Nigerian urban cities 来自翻吧 00:00 03:48

THE NEW church in Redemption City is only half-built. Already this great aeroplane hangar of a building measures 1.5km by 1km. Compared with it, Tesla’s “gigafactory” is a poky warehouse and St Peter’s Basilica is a quaint parish church. Yet the church is not the most extraordinary thing about Redemption City.

救赎之城的新教堂只建了一半。这个飞机机库大小的建筑有1.5公里长，1公里宽。相比之下，特斯拉的“超级工厂”就是一个简陋仓库，而圣彼得大教堂就是一个古色古香的教区教堂。然而，这个新教堂并不是救赎之城最引人注目的风景。

In 1983 Enoch Adejare Adeboye, a former maths professor who had become General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, acquired a small patch of land north of Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city. At first it was used for occasional prayer meetings. But as the church grew into one of the world’s largest under Mr Adeboye’s charismatic leadership, the prayer camp turned into a permanent settlement. Today about 12,000 people live in Redemption City, which sprawls over at least 2,500 hectares. The population is expected to double by 2036.

1983年，前数学教授伊诺克阿德波耶(Enoch Adejare Adeboye)曾是救赎主基督教会的总督导，在尼日利亚最大城市拉各斯(Lagos)北部买了一小块地。起初，人们在这块土地上建起的教堂里祈祷集会。不过，在阿德波耶的领导下，教堂成为世界上最大的教会之一，祈祷营则变成了一个永久的住处。如今，大约有12000人住在救赎之城，现在至少占地2500公顷，预计到2036年人口将翻一番。

Most African cities are messy, especially around the edges. Suburban roads are invariably crooked, unpaved and unsigned. Houses are plonked down wherever people can acquire land. Many homes are half-built, because their owners have no land titles and so cannot take out mortgages. To deter scammers, some of them are spray-painted with messages like: “This property is not for sale. Beware fraud”.

大多数非洲城市的社会秩序混乱，尤其是郊区地带。郊区的道路弯弯曲曲、没有砌块、也没有路标。人们能购买土地的地方，房屋都损坏了。许多房屋只建了一半，就废弃了，因为房屋主人没有土地所有权，无法获得贷款。为了预防图谋不轨的人，多处房子喷上了这样的文字:“本房产是非卖品。小心诈骗”。

In Redemption City the streets form a grid. The roads are signed, with names like Hallelujah Close and Praise Close. Some have speed bumps—things that would be wholly redundant on a normal African road. Every plot is the same size: 21.3 metres by 21.3 metres. There are few half-built houses, because the church checks that families have enough money to complete them, and sets a strict time limit. All the homes are in gated communities, numbering 15 so far.

在救赎之城，街道成网格状。道路上设有路标，如哈利路亚街和赞美街等路名。有些路还设有减速带——其实这在普通的非洲公路上纯属多余。每个减速带面积一样：21.3米长，21.3米宽。这几乎见不到未建成的房子，因为教会会核查每家每户盖房的钱够不够，同时设置了严格的盖房时间。所有的房子建在安全的社区里，目前共有15个社区。

Everything tends to work. Whereas Lagos hums with diesel generators, Redemption City has a steady electricity supply from a small gas-fired power station. It also has its own water supply. “We make life easy,” says Pastor Fola Sanusi, the man in charge of Redemption City’s growth. The city also makes rules, of the kind that could never be enforced in the hurly-burly of Lagos. “No parking, no waiting, no trading, no hawking”, reads one sign.

一切都很顺利。当拉各斯还在广泛使用柴油发电机的时候，救赎之城已从一个小型燃气发电厂获得了稳定的电力供应。它还有自己的供水系统。“我们让生活变得轻松，”负责城市发展的牧师Fola Sanusi说。该市还制定了法规，而这些法规在喧闹的拉各斯绝对永远无法执行。一个标识牌上写着:“禁止停车、不准等待、不准买卖、不准叫卖”。

In theory, Redemption City is for members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. When a family wants to move away, it is supposed to sell its house to the church, which will sell it on to a suitably pious person. Each house is supposed to have a “mission room” for the use of a church worker. In practice, however, the properties seem to be finding their way onto commercial estate agents’ websites.

理论上，救赎之城专属于上帝救赎的基督教会成员。当有人想搬走时，应该把房子卖回给教堂，再由教堂把房子转卖给合适的信徒。每栋房子都应该有一个“传教室”，供教会工作人员使用。然而，实际上，这些房产似乎正在进入商业地产中介的网站。

It is an odd place but not entirely exceptional. On the road between Redemption City and Lagos, other Pentecostal churches, such as the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, are building godly cities of their own. In Lagos, the large Deeper Life Bible Church has constructed traffic lights and a bridge, and has turned some parishioners into traffic wardens. Pentecostal Christianity has already remade many Africans’ spiritual lives. Now it is remaking their cities.

这是一个奇怪的地方，但并不完全让人意外。在救赎之城和拉各斯之间的道路上，还有五旬节派教堂，如Mountain of Fire和Miracles Ministries，正在建造他们自己的神圣城市。在拉各斯， large Deeper Life Bible教堂建造了交通灯和一座桥，一些教区居民变成了交通管理所。五旬节基督教重塑了许多非洲人的精神生活。现在他们正在重建他们的城市。

编译：秦杜鹃

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人（2018.10.20）

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