Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered

Prof's Opinion

Donovan, a missionary to the Masai people of eastern Africa, is a terrific storyteller and accessible writer. His focus on Christianity among unreached African villages makes concrete much of the abstract course material on creation, Jesus Christ, and the church as well as Newbigin's missional focus. And it's easy (and important) to apply his observations on contextualization to our own globalized post-Christian context rather than just relegating them to pre-Christian audiences.

Student Reviews (basically unedited)

As I read Christianity Rediscovered, I truly did see my faith in a new light along with Donovan. And, as it should, the Gospel humbled me. In this book, Donovan explains how he witnessed to the Masai and how that forced him to reframe missionary work itself. His main question is this: how do we separate Western culture and presuppositions from the pure and true Gospel itself, when Christianity and the West have been interlocked for so long, so that we can faithfully offer the Gospel to the people of the world? If you are at all interested in the practicalities and intricacies of missions, then you should read this. If you find yourself thinking about missions in a self-serving, opportunistic way, then you should read this. If you find yourself conflating Western practices with Christianity itself, then you should read this. Frankly, I would recommend this book to anyone who calls themselves a Christian, especially in the U.S. Readers should expect to gain a genuine appreciation for and understanding of a culture different from the one we partake in here. I learned that other people groups truly might be living out their faith in a way that is more genuine and wholehearted than ours is; in conveying this, Donovan was never infantilizing or condescending toward the Masai. Western individualism and organization has detrimentally affected the way that we evangelize, for people like the Masai must be evangelized in communities and allowed to organize (ie. build priesthoods) however God, rather than the Western church, leads them to. Readers should also be prepared to be humbled by God's role in culture and in people's hearts. Donovan argues that we must see the capabilities and dignity of people who are other than our own. Groups like the Masai do not need to be "civilized" or "made ready" for the Gospel! They see God already even if they don't know Him by name and God Himself loves them! We must rethink missionary work as a task that should not involve colonization or ethnocentrism, but as a task that is Gospel-centered and challenge us, even in the way we think about Christianity and wrongfully construct it ourselves today.

Christianity Rediscovered reflects on his journey to the Masai tribes in Africa to share the gospel to unknowing ears. Donovan casts off the cultural expectation of the western world and enters into the original role of apostleship where he can take up peoples culture as he travels spreading the good news. As Donovan travels, he plants churches and encourages the people to step up and take charge of their Church according to their cultural identity. This book reveals the global nature of Christianity, and the impact of accepting instead of assimilating people into the unified Church. Donovan challenges people to question their perspectives, tasks, and missionary goals in order to understand the truth of the gospel and gather all people together. Reading Christianity Rediscovered revolutionized my view on the modern American church, and laid the foundation for me discovering a world of faith outside my own. In the culture we live in today where diversity struggles to makes its first steps towards unity, Donovan leads the way in revealing how to break down stigmas and live in the gathering of all God’s people. I would recommend this book to any follower of Christ who intends on living missionally, but also to the believers who want to grow diversity and understanding in their local mission.

Vincent Donovan uses his work to remove preconceptions from the way the Western culture defines Christianity and replace it with the essential and foundation message of the gospel. This book is based on Donovan’s experience with mission work in Africa. Donovan’s thesis is centered on de-culturing the gospel. He reminds the reader that the world’s understanding and view of the Christian faith has become so skewed and complicated that one must be reminded to focus on where it all began, with Jesus Christ. The Christian story must be based on history. Donovan believes wholeheartedly in giving people the freedom to choose what they want to believe. He explains that “Christianity must be presented in a way that it can be rejected,” (Donovan, p. 82). The Western culture is blessed with the ability to hear about the gospel and make their own choice about what to believe, but the whole world isn’t like that. Everyone deserves to make the choice for themselves. Donovan doesn’t completely bash cultural Christianity. He explains that the gospel can’t just be “supracultural” but also must be “transcultural” (Donovan, p. 37). Christianity shouldn’t defined by each individual culture but is faithfully expressed in unique ways throughout each culture. I recommend this book for anyone interested in mission work or anyone who is frustrated with the misconceptions and cultural stereotypes of the Christian faith. I also recommend it for those who wish to rediscover the beauty and power of the gospel.

A provoking read. Christianity Rediscovered is about a missionary’s journey to the Maasai and his understanding of what it meant to give them the gospel message.
There are themes in this book that readily challenge the readily understood version of missionary journeys. Although it can be seen as a case study in the people of a different country, there is a significance to Christian readers that centers missions at its paradigm: to preach the gospel and to never cease. It also promotes a new idea of the ways in which Christians specifically act and respond to the symbols and culture of a secular world.
I believe that this book succeeds in rendering the apostolic journey of a Christian, and challenges prior notions of missions. It handles the role of acting in a secular sphere in a way that is relevant to all Christians, but my favorite part is how it traces the story of a particular man, who tried and sometimes failed to convert people to Christianity.
Church is a movement, and it would do good to take note that there is no church that can actively maintain itself if it is seen as a rooted government or an institution that is planted. We are like a wind that moves from one place to the next. There is transience in our situation, and I don’t think I will ever forget that about this book. 8/10

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan is unlike anything I have ever read. It brings the unfamiliar of a distant culture so close that you feel you are breathing the same air. In this incredibly well-written book, Donovan details his life-changing ministry among the Masai people of Kenya, which surprisingly becomes a time of ministry for himself as well. As it turns out, Donovan experiences a beautiful strengthening and stretching of his own faith while ministering in East Africa. God knew exactly what He was doing. I invite you to discover the happenings behind such a transformation in the pages of Christianity Rediscovered. I hesitate to share more about this book because it is truly worth every minute to witness God’s miraculous work in a man’s life, regardless of your spiritual background. You never know, perhaps this book is exactly the kind of encouragement you have been needing.

Christianity Rediscovered, by Vincent J. Donovan, is a wonderful combination of a missionary’s biography, a probing exploration of the biblical idea of “mission”, and a new perspective on what it actually means to be a church. Donovan provides a humble account of his spiritual and intellectual journey throughout the years he spent as a missionary in to the Masai people in Tanzania. By providing specific examples of people he knew during his life there, he is successful in humanizing pagan religions, and perhaps humbling the Western assumption that any different religious approach is necessarily inferior. The discussion of the true meaning of the priestly office is also worth a careful reading and contemplation. Though his account is fascinating from an intellectual perspective, it also has profound implications for the Christian walk, and asks deep questions about the relationship between Western culture and the nature of the true Church. Christianity Rediscovered also provides a firm critique of the negative aspects of the modern-day Western church, and offers a vision of evangelism built upon the idea of community, something the West seems to be in desperate need of. I highly recommend Donovan’s work to anyone who questions the exclusive structure of Christianity in the West, as he provides an alternative view of the unadulterated Gospel, adaptable to any culture and essential to all people. Christianity Rediscovered is an account of hope that comes directly from the power of God to unite and renew his creation, and an important read for anyone interested in missions or even local evangelism.

Vincent Donovan, a Catholic priest and missionary, accounts his time evangelizing the Masai tribe in Tanzania. After spending time in the Missions established by the Catholic church in East Africa over 100 years ago, Donovan notices that while advancements have been made in the areas of education and medicine, the message of the Gospel has not been received by the local people. Alarmed by this reality, Donovan takes it upon himself to take the Gospel and only the Gospel to the Masai tribes following the example of Paul the Apostle found in the New Testament. Through teaching and dialogue, he attempts to detach the gospel from Western culture and communicate its essence to the tribes. He gains insight into what is considered the church and appropriate liturgy and finds that many of the church’s traditions and rituals are highly cultural. Christianity in a different culture and context looks very different from its sending culture. He reflects on the beauty of culture and of finding where God is already working within a culture; it is important to let a culture embrace the Christian faith in its unique and authentic way. He tackles the important questions of priesthood within a new Christian community and the celebration of the Eucharist. He challenges Western culture in its growing secularization and the church in its history of missionary practices. Enter into a journey through Masai Land and missionary efforts that will make a lasting impact on how you and the church today view cross-cultural missions. 

This took my back to my junior year of high school when I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Achebe discussed the downside of evangelization in Africa and how it destroyed the way of life for the tribespeople. I appreciated the fact that Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan did not pretend the evangelization of African peoples was entirely civil and ethical. In the beginning Donovan addresses the early mistakes of missionary work before exploring its evolution in modern times. I think it is important that those who actively participate in mission work or have interest in mission work read Christianity Rediscovered. This book gives a detailed account on missionary work and its beauty of integrating people. To truly evangelize is not to live in separation,but to live as one another to further understanding as a union of cultures like Donovan and the Masai tribe. The biggest thing someone can gain reading this is understanding in the sense that educating missionaries and exploring the issue that there is a wrong way to participate in missions can have a tremendous impact. I do not think I could think of a specific demographic of people that would not like to read this book, but I would say this book is an eye opener.

Vincent J Donovan’s Christianity Rediscovered is Donovan’s reflection on his mission to Tanzania and what he learned there. Donovan, being a Catholic priest, reflects on the issues within the catholic missionary compounds, and on the Vatican II (I have never heard of this before, Catholics may have) He discusses how despite being there for over a hundred years, the missionary compounds have barely converted anyone, and the flaws behind their models. He discusses the culture of the Masai people, and how he has to adapt his methods of spreading the gospel to them. This can seem odd at times, as he endorses integrating local customs into Christian fellowship (They pass around a wad of grass among the entire tribe before communion) and careful interpretation is needed to make sure that this is not interpreted as an alteration of scripture. Despite this Donovan does a good job of conveying the need to preach the Gospel, free from a cultural context, or strategies that get in the way of missions. In his ministry, Donovan reduces the idea of missions from things that while good are not The Gospel (hospitals, schools, etc.) to just preaching the gospel until a self-sustaining population of converts is reached and then moving on.

In this book, Donovan recounts his travels to Tanzania as a Roman Catholic priest working as a missionary among the Masai people in the second half of the 20ht century.  His goal was to approach the Masai people who were the “toughest of the tough” (pg 12) when it came to evangelism, and to meet them on their own ground and find out where the gospel was in their culture.  He did so because he had become disenchanted with the missionary structures of the time and wished to leave his predisposed position in order to see the gospel through other lenses. Instead of following the western ideas of how to spread the gospel, Donovan wanted to explore sharing the gospel based solely on biblical examples such as Paul.  And it worked. He recounts the deeply insightful story of how questioning the long-standing missionary practices led him to successfully share the gospel with the Masai in a meaningful, powerful way. Reading this book would be beneficial to all, but specifically to those who question our current missionary styles and wonder how we might improve them.  My own family has always emphasized cross-cultural missions, and I myself have been wondering these things for the past year or more. This book is in my opinion an incredible example of how we today should be conducting missions. It is so interesting to see the ways in which Donovan responds to the hard questions raised by the Masai and his honest thoughts expressed in writing.  He reminds the Christian community of the benefit brought by re-viewing the gospel through a different culture’s eyes.

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan opens up a conversation into the effectiveness of mission and ways that it can be bettered. He uses personal stories of his time working with the Masai people and his struggles in trying to reveal the gospel to them. Donovan’s ability to weave his own stories with biblical references makes this book easy to follow and understand. Of the books that I read, this one was my favorite because of the stories included. I always resonate more when I can see examples of what the author is trying to get across and see that they actually have lived out the things that they are saying. I especially resonated with Donovan because I have visited a Masai tribe on the border of Kenya and Tanzania in the Masai Mara. I was even better able to imagine the language and culture barriers that Donovan faced in trying to show them the gospel. I liked how Donovan wasn’t afraid to criticize the popular view of mission and his desire to draw back on Paul’s idea of mission. I would definitely recommend this book to someone who wants to be involved in short or long term missions as well as someone who just wants to know more about the intricacies of missions.

Missionary Vincent J. Donovan does a fantastic job of challenging the reader’s preconceptions of what mission ought to look like, especially in foreign countries which have not yet had much exposure to the gospel.[3] Donovan challenges Western Christian Creeds, reflecting Protestantism in his radical look towards Biblical authority as the ultimate authority in dictating how one ought to go out and preach the good news of Jesus. Donovan succeeds in this novel in demonstrating how Christianity has been adapted to the culture of the Masai tribes-people of Tanzania. Their Christian practice looks very different than Western Christianity, but Donovan does a good job of explaining why he explains certain parts of the faith to the Masai in the way that he does. Thus, by spending much time reflecting what is essential to Christianity, he is successful in both challenging the Church’s mission abroad and locally. Thus, in Santa Barbara life while attending Westmont, Donovan speaks to us, urging us to share the good news and to live an active faith. Donovan does in some points of his novel get into rather meaty theological topics, therefore, for the average reader, at some points in the novel simply pushing through the words is required to return to the intelligible. Regardless, Donovan’s ability to speak to theologians, missionaries, and simple members of congregations, makes Christianity Rediscovered a very worthwhile read. Reading this novel at the end of the semester allows for the implications learned in Christian doctrine to be seen as being practically lived out by Donovan. Thus, I would highly recommend this book, despite its difficulty.

Vincent J. Donovan focuses on his evangelism to the Masai people in East Africa and the lessons he learned about the Church’s role in missionary work. Donovan highlights East African missionaries in the 1960’s and 70’s created some problematic missionary trends such as a mainly child-oriented evangelism, neglected liturgy, low amounts of African clergy, emphasis on individual salvation, and creating congregations with unnecessary dependence on outside sources (7-8). Donovan claims the main problem with missionary work is its aim is to bring “aid to developing countries, material help to these countries without any strings attached. Conversion [is] out of the question” (10). Donovan emphasizes the importance of respecting the group’s culture and allowing Christianity to fit into their culture, not overhauling it (24). The Church’s mission is often interpreted as church planting and convincing the world of sin, but rather missionaries should be teaching redemption and forgiveness from sin through God’s grace (41-47). The Church’s main goal should be focusing outward towards the world rather than inwards towards themselves (79). I had often wondered why mission work is seen as bringing materials, building houses, or offering physical help, but without any evangelism. Donovan takes the opposite approach, evangelism without any physical aid. He brings the scriptures, teaches them thoroughly, answers questions, and then, asks if the group wants to accept Christ. This is an important point Christians need to understand. Donovan believes mission work, as it stands, is individualistic and should be seen as an outward movement, not inward. This book would be interesting for someone who has participated in mission trips and wonders how teaching the gospel corresponds with it. People who haven’t been on mission trips would also enjoy the book because it details examples of East African mission work, the format of how mission usually goes, and how we can change this system towards a more biblical interpretation. I think this book would be particularly applicable to youth or church leaders as well as congregation members because it questions what mission work we should be supporting and encouraging as a church.