African Pentecostalism and World Christianity. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ people were convicted to stop drinking beer. See Isichei, “Soul of Fire”; Tasie, Christian Missionary Enterprise.

      72. Mongo Beti’s classic novel, The Poor Christ of Bomba, narrates an excellent story that reflects the complex relationship between mission and colonialism. However, this is a theme that has been explored to a great depth by many scholars in the past century. See Beti, Poor Christ of Bomba. I would also refer the reader to Robert, Converting Colonialism. Another good resource is Carey, God’s Empire.

      73. Andrews, “Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered,” 663.

      74. Silverman, “Indians, Missionaries, and Religious Translation,” 144.

      75. Isichei, “Soul of Fire,” 24.

      76. Anderson, African Reformation.

      77. Anderson, African Reformation, 7. He adds that the World Christian Encyclopedia put the figure at eighty three million, and this only highlights the problematic nature of these statistics, especially when they have to do with Christianity in Africa.

      78. 151 million for Independents plus 29 million for Unaffiliateds. Zurlo and Johnson, “Religious Demographies of Africa,” 155. Both Pentecostals and African independent churches are included in this figure, and that makes the figure seem rather conservative. This is part of the challenge of depending on Western categories to explore African Christianity.

      79. Shepperson and Price, Independent African.

      80. Strohbehn, Pentecostalism in Malawi.

      81. John Gatu’s request for a moratorium on Western missionaries in Africa in 1971 was inspired by the process of political decolonization that swept through sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s. See Reese, “John Gatu and the Moratorium on Missionaries.”

      82. For example, the Kimbanguist Church has a significant presence in Belgium. The Apostolic Church of Zimbabwe has several congregations in England.

      83. Kwiyani, Sent Forth, 110.

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      From/To the Ends of the Earth

      Mission in the Spirit

      Kirsteen Kim

      Dr. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu is known in World Christianity especially for his sympathetic studies of African Pentecostalism. Many studies of Pentecostalism have explained it in purely sociological terms, or criticized it using Western theological categories. However, Asamoah-Gyadu offers cultural and theological explanations drawn from his expertise in African Traditional Religion and African spiritualities. His thick description helps to set issues of power encounter, prosperity, and other criticisms of African Christianity within a broader context of the reinvention of the church in Africa by Africans which takes as its paradigm the experience of the church at Pentecost. As such, Asamoah-Gyadu is able to present new theological insights from a vigorous part of world Christianity to the other parts.

      In honor of Dr. Asamoah-Gyadu’s work and following its spirit, I will re-read the Pentecost narrative and the Book of Acts in a way which is informed by the study of mission and world Christianity. First, reflecting on Pentecost and its aftermath in Acts, I will offer a new model of the apostolicity of the church. Second, I will suggest that the interface of mission—sending to the ends of the earth—and world Christianity—described as from the ends of the earth—offers a new way of understanding the church’s catholicity. Both these moves contribute to a de-centering of Europe in world Christianity.

      Mission in the Spirit: A New Approach to Apostolicity

      Pentecost: From/to the Ends of the Earth

The annual report for 2013–2014 of the Evangelische Missionswerk in Deutschland (EMW), which brings together the Protestant churches and missions in Germany, took as its title for a study of world mission “From the Ends of the Earth.”84 It derived this title from the record of the diaspora Jews gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2:5). But as we know, the Pentecost event is more readily seen as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to his disciples: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The problem with that verse today, after more than five hundred years of Christendom, is that “To the ends of the earth” sounds suspiciously like the colonial paradigm of mission in which missionaries, along with adventurers and colonizers, went out from Europe as far as they could go. In a post-colonial world, some of the problems of this model have necessitated re-thinking it, together with its theological foundations. Much attention has already been given by David Bosch and others to the re-interpreting the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:18–20, but the same treatment needs to be given to the rest of the New Testament.85

The book of Acts is foundational for understanding the mission of the early church. Does “to the ends of the earth” imply that Luke shared the expansionist vision of the contemporary Roman emperors or the colonial vision of the modern West?86 I think not, for several reasons.87 First, we cannot accuse Luke of imperial attitudes. The mission of the apostles is described as “witnessing to Christ” (Acts 1:8). That is, it has the same self-sacrificing character as Jesus’ mission. The apostles are vulnerable—even Paul, the Roman citizen, gets imprisoned for the faith. The early Christians were Jews, an oppressed group within the empire, and not agents of any political power. Like Jesus, the apostles rejected the adulation of the people (Paul and Barnabas, Acts 14:8–17) and did not gain materially from their missions. The apostles condemned demons but not people (with the possible exception of Elymas, Acts 13:6–11). And, most strikingly of all, the apostles did not impose their Jewish culture on Gentile converts.

Second, although the spread of the gospel according to Luke is often thought of in terms of expanding concentric circles—from Jerusalem, to Judaea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth—and was used in colonial mission histories as a prototype of expansionist history,88 this image of expansion is a misperception. There are several reasons why; first, because the call to witness is in each of those locations; second, because they do not form concentric circles. Jerusalem may be central to Judaea but not to Samaria. These first three places represent the ministry of Jesus himself, and the progress of the gospel in Acts 2:1–8:25. “The ends of the earth” is clearly the new departure, the mission to the gentiles, which we read about from Acts 8:26 onwards, mostly in connection with Paul. However, it is clear that Paul is not the only missionary to the Gentiles—there were other missions like those of Philip (Acts 8:4–40; 21:8), Barnabas (Acts 15:36–40), and Apollos (Acts 18:24–28; 1 Cor 1:12; 3:4–6, 22). But even though they went to the Gentiles, there is no record in Acts of Paul or any other apostle reaching the end of the earth.

What we hear about in Acts is mostly about a spreading of the good news within the Roman Empire. Like СКАЧАТЬ