Summoned from the Margin: Homecoming of an African by Lamin Sanneh

Abstract

Lamin Sanneh, the D. Willis James Professor of World Christianity at Yale University and the author of numerous books on religion, is concerned with Christianity and its relevance in the world today, particularly in the wake of its historical European tutelage. Born and raised a Muslim in Gambia, West Africa, he converted to Christianity and was educated in Britain and the US. ''Summoned'' in the title concerns his encounter with and eventual conversion to Christianity in a predominantly Islamic world (19). ''Homecoming'' as a ''metaphor for pilgrimage'' (20) refers to his spiritual journey and the growth of his faith in God. In becoming an adherent of the Catholic Church (the ''culmination of my spiritual journey'' as he puts it), he ''had finally come home'' (252).The book has three parts. Part I describes Sanneh's early childhood in the Gambia and his upbringing as a Muslim living under British colonial occupation. Perhaps the most interesting and informative section, Part I illuminates the beauty of indigenous African cultures and the complexity of gender, family, ecology, and social relationships. For instance, Sanneh notes that the absence of mechanical toys was ''more than made up for in the organic richness of human contact and relationship'' (25). Also, African women defined the terms of gender, says Sanneh, regardless of how masculinity claimed otherwise (24). His influence from European teachers and missionaries compelled him to assert that ''the fact that we can love and think, and the earth cannot, puts us on a higher moral plane, and proves our moral affinity with truth,'' an ironic contradiction of indigenous principle that holds that no child can be higher than his or her mother, the Earth (60).Sanneh's decision to adopt the path of Christianity was compelled in part by his fascination with the story of the empty tomb connected to Jesus' resurrection. His faith conviction in the crucified and resurrected Jesus moved him to fall on his knees one day and beg God to forgive him and teach him the ways of faith in Jesus. Interestingly too, Sanneh's decision to become a Christian was rebuked by his fellow Muslims and disbelieved by the Christian clerics where he lived. His excellent performance in the British school system in the Gambia and his ties with the Christian establishment earned him a scholarship to the US, as elaborated in a chapter titled, ''New World,'' perhaps a play on the colonial term referring to