Africa needs God?....

I've been getting peeved at the over-use of Matthew Parris' recent Times article, "As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God," by evangelicals in church sermons. If you missed it then Google it but essentially he has done a confessional piece saying that his experience of mission work in Africa confounds him as a diehard athiest. " I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa" he writes.

His main interest is not so much in the cause but the effect leading him to conclude "a whole belief system must first be supplanted."

An unbelieving colleague was appalled and made this blistering critique which I find hard to challenge:
"Unfortunately this article doesn't really go into that debate but peddles some really racist stuff - I'm suprised it was allowed to be published and surprised at Matthew Parris. Traditionally in parts of Africa people don't look you in the eye as it's seen as a mark of disrespect - those who do are likely to do it because they have been around lots of Western people, not necessarily christians. Africa has
had a lot of crap imposed on it from the West - and I would argue Western democracy was one of them. Democracy in the west took centuries to develop along with the civil society that shaped it. Imposing democracy on other cultures has undermined traditional systems some of which are much closer to the true concept of democracy. The idea that as Mr Parris suggests we should now "supplant a whole belief system"
completely appalls me - he must have missed the whole climate change debate if he thinks the west still has good ideas for the rest of humanity.