Special Forum • A Critical Evaluation 15

display is deeply connected to how they see the world around them, and their place in that world. In a similar spirit, display case #17 in the current exhibition asks us to look at postcards from the past, and to use them to deduce European and missionary views of Africans from the era in which they were produced.

One question we can ask ourselves of this exhibition, then, is not simply what does it tell us about African Christianity in the past, but what does it tell us about the mental and physical worlds we all inhabit in the present? In other words, what does this exhibition say to us (and others) about ourselves? There have been, after all, plenty of displays about African Christianity – some of which have included African Christians – in the West. What is it about this exhibition that captures the religious, intellectual, social, material, and spatial peculiarities of our own day and age? Located in the USA, how is this exhibition very much also about American Christian thought and practice? The easy, and wrong, way to proceed would be to try and figure out what the curator had in mind when she put this exhibit together. Borrowing an image recognizable in places as diverse as Kenya and Korea, as Alaska and Australia, the curator is, in a very real sense, simply the medium that has channeled the spirit of our age. As the audience for the work of this spirit medium, our own appreciation of and satisfaction with this exhibition and its explanations of African church life are evidence of how wonderfully and correctly she has channeled us. So, the fact that the exhibit emphasizes the international and transnational dimension of African Christianity reflects our own globalized age, and the highlighting of the Kimbanguist Church and the African Orthodox Church reflects our own religious situation where the rapid reshaping and even invention of religious traditions is quite commonplace. Most importantly, the fact that we are having an exhibit of African Christianity in this time and place reflects our growing appreciation of Africa’s importance in the worldwide expressions of Christianity.

The next step, of course, would be to historicize ourselves just as we historicize the past – in other words, to carry out the exercise encouraged in display case #17 for the whole exhibit itself. What might future generations say about this exhibition? Noticeably lacking in the display, for example, is any sign of conflict within African Christianity – except for the case of South Africa so powerfully represented. The conflicts in the exhibition involve Europe and Africa (this is even, in some ways, the case with South Africa). Such critical historicizing is not the work of the spirit medium of our age – she has accomplished her performance with virtuosity. This work comes afterwards, for all of us, as we ponder our own place in representing the histories of African Christianity, which have been so wonderfully presented here and now.