I just got home from a weekend in Brockton, Mass., in exurban Boston. I was there for the Festival of Faith at St. Paul’s, a continuing Anglican parish under the leadership of Bishop James Hiles, the rector. I can’t say enough about the hospitality of the wonderful people of that parish. They made me feel so welcome. If you live in southern Massachusetts and are looking for a church home, go visit them. I’m not going to write long about it tonight, because I’m tired after all that flying and driving in from New Orleans, and I have a load of comments to approve before bedtime. If you’ve seen your comments disappear, please know that it’s not us — it’s Disqus. Problems with Disqus have grown worse and worse. We’re working on it.

I do want to tell you about the most extraordinary thing. One of the speakers at the weekend Benedict Option conference was Bishop Emmanuel Maduwike. the ordinary of the Anglican Diocese of Ikedure, in Nigeria. The bishop earlier read The Benedict Option, and gave a really interesting response to the book on Saturday. He noted that I’d written the book for the churches in the West … but he said Nigeria has great need for the Benedict Option too. This stunned me, because everything I had heard about the Nigerian Christian churches testifies to their great strength. And that is true — but, the bishop said, Nigerian young people are being swallowed up by Western popular culture coming to them primarily through smartphones.

“You look at our young today, and you don’t know if they’re Nigerian, or American or British,” he said, explaining that the same spirit of modernity that has dissolved so much of America’s Christianity is now starting to work on the faith in his country. He also said in later remarks that the prosperity gospel is big in Nigeria, and it is making Christians there forget about the importance of suffering in authentic Gospel Christianity. This is a big, big spiritual problem, he said.

We talked afterward, and I said that I would love to see a Nigerian writer author a book about what the Ben Op would look like adapted to Nigeria’s culture. Bishop Maduwike said that given the reality of the Internet, no Christian anywhere on earth can afford to think that their country and culture is safe from liquid modernity.

At dinner last night, Bishop Hiles disclosed to us that Bishop Maduwike’s wife Anuli had been kidnapped in August, and held for four days by thugs demanding ransom. The bishop had to pay to free his wife. According to a Nigerian paper, the criminals abducted Mrs. Maduwike because the bishop launched a book the week earlier, leading them to think that he had come into a pile of money. They released her unharmed after the ransom was paid.

Everyone around the table was shocked by the thought that someone as gentle as the bishop’s wife would have to suffer through such an ordeal (though it was a relief to learn that they had treated her kindly, because her husband is a prelate; there is some honor among Nigerian thieves, apparently). Bishop Maduwike explained that Nigeria suffers immensely from corruption, and that the kidnapping was just part of a spirit of criminality that oppresses the nation.

This morning, he preached at the parish’s service. I have never heard an African pastor give a sermon. It was quite a performance. That man can preach, let me tell you! He was throwing his body into it. The rhythms, the cadences of his delivery — it was hypnotic. I sat there in my chair riveted, thinking, “That is a powerful man of God.” At the end, he sang from the pulpit a simple hymn inviting the Holy Spirit into one’s heart. His wife Anuli, sitting in the congregation, burst into a gorgeous descant, following her husband’s melody. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen or heard.

What a blessing this weekend was! I also got to meet several longtime readers of this blog. I wish the festival could have lasted an extra day, so we could all have talked longer. I took the photo of Bishop and Mrs. Maduwike at the luncheon after services. What lovely people. What joy they brought to my heart. One day, I hope my travels take me to Africa, so I can worship with the Christians there.