The Sunday News
Rev Paul Bayethe Damasane Talking Spiritually
I HAD the blessing of witnessing the funeral rites of a 102-year-old artist who went to join his forefathers last Sunday and was buried beside a dam in the lush green lands of Tengenenge in Guruve! It was a time of celebrating an artist but for me it took a self-introspection time of my own Christian belief. I saw what he believed and lived to show as his family, friends and relatives looked at the practice of who he really was. It was not just being a man of Malawian Yao extraction but an artist who was a deep Muslim at heart.
He is said to have instructed that there be no singing and the usual sahwira acts common at Shona funerals on the farms. Instead he asked for the chanting of Qur’anic Suras and the prescribed Shahada. The elderly Muslim led the prayer in Arabic,
L? ?il?ha ?ill?-ll?h, mu?ammadun ras?lu-ll?h
There is no god but Allah Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
I could tell that it was the shortened form of the Shahada as would have been chanted by the muezzin as he called the Muslim faithful to prayer:
Ašhadu an l? il?ha ill?-ll?h wa?dahu l? šar?ka lahu, wa ašhadu anna mu?ammadan ?abduhu wa ras?luhu.
“I testify that (there is) no god except Allah, One is He, no partner has He, and I testify that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.”
It was sombre and solemn making it dignified and a respectful send off for an icon and patriarch in the Arts at Tengenenge Sculpting Community. He practised the Arts very well, believed in the teachings and the way of Islam and there he was buried by the artists and sent off in the traditional Muslim ritual. This to me was a point of stating the Islamic credo in the same manner that it has been seen on certain platforms as these words on a building built by a Muslim Government Minister in the Middle East —
bismi-ll?hi-r-rahm?ni-r-rah?m l? ?il?ha ?il? -ll?h wa?dahu l? shar?k lahu mu?ammad ras?lu-ll?h ?al? wal? all?h
“In the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate, there is no god but Allah the One, no partner has he, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
It set me thinking and I could hear the words of my late father sing the Nunc Dimittis at the Matins service and the beautiful voices of the women at St Columbu’s Parish in Makokoba joining in the Gregorian chant as they recited the creed. Awesome then as it still is now! What a contrast yet a similar heart and faith issue! Such was the convergence, or some may call it divergence, of Amali Malola’s creed and that of Paul Bayethe Damasane! Different yet similar. The question at hand is what is the basis of our creed? As the saying goes we are what we believe in. Let us look at what a creed really is.
The word creed comes from the Latin word credo. The Latin word credo means simply “I believe.” It represents the first word of the Apostles’ Creed. Throughout church history it has been necessary for the church to adopt and embrace creedal statements to clarify the Christian faith and to distinguish true content from error and false representations of the faith. Such creeds are distinguished from Scripture in that Scripture is norma Normans (“the rule that rules”), while the creeds are norma normata (“a rule that is ruled”).
Historically, Christian creeds have included everything from brief affirmations to comprehensive statements. The earliest Christian creed is found in the New Testament, which declares, “Jesus is Lord.” The New Testament makes a somewhat puzzling statement about this affirmation, namely, that no one can make the statement except by the Holy Spirit. What are we to understand by this? On the one hand, the New Testament tells us that people can honour God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him. That is to say, people can recite creeds and make definitive affirmations of faith without truly believing those affirmations. So, then, why would the New Testament say that no one can make this confession save by the Holy Spirit? Perhaps it was because of the cost associated with making that creedal statement in the context of ancient Roman socio-political environment.
There are some instances that call for one to make a clear statement of faith. Something that is not written on paper per se but written on the heart and expressed by habit and character. That to me is the root of a creed or credo! The loyalty oath required by Roman citizens to demonstrate their allegiance to the empire in general and to the Emperor in particular was to say publicly with a greeting, “Kaisar Kurios,” that is, “Caesar is lord.”
In the first-century church, Christians bent over backward to be obedient to civil magistrates, including the oppressive measures of Caesar, and yet, when it came to making the public affirmation that Caesar is lord, Christians could not do so in good conscience. As a substitute for the phrase, “Caesar is lord,” the early Christians made their affirmation by saying, “Jesus is Lord.” To do that was to provoke the wrath of the Roman government, and in many cases, it cost the Christian his life. Therefore, people tended not to make that public affirmation unless they were moved by the Holy Spirit to do so. The simple creed, “Jesus is Lord,” or more full statements, such as the Apostles’ Creed give an outline of basic, essential teachings. The creeds summarise New Testament content.
The creeds also used that summary content to exclude the heretics of the fourth century. In the affirmation of the Nicene Creed, the church affirmed categorically its belief in the deity of Christ and in the doctrine of the Trinity. These affirmations were seen as essential truths of the Christian faith. They were essential because without inclusion of these truths, any claim to Christianity would be considered a false claim. So a creed therefore makes the speaker dead or alive subscribe to the full and wholesome teachings, tenets and the truths of the faith he has professed.
If we were to ask the Christians around us today what is it that we can call the basis of our corporate and individual credos? What do we believe in? Can we like Amali Malola speaking in death to his fellow Tengenenge community speak in like manner to our living community about what we believe in. Can we state from the heart our faith without any equivocation? This is not a simple matter that is why I would like you to walk with me in the coming weeks on the various creeds that have been kept in the faiths of our communities. Stay with me, till next week, Shalom!
