EMQ » Oct – Dec 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 4
Contextualization
Summary: My wife and I lived in a remote predominantly Muslim region of West Africa with few believers for more than a decade. Not long after we arrived, I faced a new challenge: contextualizing a rite of passage ceremony for a new community of Christ followers.
By John Devalve
I was perplexed and upset. “What should we do?” I thought. Plans for the first Christian naming ceremony in the region had suddenly been thrown into confusion when local religious leaders took control of the event to follow standard rituals. While I had talked with the believers beforehand, and we had planned how we would do the ceremony, events and people intervened to disrupt our plans.
In the Sahel of West Africa, baby naming ceremonies have often been held on the eighth day after birth. Traditionally, relatives and townspeople gathered on that day to celebrate the birth and learn the baby’s name. The local religious leader chose and announced the name, and a ram or goat was slaughtered to provide nourishment to the friends and family who had traveled from near and far to attend the ceremony.
After slaughtering the ram, the men prayed ritual prayers, concluding with the al-Fatihah, the first sura of the Qur’an. Meanwhile, the women gathered in the house with the mother and baby and cooed over the newborn, chanting the name of the baby in his or her ear once it was announced. Many people stuck around for the entire day to, literally and figuratively, chew the fat and share the meal. Celebrations often continued into the night.
