African Pentecostalism and World Christianity. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ Africa, however, was the special role of Archbishop Benson Andrew Idahosa (1938–1998) of Nigeria, who was perhaps the most significant person in the history of Nigerian and Ghanaian Pentecostalism. (He also influenced other African countries.) Idahosa was greatly influenced by many North American Pentecostal preachers. He studied at the Christ for All Nations in the US, which was started by Gordon Lindsay. Afterward, he established the Church of God Mission International and a Bible School in Benin City, Nigeria, where he offered scholarships for people to study. Idahosa received many invitations from Pentecostals and Charismatics across the globe to speak and conduct healing services at their programs. Idahosa’s message was centered on faith and healing, and he was not labeled as a “Prosperity Gospel” preacher as such. However, his “flashy” lifestyle challenged ministers of the gospel to shed the poverty mentality and embrace prosperity as integral aspect of Christian living. He can rightly be labeled as a precursor to the Prosperity Gospel preaching in Africa.

      Spiritual Warfare

Following this, in the early part of the 1980s, was the beginnings of the spiritual warfare movement and the associated books and cassettes (both video and audio) that increased people’s awareness of demons and how to exorcize them.51 In the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s came an intensification of how to deal with these powers through deliverance, breaking generational curses, and exorcisms. Then, in the latter part of the twentieth century, the movement altered from demon possession to levels of “spiritual warfare.” Two levels were explained. Charles Kraft championed the “ground-level,” while Peter Wagner was concerned about “cosmic level,” which he called “strategic-level warfare.” Ground-level warfare is supposed to deal with evil spirits that inhabit people, while strategic-level warfare is supposed to deal with territorial spirits (Dan 10:13, 21), intuitional spirits, spirits assigned to supervise and promote special functions and vices, spirits assigned to spaces, as well as nonmaterial entities and ancestral spirits. Those in this camp tell us that strategic-level spirits are in charge of ground-level spirits and assign and supervise them as they carry out their various assignments.52

      The spiritual warfare dimension resonated with the African concept of salvation. Salvation is considered transformation and empowerment. This means salvation must produce transformation in the lives of believers, such as the discontinuation of smoking, disco dancing, drinking, and fornication. Salvation must necessarily include prosperity, fruitfulness, healing of sickness, and deliverance from the demonic. Failure to experience these benefits as a Christian is interpreted as the presence of demons or ancestral curses in the person’s life and thereby calls for spiritual warfare.

      Attempts to Oust All Evils in African Christianity

Spiritual warfare teachings led to a practice in African Christianity which I call “Witchdemonology.”53 Witchdemonology is the synthesis of the practices and beliefs of African witchcraft and Western Christian teachings of demonology and exorcism. These beliefs include the acceptance of the reality of witchcraft, demons and gods; the belief in territorial spirits and mapping them out; the belief in ancestral curses, and the identification of demonic realities and curses in both Christians and non-Christians. In order for people to be set free to prosper in life, special prayer sessions called “deliverance meetings” are held, either in groups or in private sessions.54

Witchdemonology opened the door for two types of prophetism. Dr. Emmanuel Anim, a Ghanaian Pentecostal theologian, identifies the first as the “Super-Charismatic Prophetic Movement.”55 These super-charismatic ministers speak to people about their future, reveal the causes of their problems, interpret dreams, reveal ways of dealing with difficult issues, and then pronounce blessings of prosperity and a bright future. Ministers in this category diagnose people’s problems through words of knowledge or prophecy. The ministry happens at normal church services, revivals, crusades, “all-night prayer services,” and through the media. This is not new; it is similar to divinatory-consultation, which I consider as the live wire of African Traditional Religion. The desires of many people are to prosper, enjoy good health, and be protected from evil forces.56 Ministering to people in this way serves as the charismatic substitute for the old shrine practices in African traditional religions.

The second category is the arena of “quasi-prophets.” While the super-charismatic ministers may be genuine Christians who embrace an unbiblical understanding of the spiritual gifts, the quasi-prophets are people whose identification with Christ is questionable. These are “prophets” who promote themselves through any means, including asking people to fake illnesses and claim to be healed after prayer is said for them.57 These so-called prophets are wreaking havoc on the continent.

      In other words, what is happening on the continent of Africa is a mixture of Christian and non-Christian activities, all taking place in the name of Christ. Some researchers label everything as the “prosperity gospel,” but many of the practices do not fit neatly in that category. Still, Dr. Anim has succinctly argued that prosperity is an important part of the African worldview:

In African cosmology, the belief in, and pursuit of prosperity is paramount. Africans do not “honor” or accept suffering or poverty. It is a battle they have always sought to fight. The belief in the gods is, primarily, to ensure prosperity and well-being. The influence of the American type of prosperity teaching only served as a catalyst and also reinforced what was already prevailing in the matrix of primal worldview. Thus, local primal considerations offer important perspective in interpreting contemporary African Christianity.58

      Against this backdrop, it can rightly be argued that the desire to worship in the biblical pattern, through the lens of primal spirituality, has resulted in the contemporary state of African Christian liturgy and activities, which has a strong emphasis on prosperity. Good health, fullness of life, fertility and prosperity were important aspects of those who were obedient to the Lord in the Old Testament, while wasting disease, premature death and dire poverty were the curses for those who disobeyed (e.g., Exod 15:26; 23:24; Deut 11:26–32; 28:15–68). Thus, wellbeing and prosperity have been important parts of both biblical and primal spirituality.

      The right application of the prosperity teaching has enabled many churches in Africa to achieve what the early missionaries struggled to achieve: churches that are self-supporting, self-propagating, and self-governing. On the other hand, the abuse that often accompanies the so-called Prosperity Gospel is alarming, and African Christian leaders must address this.

      Africa Churches in the Diaspora

The 1980s and 1990s saw a great migration of Africans to the West. Initially, many of them contributed to the growth of Western churches. Yet they could not find their identity and enjoy the services. These types of divisions have a long history. Roswith Gerloff, a German scholar, writing about the African-American slaves rightly said, “The religion of the slaves [Africans] and the religion of the slave master [Whites] were never identical, even when both referred to the same Bible.”59 Contemporary African immigrants faced the same challenge. Thus, in the attempt to find their identity, they began to establish their own churches in the West. By the close of the twentieth century, the African churches had proliferated in the whole of the West, conducting services as they do at home. Currently this has attracted the attention of many scholars. Commenting on the African-initiated churches that he studied, Bengt Sundkler, a Swedish-Tanzanian Church historian and missiologist, said, “In these churches one would be able to see what the African Christian, when left to himself, regarded as important and relevant in Christian faith and Christian church.”60 The issue that remains is whether this form of Pentecostalization of Christianity in Africa will continue to meet the needs of diasporan Africans and how it will relate faithfully to the Christian faith. Time will tell.

      Conclusion

      The chapter has shown that the Christian missionary enterprise that began in the nineteenth century in Africa, was from one perspective, enormously successful. Christianity flooded sub-Saharan Africa to the extent that it can be assumed that Africa is now Christianized. Nevertheless, the СКАЧАТЬ