Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. Why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.

“Mr Brown’s successor was the Reverand James Smith, and he was a very different kind of man.  He condemned openly Mr Brown’s policy of compromise and accommodation.  He saw things as black and white. And black was evil.  He saw the world as a battlefield in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness.  He spoke in sermons about sheep and goats and about wheat and tears.  He believed in slaying the prophets of Baal. 

Mr Smith was greatly distressed by the ignorance which many of his flock showed even in such things as the trinity and the sacraments.  It only showed that they were seeds sown on a rocky soil.  Mr Brown had thought of nothing but numbers.  He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds.  Our Lord himself stressed the importance of fewness.  Narrow is the way and few the number.  To fill the Lords holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamouring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence.  Our Lord who used the whip only once in his life to drive the crowd away from his church.

Within a few weeks of his arrival in Umuofia Mr Smith suspended a young woman from the church for pouring new wine into old bottles.  This woman had allowed her heathen husband to mutilate her dead child….

Mr Smith was filled with wrath when he heard of this.  He disbelieved the story which even some of the most faithful confirmed, the story of really evil children who were not deterred by mutilation, but came back with all the scars.  He replied that such stories were spread in the world by the Devil to lead men astray.  Those who believed such stories were unworthy of the Lords table.” pg 135

This is the passage from  Things Fall Apart that I found most annoying and sickening. As a missionary kid in Iran Jaya surrounded by pioneer missionaries and their successors, the appalling way Mr Smith handled the new Christians of Igbo makes me mad. The dutiful and persistent work, and the patience and collaborative evangelism of pioneer missionary Mr Brown is lost the instance his replacement Mr Smith arrives.  With his fancy words, daunting metaphors, and deep theology this man clearly needs to revisit his missiology textbook.  These people are just starting to learn about God where their beliefs and culture are being flipped over, before they are scared away or banished by Mr Smith.  I have some compassion for Okonkwo, he is violent and abusive but so is his culture, to a lesser extent.  Mr Smith however does not represent Christianity at all.  How dare he banish the young woman? How dare he turn people away from God by telling them the lie that God doesn’t want them if they aren’t perfect?  ‘They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.’ 1 Timothy 1:7 NIV