The Sunday News
Rev Paul Damasane
LAST week I began a discussion that while it was a tribute to the late Dr Myles Munroe it took a futuristic interrogation of what the future of Christian theology will be in Africa. I would like to repeat my assertion that Christianity has been on a journey. Everywhere where it has sojourned it seems to have taken a different form. This was characterised by a theological slant or in simpler terms an interpretation of the redemption message to resonate with the world view of its host.
Christianity as I have said before in this column started off in the Middle East with a strong Judaism influence. The early Christians continued to meet in synagogues until the missionary journeys of Apostle Paul which brought in the need to accommodate the influx of “gentiles”. The story of the table cloth of foodstuffs in Apostle Peter’s vision is a case in point. It was a turning point in fact as the focus went into Europe. Pentecost was in my view the trampoline that catapulted Christianity to other worlds.
In Africa Christianity did sojourn in Ethiopia and is well documented and practised in the form and presence of the Coptic Church. Very unique in its interpretation of the redemption message. It is deep Christianity entered on the work of the cross, the maschal! Today that cross has a relevance and associated ritual that makes for a unique Christianity.
I submit today that there is a struggle of what the current theological direction is taking us to. The critics of present day Pentecostal renewal have taken a very fundamental shift. One has been quoted as saying “. . . this (Pentecostal) movement is not a powerful visitation of the Holy Spirit. Rather, “We need to sound the warning that this is not Christianity.” This was a comment by one pastor at the recent conference called “Strange Fire”.
Is it really true that Christianity and its true theological thrust is being lost in the current charismatic and Pentecostal development? I smell a rat of insincerity in such a blanket description. Yes as I said last week, there are exceptions of error but to a large extent there is a lot happening in Africa that is not happening at all in the rest of the Christian world. The sponsors of the current crusade against the trends in Africa are cloaked and cloistered in the same costumes, thinking and theology of our former colonisers. Those that still hold the view that Africans are simpletons and cannot think and develop a theology. They still say Christianity should be defined in the myopia of western thought and stereotypes.
There are many who will develop an entirely negative view of African charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity, the perspective of one professor of contemporary African Christianity and Pentecostal/charismatic theology in Africa at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Accra, Ghana, Professor Asamoah-Gyadu is far more accurate in my view and needs consideration in today’s discussion. He says “African Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is complex. It is alive. It is thriving. And it must be a major focus for Christians around the world who are involved in evangelism, missions and the state of the global Church.” I concur. It reminds me of a crowd I met a few days ago at a food-court on the Bulawayo-Harare highway. I accosted people in colourful regalia one would mistake to be of a political party. They were a happy and noisy lot too. Being curious I read the captions only to realise they were of a Pentecostal group that had a three day prayer and miracle session in Harare. Truly complex, alive and thriving rightly explains this.
We should not underestimate the power of the gospel and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. We should thank God for the unprecedented harvest that is taking place and continue to contend for the integrity of the gospel.
Pentecostalism is a response to the traditional cerebral Christianity and wherever it has appeared the movement has defined itself in terms of the recovery of the experiential aspects of the faith by demonstrating the power of the Spirit to infuse life, and the ability of the living presence of Jesus Christ to save from sin and evil.
The ministries of healing and deliverance have thus become some of the most important expressions of Christianity in African Pentecostalism. Much of the worldviews underlying the practice of healing and deliverance, especially the belief in mystical causality, resonates with African philosophical thoughts. We cannot avoid it. We simply need to find ourselves the right theological explanations of this Afro centric phenomenon and create a mould that will take it to the future. Fifty years down the line what the pastors will teach will depend on the training they get today. We cannot continue to batter them and merely call it strange fires when the exegesis of our fires is premised on a theology of those that once had a fire and now have none at all. Why describe a fire when sitting on a fireplace that last had a fire in the early 1900s.
This cannot be right.
Comparing today’s Pentecostal wave in Africa from the old conservative form of Pentecostalism and claiming that African Pentecostalism has not challenged the African religious worldview but has instead adopted it is a statement that does not fairly represent the truth of this movement in Africa. May I bring your attention to the fact that the Western brand of stale, cold, theoretic and purely cerebral Christianity that Africans have been offered by many of the (Western) evangelical denominations is laughable to them! For Africans, their faith must have real-world consequences or it is worthless. Put another way, since Africans see the spiritual realm and natural realm as one, and since they do not need to be convinced about the reality of demonic spirits, if Jesus is really the Saviour, then He also saves from sickness and demonic powers. If wealth is part of the material that God placed on this earth then the same Jesus who saves from sin and heals their bodies should make them financially viable as well. It cannot be half salvation.
The redemption package must be complete. African theologians need to see a new philosophical framework for themselves into the future. Let us pause here and pick it up next week as we look at the “Munhu waMwari” phenomenon! Shalom!
