. A young man sins. Hits rock bottom. Comes to his senses. Returns to his father who welcomes him with open arms.

The focus was always personal: my sin, my repentance, my relationship with God.

Living in Africa, where communal identity runs deeper than individual identity, details I’d overlooked for years suddenly became obvious.

The younger son didn’t just sin against his father. He demanded his inheritance early. Think about what demanding inheritance early meant—essentially wishing his father dead, then taking resources that belonged to the entire household and burning through them.

When he came home? The father didn’t just forgive him personally. He threw a feast. And that feast required everyone’s participation, everyone’s resources, everyone’s agreement, everyone’s forgiveness.

See what this changes?

The parable isn’t just “God forgives individual sinners.” It’s “God restores people to community, even when that restoration costs the whole community something.”

Consider that feast. The father killed the fattened calf—not his personal property, but the household’s reserve. He threw a party that required everyone’s resources, everyone’s agreement, everyone’s participation in welcoming back someone who’d betrayed them all.

The father’s extravagant welcome wasn’t just emotional. It was economic. Communal. Costly.

That’s a very different gospel than “Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

The older brother’s complaint wasn’t just about favoritism. It was about justice in a community economy. “You never threw a party for me and my friends” isn’t petty jealousy; it’s a legitimate question about how communal resources are distributed.

This isn’t just a story about personal salvation. It’s about community restoration. Economic justice. The kind of radical forgiveness that extends beyond individual feelings to systemic reconciliation.

That changes everything. The parable isn’t “God loves me personally.” It’s “God restores communities—even when restoration is costly.”

I’d taught this parable for two decades.

I’d been teaching an American version.

Here’s how invisible individualism is: Try reading the New Testament epistles without assuming they’re addressed to you personally.

• “You” in Romans? Plural. The whole church.

• “You” in Ephesians? Plural. The body of Christ.

• “You” in 1 Corinthians? Plural. The community.

But we read them as personal devotionals. Extract individual promises from corporate letters. We’ve so thoroughly individualized Scripture that we literally can’t see the communal dimension even when it’s grammatically explicit.

Quick test: When you read “love your neighbor as yourself,” what do you picture?

If you’re American, you probably pictured individual acts of kindness. Helping someone move. Bringing a meal when they’re sick. One-on-one care.

But in cultures with stronger communal identity? That command means their kids’ school fees are your responsibility. Their leaking roof is your problem. Their empty pantry is your emergency. Not “be generous if you feel led.” Their crisis is your crisis.

Same command. Radically different implications. And you didn’t even know you were filtering it.

How Capitalism Hides Kingdom Economics

Take the Workers in the Vineyard.

In America, when I taught about workers hired at different times but paid the same wage, the focus was always theological: “It’s about grace being free. God can give his gifts to whomever he wants. Don’t be like the grumbling workers. Be grateful for God’s generosity.”

Accurate. But incomplete.

Because in America, merit isn’t just a concept; it’s the foundation of everything. We earn our grades. Our degrees. Our jobs. Our respect. Our status. Worth is demonstrated. Value is proven. Success is achieved.

We’ve built an entire society on the assumption that what you get should match what you earn.

So when Jesus tells a story that explicitly violates this principle, we immediately make it safe.

“Well, in salvation, grace is free, but obviously in the real world, you have to work hard and earn your way.”

But Jesus didn’t say that. He didn’t add qualifiers. He told a story about an economy that doesn’t run on merit, and then said, “This is what the kingdom of heaven is like.”

Not “this is what salvation is like.”

The kingdom. The whole thing.

Watch what happens in American churches when a 25-year-old gets promoted to elder. Or when someone who’s been a Christian for two years joins the leadership team.

The whispers start: “They haven’t earned it yet. Haven’t paid their dues. Need more time in the trenches first.”

Translation: They haven’t accumulated enough merit to deserve that position.

Or when someone experiences breakthrough without going through the expected process: “Well, they’re young in the faith. Let’s see if it lasts. Real maturity takes years.”

We literally cannot imagine value that isn’t earned, status that isn’t achieved, or authority that isn’t merited.

Even when Jesus explicitly tells us the kingdom doesn’t work that way.

Living in cultures where communal economics still function gave me perspective. Sharing wasn’t exceptional; it was expected. Resources flowed based on need, not ownership.

And suddenly, American Christian teaching about money looked strange. Why does it focus almost entirely on individual stewardship?

• Personal budgeting

• Individual retirement planning

• Household financial management

• Generosity as a personal discipline

All good things. Important things.

But where’s the communal dimension?

And before you think I’m romanticizing communal cultures: they create their own economic dysfunctions. Dependency. Lack of individual initiative. Difficulty with long-term planning. The pressure to share everything, even when it enables destructive behavior.

Every economic system, whether individualistic or communal, reflects fallen human nature in different ways.

But cross-cultural exposure showed me that the way we do it isn’t the only way. And might not be the most biblical way.

Over three years, I mapped these cultural filters systematically. What dimensions of Jesus’s teaching was American Christianity filtering out? Was there a pattern? Could it be traced?

That investigation became Kingdom Revolution. Not a book I wanted to write—a book I had to write because once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.

Look at what Jesus keeps hammering at across his parables. The same economic lies we build our lives on:

• That worth is determined by productivity (Workers in the Vineyard)

• That wealth is a sign of God’s favor (Rich Fool, Rich Man & Lazarus)

• That you should manage resources to maximize personal security (Shrewd Manager)

• That generous acts should produce measurable returns (The Sower)

These aren’t random attacks. They’re strategic strikes against an entire economic worldview—one that American Christianity has largely baptized rather than challenged.

How Meritocracy Hides Free Grace

This merit-based thinking doesn’t just shape our economics. It infiltrates our religion.

Which brings us back to that Pharisee we’re so sure we’re not like.

Consider the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

In America, I always taught it as a warning against religious pride. “Don’t be like the Pharisee, trusting in your own righteousness. Be like the tax collector, humble and dependent on God’s mercy.”

Everyone nods. Everyone agrees.

Nobody thinks they’re the Pharisee.

But I finally saw something shocking: We’d weaponized the parable. Use it to spot other people’s self-righteousness. Never see our own.

The Pharisee’s prayer sounds absurd to us: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.”

But change the language slightly:

“God, I thank you that I’m not like those nominal Christians who don’t take their faith seriously. I actually read my Bible. I actually pray. I actually serve. I actually give generously. I actually raise my children in the faith.”

Suddenly it’s not so absurd.

It’s the internal monologue of serious American Christianity.

I know because it was mine.

Listen to how we actually pray—not out loud, but in our hearts:

• “Thank you that we’re a Bible-believing church.” (Not like those liberal denominations.)

• “Thank you that we’re generous givers.” (Not like those Christians who barely tithe.

• “Thank you that we teach sound doctrine.” (Not like those seeker-sensitive churches.)

Same structure as the Pharisee. Same pride. Same blindness.

We’ve just learned to dress it up in theological language.

The most dangerous form of Pharisaism isn’t obvious religiosity. It’s sophisticated, educated, doctrinally sound pride that thanks God for our proper theology while looking down on Christians who don’t have it together like we do.

Decades teaching this parable.

Never once did I see myself as a Pharisee.

The Pattern Emerging: A Systematic Revolution

The more I studied, the clearer I saw the pattern. These weren’t random mistakes; they were predictable. Like a rigged game where the house always wins, my culture had trained me to miss the same things every time.

Each major parable attacked a specific cultural assumption we were too embedded in to see.

That’s why Kingdom Revolution traces twelve parables as an integrated manifesto rather than twelve separate lessons. Because Jesus wasn’t giving us twelve random stories—he was systematically demolishing twelve foundations of human society and rebuilding them according to kingdom logic.

I traced how multiple parables—the Rich Fool, the Shrewd Manager, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Vineyard Workers—aren’t random stories about money. They’re a systematic assault on economic assumptions that prioritize individual wealth over communal flourishing.

But here’s what shocked me: these economic parables follow the exact same pattern as the religious parables (Pharisee & Tax Collector, Prodigal Son) and the social parables (Good Samaritan, Wedding Feast).

Jesus wasn’t just challenging our economics OR our religion OR our social structures. He was showing how all three are connected, built on the same fallen assumptions, and need the same revolutionary reconstruction.

Here’s the real problem: We’ve taken our merit-based economic system and baptized it. Made it the structure of Christian community itself.

We’ve made grace expensive.

What We’ve Made Expensive

Here’s maybe the most painful thing cross-cultural ministry taught me: We’ve turned free grace into an expensive commodity.

Not financially—we don’t sell salvation. But we’ve made it expensive in every other way: first, clean up your life; adopt our cultural norms; conform to our theological distinctives; achieve spiritual markers; and demonstrate measurable growth.

Look at what this creates in practice.

In many American churches, there’s an unspoken expectation. Get your life together, then you’re really part of the community. Oh, we say “come as you are,” but we mean “come as you are, but don’t stay that way too long.”

In contexts where communal identity runs deeper, I watched churches operate with a completely different assumption: You’re one of us now. We’ll figure out the rest together.

Not “accept Jesus, then fix yourself.”

Just: belonging first, transformation through belonging.

That’s beautiful. It also creates its own problems, sometimes enabling destructive behavior, sometimes lacking clear moral boundaries, sometimes confusing cultural belonging with spiritual transformation.

But it revealed something about American Christianity I hadn’t seen before: We’ve made grace expensive in ways we don’t even recognize.

How did this happen?

Because American culture values achievement and self-improvement, we unconsciously reimagined grace as the starting point of a personal improvement project rather than the ongoing reality of relationship. Grace becomes the entry fee you pay once, then you’re back to earning your way through performance.

Why does it persist?

Because it feels safe. Measurable. Controllable. We can track spiritual progress, assess maturity, determine who’s “really serious” about their faith. Free grace is terrifying because there’s nothing to measure, nothing to control, no way to sort the worthy from the unworthy.

What We Stopped Seeing

Teaching the Good Samaritan in America, I always emphasized individual charity. Help people in need. Feed the hungry. Care for the sick.

Beautiful.

But living in contexts where social breakdown was more visible, I started asking different questions: Why was the man on the road alone? Where was his community? Where was the system that should have protected him?

The parable isn’t just about individual charity. It’s about the failure of religious and social systems to protect vulnerable people. The priest and Levite weren’t just uncharitable individuals—they represented an entire religious system that had become more concerned with ritual purity than human need.

American Christianity focuses on individual sin and individual salvation.

Cross-cultural ministry reminded me that Jesus cared just as much about how societies work, how power flows, and how communities treat their most vulnerable.

We’ve turned revolutionary teachings into individualistic morality tales. Made corporate challenges into personal devotionals. Taken community-oriented parables and made them about my relationship with God.

Not wrong.

But desperately incomplete.

The Parables I Couldn’t Hear

There are parables I’d taught hundreds of times that barely registered. Then cultural distance gave me new sight, and I realized we’d been missing entire dimensions.

The Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14): In America, it’s about evangelism and being ready for heaven.

But step back from individualism, and suddenly you see: This is about how God fills his kingdom with the people the religious establishment rejected. The poor. The disabled. The outcast. Not the people who earned an invitation through proper religious performance, but the people nobody wanted.

The Ten Minas (Luke 19:11-27): In America, it’s about using your talents for God.

But read it with eyes trained to see power dynamics, and you notice: The master is described as harsh, “taking out what [he] did not put in and reaping what [he] did not sow.” This isn’t necessarily a story praising the master—it might be exposing how power works in the kingdom of the world versus the kingdom of God.

I had never considered that Jesus might be critiquing, not endorsing, certain power structures in his parables.

What This Costs (And Why It’s Worth It)

If you’re reading this and feeling defensive, I understand.

I felt defensive, too.

For eighteen years, my comfortable interpretations have been gently, persistently challenged by believers who read the same texts through entirely different cultural lenses. Who saw things I couldn’t see because I was too close to my own culture to recognize its influence.

This isn’t about crushing you with guilt. It’s about giving you sight.

I’ll never forget the moment my own blindness became undeniable. I was teaching on giving, emphasizing the importance of “wise stewardship”—budgeting, planning, saving for retirement, ensuring your family is secure first before giving generously.

An African pastor raised his hand. Slowly. Like he was about to say something he knew would be uncomfortable.

“Doctor Danny, I hear what you’re saying about wise stewardship. About planning for your family’s future. About being responsible.”

He paused.

“But in my village, if I saved money while my neighbor’s child went hungry, I would be the wicked servant who buried his talent.”

The room went quiet.

I opened my mouth to explain—then it hit me: I was defending an economic system, not Scripture. Everything I was about to say assumed that individual financial security was more biblically important than communal responsibility.

I had no biblical defense for that assumption.

Only cultural ones.

Once you see how culture shapes interpretation, you can’t unsee it.

You start noticing things. Everywhere.

Individualism hiding community. Capitalism shaping every economic reading. Meritocracy infiltrating grace theology. Western stability blinding you to Jesus’s radical demands. Consumer culture turning the gospel into a product you consume rather than a revolution you join.

It’s like realizing you’ve been reading with sunglasses on. Everything looked fine. Until you took them off and saw color for the first time.

And slowly, painfully, beautifully, Jesus becomes dangerous again.

I remember the night this really hit me. I was preparing a sermon on the Rich Fool—a parable I’d taught a dozen times. Always the same message: “Don’t be greedy. Don’t make money your god. Invest in eternal things.”

Then I noticed something I’d never seen: The rich fool’s entire monologue is in first person singular. “MY crops. MY barns. MY grain. MY goods. MY soul.” Sixteen times in five verses.

And God’s response? “Fool! This night your soul is required of you.”

This isn’t primarily about greed. It’s about the insanity of thinking anything is “mine” in the first place. It’s about an entire worldview built on individual ownership being exposed as fundamentally delusional.

American Christianity had taught me to read this as “don’t love money too much.” Manage it wisely. Give generously. But it’s still YOUR money.

Jesus was saying something far more radical: “The whole concept of ‘your’ money is a lie.”

Try living like that. Try really believing nothing is yours. Not your retirement account. Not your house. Not your salary. Not your inheritance.

That’s not “be generous.”

That’s a radically different economic system.

I can’t unknow that now.

Neither can you.

What You Can’t Un-Learn (And Why That’s Good News)

Once you see how Western Christianity has domesticated Jesus’s teachings, you face a choice.

You can try to unsee it. Close this tab right now. Go back to comfortable interpretations. Keep reading parables as individualistic morality tales that don’t threaten your wallet, your retirement plan, or your cultural comfort.

Or you can let it wreck you.

Not in a despairing way but a liberating way. Let it expose assumptions you didn’t know you had. Challenge economics you thought were just “how things work.” Question merit-based thinking you assumed was biblical. Dismantle comfortable religion built on cultural values rather than kingdom realities.

I won’t lie: this is costly. You’ll start seeing things you can’t unsee. Noticing contradictions you can’t ignore. Feeling tension between Jesus’s actual teaching and what you’ve been taught Jesus taught.

But here’s what I discovered on the other side:

Jesus becomes dangerous again. The gospel becomes revolutionary again. Faith becomes adventurous rather than comfortable.

And that’s where it’s supposed to be.

Cross-cultural ministry didn’t give me answers. It gave me better questions:

• What if Jesus meant exactly what he said?

• What if my cultural assumptions are theological poison?

• What if every culture’s assumptions are both gift and poison?

• What if we need each other to see clearly?

• What if the revolution we’re avoiding is the salvation we desperately need?

Your choice.

But now you know.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Six months ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Suddenly, a lot of things became very clear, including this: I don’t have time to keep teaching a domesticated Jesus.

The world is burning. The church is fractured. People are desperate for something real.

And we keep offering them:

• Five steps to better prayer

• Seven keys to spiritual growth

• Three principles for biblical finances

Meanwhile, Jesus is standing in the rubble of Jerusalem saying, “I came to bring fire to the earth.”

Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to put it out.

The Journey Ahead

This series isn’t about making you feel bad about being American or Western. I’m American. I love American Christians. Some of the most faithful, generous, devoted believers I know are American.

And this isn’t about idealizing African or non-Western Christianity either. Every culture has its blind spots. Every tradition has domesticated Jesus in its own way.

But we have specific blind spots. Ones we can’t see without help.

And Jesus’s parables were specifically designed to expose blind spots.

Next week, I’m unpacking something even more uncomfortable: How the parables expose our addiction to control. What happens when you realize Jesus’s kingdom doesn’t need your management, your strategic plans, or your leadership principles?

Spoiler: It’s liberating.

And terrifying.

Because control is the last thing we want to give up. Even—especially—to God.

Your Move

You’re still here.

That means something.

It means you’re willing to question. To reconsider. To let Jesus be more dangerous than your theology has allowed.

That’s all the revolution needs. A willingness to see.

The gospel is simple enough for children and revolutionary enough to overthrow empires. We keep trying to make it complicated enough to control and safe enough to manage. Maybe that’s our real problem.

The revolution is waiting.

The revolutionary kingdom has room for you.

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This is Part 2 of the Kingdom Revolution blog series. Part 1: The Stories That Got Jesus Killed | Part 3: Coming Next Week

For the full journey through twelve revolutionary parables, check out Kingdom Revolution: How Jesus’s Parables Reshape Human Hearts.

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