Chinua Achebe’s 1951 story, “In a Village Church,” is a humorous sketch that highlights how a rural Igbo community has manipulated Christian liturgical conventions in sometimes subtle ways to suit their own cultural priorities. Critical readers tend to see this piece as yet another examination of the incompatibility of Western Christianity and indigenous African cultures (e.g. Carroll 154; Innes 10; Scafe 119–120). I disagree. Rather, I see this sketch as an early exploration of the extent to which, already by the mid-twentieth century, an on-going process of contextualization was transforming Christianity into what Simon Gikandi has called “a crucial part of the social and cultural fabric” of contemporary African societies across the continent (112). The setting, as the title indicates, is a village as opposed to a city. In colonial situations cities are usually the sites of contact between indigenous and colonizing cultures and are populated with the urbanized, the displaced, and the marginalized; individuals often alienated from the society and culture that nurtured them. The village, in contrast, is the heart of tradition, its home and nurturing sanctuary. By setting his narrative in a village similar to the one in which he was raised, where Sunday church attendance has become part of the weekly rhythms of communal life with “the villagers—men, women, and children— stream[ing] into the church” at the summons of the bell (74), Achebe emphasizes how Christianity has already become an integral part of local culture. The characters, too, are rural people. The narrator, though well-educated and versed in both scripture and English poetry, is nevertheless a son of the village. The preacher, in turn, is an indigene rather than a foreign missionary, a detail consistent with Church Missionary Society practices of Achebe’s youth and one that suggests this Christian community is already self-sustaining. The congregants, as well, are not simply recent converts responding with enthusiasm to “new ... and as yet not fully absorbed, cultural practice[s],” as Suzanne Scafe suggests (120). Rather, they are a mixture of the devoutly pious alongside those less enthusiastic for whom the practice of the faith has become

中文翻译：

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“社会和文化结构的重要组成部分”：基督教和奇努阿·阿契贝的“乡村教堂”

Chinua Achebe 1951 年的故事“在乡村教堂里”是一个幽默的素描，突出了一个农村伊博社区如何以有时微妙的方式操纵基督教礼仪惯例，以适应他们自己的文化优先事项。批判性读者倾向于将这篇文章视为对西方基督教与非洲土著文化不兼容的又一次考察（例如 Carroll 154；Innes 10；Scafe 119-120）。我不同意。相反，我认为这幅草图是对到 20 世纪中叶，正在进行的情境化过程在多大程度上将基督教转变为西蒙·吉坎迪所说的“社会和文化结构的关键部分”的早期探索。 ”整个大陆的当代非洲社会（112）。正如标题所示，环境是一个村庄而不是一个城市。在殖民情况下，城市通常是土著文化和殖民文化接触的场所，居住着城市化者、流离失所者和边缘化者；个人往往与养育他们的社会和文化疏远。相比之下，村庄是传统的核心，是它的家园和养育圣地。通过将他的叙述置于一个与他长大的村庄相似的村庄，在那里周日教堂出席已成为每周社区生活节奏的一部分，“村民——男人、女人和孩子——涌入教堂”在钟声（74）中，阿契贝强调基督教已经成为当地文化不可分割的一部分。人物也是农村人。叙述者虽然受过良好教育，精通圣经和英文诗歌，不过是村里的儿子。反过来，传教士是一名本土传教士，而不是外国传教士，这一细节与阿契贝青年时期教会传教士协会的做法一致，表明这个基督教社区已经能够自我维持。正如苏珊娜·斯卡夫 (Suzanne Scafe) 所建议的那样，会众也不仅仅是对“新的……但尚未完全吸收的文化实践[s]”热情回应的新近皈依者 (120)。相反，他们是虔诚的虔诚者和不那么热心的人的混合体，他们对信仰的实践已经成为 正如 Suzanne Scafe 所建议的那样，不仅仅是最近的皈依者对“新的......但尚未完全吸收的文化实践[s]”做出热情回应（120）。相反，他们是虔诚的虔诚者和不那么热心的人的混合体，他们对信仰的实践已经成为 正如 Suzanne Scafe 所建议的那样，不仅仅是最近的皈依者对“新的......但尚未完全吸收的文化实践[s]”做出热情回应（120）。相反，他们是虔诚的虔诚者和不那么热心的人的混合体，他们对信仰的实践已经成为