Classic Book of the Month

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 7th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month.

The book is called Things Fall Apart, by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and published in 1958. The book contains some concerning aspects, but Christians can benefit from his insights—especially when paired with a new Nigerian author who shines a light on Achebe’s blind spots.

AUDIOBOOK: Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: That’s Peter Francis James reading the first sentences of Things Fall Apart. It’s Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel, and our Classic Book of the Month for February. If most of what you know about African culture comes from Marvel’s Black Panther, Achebe’s book will be an eye-opener.

For one thing, the hero, Okonkwo, is no Prince T’Challa. Yes, he is hard working, skilled, and strong. But he’s also a brutal warrior who beats his wives and children. The narrator tells us:

AUDIOBOOK: Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

The book also shows us the strengths and weaknesses of Okonkwo’s culture. The Igbo people honor wisdom, age, and a strong work ethic. The clan’s pagan beliefs also lead to horrible sin, even murder at times. In this clip, one of Okonkwo’s friends reflects on the earth goddess’s requirement that all twins be killed.

AUDIOBOOK: The earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed. And if the clan did not exact punishment for an offense to the goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just the offender.

The main plot follows Okonkwo’s goal to become a great man in his home country. In the last third of the book, ultimately “things fall apart” for Okonkwo because of British aggression. In this clip, British colonizers brutally imprison Okonkwo and several other leaders, withholding food and water until they submit to British authority.

AUDIOBOOK: As soon as the district commissioner left, the head messenger who was also the prisoners’ barber, took down his razor and shaved off all the hair on the men’s heads. They were still hand-cuffed, and they just sat, and moped. Who is the chief among you? The court messengers asked in jest. 

Christians should be aware that many today embrace the book for its anti-colonial stance. It fits with critical theories about race that always see white men as oppressors.

That said, the book contains more than liberal propaganda. In 2008, Achebe told Jeremy Brown of PBS that he wanted to speak for his culture, but he also wanted to present Africa honestly.

ACHEBE: Young as I was, I knew that I wanted the story to be true. I wanted it to be seen in all its grandeur and all its weakness.

Achebe gives us an insider’s look at pagan Africans cut off from God, plagued by real demons, but still reflecting the image of their Creator in many ways. Still, he gets some things wrong about British colonialism—especially missionaries.

An upcoming book called Darwin Comes to Africa offers a clearer view. Sadly, its author, Olufemi Oluniyi, died last year. But John West of the Discovery Institute is helping to publish Oluniyi’s book later this month.

WEST: So the key thrust of Olufemi's book is that the colonial policies in Nigeria, but also more widely in Africa, were driven by this scientific racism that viewed black Africans as lower on the evolutionary scale than whites.

Achebe wrestles with the role of missionaries, portraying some of them as harmful and others as harmless. But he completely ignores the role of Darwinian evolution. In contrast, Olufemi Oluniyi documents the critical ways missionaries and African Christians fought against the Darwinian racism of British leaders.

WEST: Many of the most active christian missionaries were the only white Westerners who were standing against this sort of vile social darwinism and advocating for human equality and advocating for well, things like school and education for, for all Nigerians, let alone hospitals and other things.

Like Achebe, Oluniyi lived under colonialism and encountered racism in his life. But he also knew that an evolutionary worldview can’t provide the solution for racism. Here’s West reading from Darwin Comes to Africa.

WEST: Darwin's theory of evolution posited the natural world as a place where the fittest survive and the less fit, decline and die. If this is indeed the case, thought Darwin's contemporaries and indeed many of our own, then who are we to battle nature herself? Why should the Britain not manipulate, oppress, and exploit the Nigerian? After all, the fact that he can do so surely proved that he is right to do so. He is fulfilling his very destiny as decreed by nature herself.

Our Classic Book of the Month, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe isn’t perfect. Besides a non-Christian worldview, it contains violence and pagan religious practices. But the question implied in Achebe’s story is well worth savoring: Why do things “fall apart” in our lives—and our culture? And when they do, how can we put them back together again?

These are complex questions that God’s people wrestle with throughout Scripture. But I’m reminded of Jeremiah’s words to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian: “...you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.”

I’m Emily Whitten.

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