African Pentecostalism and World Christianity. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ contemporary Christianity in Africa and its worldwide influence.

      Early Christian Activities and Nineteenth-Century Missionary Activities

      Christianity entered Africa as early as the New Testament times as we see Philip ministered to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–40. We assume that the eunuch carried the Gospel back to Africa. Quite quickly, North Africa became the center of Christian activities and this lasted from the second through the fifth centuries. Africa produced notable Christian leaders such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, Origen of Alexandria, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo. The African faith was strong. During times of Imperial Roman persecution, many chose death rather than recant their faith. However, from the sixth century, the faith waned, and the church in North Africa was divided through doctrinal issues and internal struggles. The desire for ecclesiastical and political power replaced the evangelistic zeal. These factors facilitated the spread of the new Islamic religion across North Africa from the seventh century onward.

Though Christianity survived for hundreds of years, ultimately, only the Coptic Church in Egypt was left standing (though we also affirm the tenacity of the Church in Ethiopia). Currently, the Coptic Orthodox Church represents 10 to 15 percent of Egypt’s population.24 This crippling of the Church in North Africa denied Christianity to the rest of Africa until later missionary enterprising activities. Christianity was introduced to sub-Saharan Africa in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese commercial voyages maintained some Roman Catholic priests to minister among their settlements. In Southern Africa, this began in 1458, while in West Africa this began in 1471. During this period, attempts were made to present the Christian faith to the Africans, but not much was accomplished. As of the beginning of the nineteenth century, only a few converts, some ruins of churches, sculptures, crucifixes, and archival records could be identified.25

In the eighteenth century the Moravian Church of Denmark or the United Brethren and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel also made various attempts to plant the Christian faith, but very little success was recorded.26 Christianity was, however, steadily established in the nineteenth century across Africa through the missionary activities of societies such as the Basel Mission, the Bremen Mission, Church Missionary Society (CMS) of the Anglican Church, the Wesleyan Methodist Society, and the Catholic Mission.27 In this paper, churches which are associated with these mission societies are referred to as “mainline churches.” The missionaries came with zeal. However, some of them had been impacted by the Enlightenment and were sympathetic to rationalism, critical biblical interpretation, and liberal theology.28 One hallmark of liberal theology is that it denies the belief in the supernatural, especially the belief in the devil, witches, and demons.

At the same time, other missionaries influenced by pietism still upheld the traditional “diabology” and the coexistence of God and the devil. Whereas both views—liberalism and pietism—had, until then, peacefully coexisted, from the second decade of the nineteenth century onward, the Protestant (and partly Catholic) Awakening heavily attacked rational and liberal theology in particular and secularization in general. As McLoughlin has shown, the aim of the Protestant Awakening was to restore and maintain the “old-time religion and traditional way of life.”29

The “old-time religion” was based upon the traditional interpretation of the Scriptures that the church had practiced from its inception through medieval times. This resulted in the denunciation of idol worship, the demonization of the Gentile gods, and the need to exorcize those who worshiped them. “To restore old time religion” inevitably meant that the Protestant Awakening sought to restore belief in the reality of the devil, life after death, the reality of heaven and hell, and the need to evangelize the “heathen.”30 Klaus Fiedler rightly points out that prominent among new initiatives and organizations, which each revival brings, are evangelistic efforts, social activities and foreign missions.31

The nineteenth-century missionary awareness, therefore, was the product of the Protestant Awakening. But slumber can still attack those who are wide awake. Harvey Cox brought to light Ralph Waldo Emerson’s warning to an audience at Harvard Divinity School in 1838, “The danger of a steady diet of other people’s religion is that it can dry up one’s own resource.”32 Keith Thomas argues that the “disenchantment of the world” during the Enlightenment33 did not extinguish traditional Christian belief in the devil and witchcraft; however, it still had a great impact on Protestant thinking. It was with this type of thinking—traditional Christian beliefs in the devil, weakened by the critical scholarship during the Enlightenment—with which missionaries began their ministries in Africa. This is reflected in David Livingstone’s oft-cited motivation, “I go back to Africa to make an open path for commerce and Christianity.”34

      To be sure, missionary Christianity contributed immensely to the advancement of African society. The major contributions included the introduction of Western medical systems, the establishment of schools, and the abolition of slavery. Additionally, the missionaries promoted translation, including the development of vernacular alphabets and the production of grammars and dictionaries. However, as an effort to evangelize and civilize the indigenous people, the missionaries taught that the belief in the African spirit-forces—including witches, the deities or gods, and elves or dwarfs—was superstitious. Yet, at the same time, they also promoted the devil and demons as the power behind these spirit-forces. By the introduction of a personalized devil and identifying the gods with demons, the missionaries unwittingly strengthened the belief in them and the fear of them. However, the missionaries did not adequately answer this fear. For the Africans, these forces were real and life-threatening, but the missionary teaching left them stranded. In the light of this inadequate theology, some Africans started their independent churches.

      African-Initiated Churches

The first counter-response to missionary Christianity in Africa was that of a black nationalist group, labeled, “Ethiopians,” who wove a network of cultural protest against white domination in power and culture over the church.35 A few of the elite broke off to form African churches that resembled the mission churches. A second group, often called prophets, was poor in resources and in education, but also challenged the authority of the missionaries through the demonstration of healing with a blend of Christianity and African traditional religious practices. These prophets were not commissioned by missionaries, yet their mission activities helped to spread the Christian message in Africa. Prominent among them were William Wade Harris, Joseph Babalola, and Garrick Braide in West Africa; Isaiah Shembe in South Africa; and Simon Kimbangu in Zaire.36 The battle to find a place for such prophets within the mainline churches was a problem until the 1920s and 1930s, when another trend emerged: these prophets broke away from the mainline churches and established their own independent churches. Asamoah-Gyadu’s doctoral research, following his professor C. G. Baëta, centers around these churches. He is very sympathetic to them, and, like Allan Anderson, he describes them as “Indigenous Pentecostal-type churches.”37 Accordingly, he points out that “they were the first group of mass Christian religious movement to transform the religious landscape in Africa.”38

In their churches, worship is a blend of the Bible and all the colors of the African traditional spectrum. Their activities, growth, and creativity have engaged the attention of scholars as they have attempted to identify African contributions to world Christianity.39 Despite the fact that these African-initiated Churches have attracted many followers, the lack of theological understanding and little pastoral accountability have drawn some into unethical practices, such as exploitation and immorality. This has caused a decline in their patronage and paved the way for the popularity of the classical Pentecostal Churches.”40

      Classical Pentecostal Churches

The origin and growth of Pentecostalism in Africa is a complex story. Asamoah-Gyadu observes that “classical Pentecostal denominations of both Western missionaries and indigenous kinds started in sub-Saharan Africa from the same time.”41 Some of the classical Pentecostal churches were originally initiated and established under the auspices of foreign Pentecostal missions. But in other churches, Africans initiated the process. They had read some gospel tracts that shared the Pentecostal СКАЧАТЬ