Andrew DeCort is an American scholar and researcher who lives and works in Ethiopia. He is the author of Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation and director of the Institute for Faith and Flourishing (iccgood.org). He has served as lecturer in ethics and theology at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. Andrew edited and wrote the Foreword to Professor Donald Levine’s Interpreting Ethiopia: Observations of Five Decades (Tsehai Press, 2014) and is the author of “Authority, Martyrdom, and the Question of Axiality in Ethiopian Political Theology.” He has travelled widely and is in contact with all levels of Ethiopian society. Ethiopia Observer has interviewed him about his life in Ethiopia and his work.

When did you move to Addis? 

I first visited Addis in the summer of 2004 as a university student. Little did I know, those two months would change my life. 

I served at the Mercy Center for children and youth, taught a course at a local college, traveled briefly in the countryside, and fell in love with the kindness, passion, and deep faith of my Ethiopian hosts. This intersection of service, academics, faith, and culture was and remains my passion. 

Since then, I’ve lived in Addis for nearly seven years and got married here in 2010. After completing my Ph.D. in Ethics at the University of Chicago, my wife and I moved back to Addis in 2016. I’ve served as a professor of ethics at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. I’m now working on encouraging young leaders to become ambassadors of neighbor-love for our shared flourishing across boundaries. This project is called the Neighbor-Love Movement and promotes a vision of seeing others as valuable and worthy of our care.  

I understand that the renowned Ethiopianist and social anthropologist, Professor Donald Levine, has been your mentor.  Was he your original link with Ethiopia?

I met Professor Levine unexpectedly three years into my relationship with Ethiopia. 

I had been offered a Presidential Fellowship at Harvard University when I applied for graduate school from Addis in 2005. But the University of Chicago was my dream school, and I declined Harvard to enroll there in 2006. That academic year, I googled “Ethiopia and UChicago” to see if there were any scholars working on Ethiopia, and Don’s name popped up. It was an incredible blessing: my dream school also happened to be home to one of the world’s leading scholars of Ethiopia. 

I emailed Professor Levine on April 18, 2007, and he replied with a warm invitation to come to his office. Don was an incredibly kind and welcoming man who deeply cared about people. His relationship with Ethiopia began when he started talking with an Ethiopian stranger on UChicago’s campus as a student in the 1950s. Isn’t it amazing how our lives can change through simple acts of kindness and communication? 

After that first office appointment, Don became a cherished mentor and friend – “Gash Liben.” He led me through three, one-on-one tutorials on Ethiopian studies, which laid the foundation for my teaching on Ethiopian religion, culture, and leadership at Wheaton College from 2014-2016. Don remained a formative presence in my life until we talked for the last time on his deathbed eight years later. 

What impressed me most about Don was not simply his vast knowledge of Ethiopian histories and cultures, as well as sociology, Aikido, classical music, and more. I was impressed by his love for Ethiopian people and his desire to see Ethiopia flourish as a multiethnic community. 

I have often wondered what Levine might say during this hopeful and unsettling time of transition in Ethiopia. I’ve tried to unpack my best guess in an article for the Ethiopian Herald entitled “Ethiopia: Ethics during Crisis – From Missed Chances to Neighbor-Love,” which discusses what I see as one of his most important essays for contemporary Ethiopia. I remain deeply grateful for the precious gift of his mentorship and friendship.    

How did you find the transition to living in a foreign country?

I agree with Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” 

Humans are human everywhere. We all share the capacity for love and indifference, truth and deception, justice and violence, hope and despair. This recognition has expanded my commitment to empathy, humility, and hope. I’ve come to believe that what unites us is deeper than what divides us, and thus we should look at each other with more love, respect, and curiosity. 

In my experience, living in a foreign country exposes us to the wonder of endless learning, the humility of your own ignorance, and the miracle of becoming family with people who were previously strangers. Living in a foreign country has also forced me to wrestle with the big questions like, “Who am I? Where do I belong? What is home? Which values and practices are truly worthwhile? Which values and practices are the result of human ignorance and arrogance?” 

Each time I return home to Addis after a trip home to Chicago, I pray the same prayer I’ve prayed since 2004: “God, make me a learner, servant, and lover.” I think learning, service, and love should be the basic posture of anyone living in a foreign country.  

What do you enjoy most about living here?

I cherish deep and enduring relationships with Ethiopian people. 

For the last fifteen years, I’ve become friends and family with people who love others and are passionately working to promote human flourishing, whether it’s through baking injera, creating jobs, doing academic research, serving street children, promoting respect for women, or making music. I consider this an extraordinary privilege. 

I’ve led a study abroad program to Ethiopia from Wheaton College (2014-2016) and the University of Bonn (2018), and each year we have dozens of rich seminars with inspiring Ethiopian leaders. Most of these people –  spanning religion, social service, journalism, politics, business, music, medicine, and other fields – are my friends, and I have tremendous respect for them. I would love to find a way to make this program available for Ethiopian students because our seminars are so diverse and rich. I think it could promote creative education and peacemaking in Ethiopia.

The kindness and courage of Ethiopian people is extraordinary, and I feel extremely grateful to share life with these people and the wider community. Of course, I also enjoy injera and the dazzling beauty of the Ethiopian countryside.  

What is the hardest thing about living here?

I grew up in a city called East Aurora outside Chicago. Aurora had many problems, including racism, drug dealing, and gang violence. Perhaps this context is why I care so much about ethics! Every city has unique strengths and challenges; no city is perfect. 

One of the challenges that I find hardest about living in Addis is the apparent cheapness of human life. We daily see so many impoverished children, women, and elders in our streets. People are routinely exploited and neglected. We easily become numb to others’ suffering. 

I believe that each one of these people is made by God and is of precious value. Some of the people who have most profoundly changed my life in Addis were suffering in the streets when I met them. Two of them are Wudenesh and Eyob (stories shared with permission). 

I believe the way we see others produces the society we see. If we see people as cheap, we will tolerate poverty. If we see people as worthless, we will tolerate violence. My passion is to promote a vision in which we see and treat every person as a beloved neighbor, and thus do what we can to promote human dignity and flourishing for the common good. 

My dream is to open a center that hosts public lectures, dialogues, short courses, and community service focused on the precious value of human life and our shared identity as neighbors, no matter who we are. In Addis, it’s easy to find restaurants, clubs, and sex. But it’s hard to find a platform that consistently offers rich, imaginative thinking and conversation about what it means to be human and how to flourish. As the capital of Ethiopia, the diplomatic capital of Africa, and home to four million neighbors, Addis Ababa needs such a center. I’m hoping to meet more people who would be willing to help me chase this vision.

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