British author and former member of Parliament Matthew Parris has penned a simply remarkable piece in which, despite his atheism, he recognizes that Africa needs God. His own youth on that continent and his adult experience there have led him to see that there is a difference between Christian mission and what other “non-governmental organizations,” or NGO’s, can do.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

This goes to the heart of the matter: that Christianity – or, more accurately, Christ – changes people.

In addition to this frank recognition of the reality of the Gospel’s effect, Mr. Parris punctures the balloons of multiculturalism which have been allowed to float through Western naïveté and historical illiteracy:

There’s long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don’t follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Bingo. All cultures are not created equal. Cultures are fed and informed by their underlying worldview. The West finds itself under siege, internally and externally, because of an appalling and unwarranted self-doubt. So, in the case of Africa, the dismissal of Western culture blinds Europeans and Americans to the reality that African tribal belief, Islamic jihad, shari’a law, etc., are the wellspring of so many of the problems infesting the region.

Be sure to read the entire article.