African churches have obsession for evangelism, scholar says
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A choir dances and sings during a night of African culture for the Council of Bishops. A UMNS photo by Linda Green.
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Nov. 9, 2006 | MAPUTO, Mozambique (UMNS)
The success of evangelization of Africa is a "surprising phenomenon
to the rest of Christendom," said Africa University's chairperson of
evangelism.
"The church in Africa has an obsession for the ministry of
evangelism," said the Rev. John Wesley Kurewa, founding vice chancellor
of Africa University and holder of the chair of evangelism. The United
Methodist-related university, in Mutare, Zimbabwe, has about 1,300
students from 24 African countries.
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"The church in Africa has an obsession for the
ministry of evangelism," the Rev. John Wesley Kurewa says. A UMNS
photo by Linda Green.
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Addressing the United Methodist Council of Bishops Nov. 2, Kurewa
highlighted the role that the missionaries and the early church in
Africa played in evangelizing the continent.
He expressed his gratitude at being able to speak about evangelism
and church planting across the denomination's African central (regional)
conferences, but he noted that with "Africa being such a vast continent
as it is, it is presumptuous for any body to claim to speak for the
continent."
Since 1910, a shift has been occurring in terms of the growth of
Christianity, he said, noting that Africa, Asia and Latin America were
once known as non-Christian lands and Europe and North America were
referred to as Christian continents.
Quoting research, Kurewa said the population of Africa in 1900 was
108 million, with nearly 10 million or 9.2 percent of that number
identified as Christians. A study by David Barrett predicted that by the
year 2000, the population on the African continent would increase to
813 million and that Christians would be 400 million or 48.4 percent.
"For Christianity to claim almost 50 percent from 9.2 percent of the
total continental population within one century is testament to the
vigor of the early church which claimed its known world within the first
century of Christianity's history," Kurewa said.
The United Methodist Church also has grown in Africa. In 1980, it had
two central conferences and 10 annual conferences. Today, the church
has three central conferences, 21 annual conferences, four provisional
conferences and several "initiates."
"I don't think we would have this many conferences if our numbers
were down," he told the bishops. "There is significant growth in these
conferences and ... as long as we have provisional conferences, it shows
that the church is growing, (and) I think this is very imperative in
Africa."
Evangelizing Africa
Early evangelization in Africa was performed by four groups or waves
of churches: the mainline churches, the African Initiated churches, the
"so-called" Evangelical churches and the Pentecostal churches, he said.
"As the European powers scrambled for African colonies, the mainline
churches in Africa were also scrambling for areas in which to evangelize
the African people," he said.
The missionaries, in order to avoid overlapping in their work, engaged
in "comity agreements" that restricted each denomination to one area of a
country for evangelism.
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Bishop Linda Lee learns a dance step from
Bishop Joćo Somane Machado during a United Methodist Council of Bishops
worship service, as Bishop Ann Sherer looks on.
A UMNS photo by Linda Green.
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Even though the colonists and missionaries had different agendas for
Africa, they had similar interests for the people. For the missionaries,
it was to evangelize and to civilize Africans. The colonists wanted to
"first civilize the Africans and to Christianize them," he added.
Kurewa said both sought to accomplish their goals by destroying "all
that was African" and supplanting old communities with "so-called
Christian and civilized communities."
The missionaries and colonists regarded all that was African as
"superstitious," and indigenous culture and religion were condemned "as
work of darkness or the work of the devil - whom, by the way, the
African did not even know." Africans, he said, believed that the
greatest human enemy was another human "and not some conceptual figure
out there," he said.
The African people were alienated from their cultures and
civilization and their own people as they "became European Christians or
American Christians," he said.
"Our traditional ways of learning, drawn from our experiences as a
people, and our methods of healing the sick, were all usurped by the
evangelizing missions of the West, bringing with them health and
education institutions, which were 'civilized,'" Kurewa said.
Kurewa said that before the missionaries and colonists arrived to
teach African people about God, they already knew God and believed in
God. They just did not know about Jesus Christ and did not deserve to be
called "heathens" because they not know, he said.
He noted that African religions were "monotheistic" and that God was
called by different names by the various groups across the continent.
Visions of the gospels
Pentecostal churches, he said, target and attract young couples and preach a gospel of prosperity.
"The church in Africa has inherited the gospel of the cross and
suffering
" he told the bishops. "There is another aspect of the gospel
that we seem to forget: the gospel of the resurrection, the gospel of
the Holy Spirit, the gospel of joy."
Addressing the problem of poverty, Kurewa said the poor are often
ignored, while mainline groups target the working class, leaving the
Pentecostal church to take up the slack. "Methodism without the poor is
no longer Methodism," he said. He challenged the bishops to find the
faces of people as they address poverty across the continent.
Across the continent, there is an obsession for evangelism, he said.
"Evangelism is the heartbeat ministry of the church in Africa."
Although churches may disagree on how to address the divergent social
issues that plague society, "when it comes to evangelism, they come
together" and cooperate in various programs, he said.
Special occasions such as weddings and funerals are seen as
opportunities for evangelism to reach those who do not normally attend
church. "Good results are harvested this way," Kurewa said. Radio and
television ministries are also used to evangelize, he noted.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
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