Studying African Christianity: Future trajectories

In this book, Christianity in Africa, we have introduced readers and researchers to historical perspectives and themes that have shaped the Christian tradition in Africa. We have adopted an interdisciplinary approach and some of the contributors have discussed their topics from a critical/analytical standpoint and a hermeneutical perspective. Other contributors have written ethnographic accounts, while others have approached their themes from a phenomenological and theological perspective and other contributors have provided a narrative which has included their own journey on the Christian path and intellectual studies of Christianity in Africa. As we conclude this narrative, it is important that I respond to two questions: what have we learned and what lies ahead for research and the scholarship on African Christianity? In answer to the first question, I should point out that from a historical per-

spective we have demonstrated that African Christianity is a local as well as a global phenomenon. The selected historical perspectives in Part I of the book examine Christianity in different regions of Africa, arguing that the Christian tradition has strong roots in Africa because of the vitality of North African Christianity. The first three chapters have moved selectively through the landscape of Christianity in North Africa, making the case that this tradition shaped the fate of Christianity through its ecclesiastical, pastoral, spiritual/monastic, theological, literary and intellectual traditions which have come to define global Christianity today. These developments in North Africa indicate that the early Christian church in Africa was already a global phenomenon. To understand the local dimensions, we have also examined Coptic Christianity to illustrate the localization and adaptation of the Christian tradition in North Africa. Christianity in North Africa left a legacy of ecclesial practices, a complicated engagement with the secular world and political authorities (especially the struggles with imperial

Rome), persecutions, and the struggle of the early Christians to assert a spiritual, cultural, and intellectual identity. The struggles of the Coptic Church in Muslim society are all entanglements which Christianity continues to navigate and manage today. We have also discussed Christianity in West, Central, and East Africa, and

highlighted the colonial antecedents and rootedness of the Christian church in those regions. It was not always a smooth beginning because the colonial period was one of conquest and subjugation, yet Christianity which was then an imperial religion took root, evolving specific traditions, notably the cross as a symbol of redemption, authority, and healing in Ethiopian Christianity, the appropriation and deployment of the biblical text as a spiritual, devotional, theological, yet a political text which has been deployed for the cause of human and political liberation, especially in Southern Africa. The ongoing appropriation of the Bible in African Christianity has not been without its challenges, given the ambiguities of translation and the very reception of culturally grounded texts in the many different contexts in Africa. Mistranslations have imposed new ideas about religion, the divine symbol and in some cases culturally appropriate practices. Our historical sample demonstrates that African Christianity has been, and remains, gendered, despite the fact that many denominations in Africa now ordain women. The journey to this point has been fraught with patriarchy, but gradually women, who make up the majority of the Christians in the church in Africa, are making gains and their presence in theological schools and departments of religion at universities is changing the landscape of church hierarchy. The vibrant church in North Africa declined in the seventh century, even

though strong pockets remained in Egypt and Ethiopia. The modern missionary movement was both a colonial and proselytizing project as missionaries explored Africa and local evangelists led the charge for evangelizing and opening up African communities to the Christian movement. We have argued that mission theory has been contested and negotiated as a long process of decolonizing the church and grounding it in its African context. Today an uneasy collaborative effort exists as Africans continue to localize the church in the twentieth century, a period that has been marked by unparalleled growth. That growth has been shaped by an evangelical and evangelistic ethos that has privileged church planting by different Christian denominations. The modern period has also seen the planting of Christian social institutions to address, especially, education and healthcare. Though coming late in modernity, Vatican II drastically introduced various reforms and enculturation which have allowed the Roman Catholic tradition to take on a distinctively African form which one could describe as a homecoming to the Christian church in Africa that was long in the making. Yet the Christian tradition in Africa has seen Protestant traditions form collaborative initiatives that have embraced and promoted ecumenism at national and continental levels in organizations like the All African Conference of Churches (a broad based organization of Protestant denominations) and the Association of

Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, as well as several organizations that bring together African Initiated Churches. The growth of Pentecostalism is redefining ecumenism across both the

Catholic and Protestant spectrum. The impressive growth of Christianity in Africa has not resolved everything. For one thing, indigenous African religions which have been maligned by both Christians and Muslims continue to thrive, though under assault from the Pentecostal churches and their superstar preachers. Christian-Muslim dialogue continues to be a cherished ideal and seems to have worked well in Senegal, is improving in Kenya and South Africa but facing significant road blocks in Nigeria, arguably the most religious country on the continent. The phenomenal growth of Christianity in Africa should also be attributed to

African initiatives that have given rise to new churches and institutions. The movements which began in the mid-nineteenth century have grown and some have established major Christian churches and networks across Africa and around the world. At the beginning, these churches emphasized the importance of African culture as an important ingredient in the development of a vital African church. Many of them were spiritual churches where members sought a deeper spiritual engagement and embraced the Christian tradition as a healing tradition. These churches gave African Christianity new leaders like Isaiah Shembe, William Wade Harris, Simon Kimbagu, Moses Orimolade, Josiah Akindayome, and Alice Lenshina. At the beginning of the 1900s, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity was present on the African Continent and by the 1960s many of the African Initiated Churches were increasingly becoming Pentecostal. Pentecostalism has bolstered the missional vision of the African churches with

increasing migration of African Christians to different parts of the world. The Africans who have gone to different parts of the world have taken their churches with them and established communities of faith in their new homelands and set up transnational networks for religious collaboration and to maintain a connection with their home churches in Africa. Pentecostalism continues to grow and bring many people to the Christian tradition in Africa through proclaiming the prosperity gospel, strong belief in miracles, visions, carrying out deliverance services, and maintaining a strongly critical perspective on everything their leaders do not consider Christian, including aspects of African culture which some Pentecostal pastors derisively call “ancestral curses.” We have also shown that Christianity in Africa has carried out a robust and

sometimes ambivalent relationship with the public square. In all regions of Africa, Christianity has had something to do with politics, sometimes through the adoption of a nationalistic attitude which made Christian leaders turn a blind eye to political abuses. Some Christian leaders have struggled with the dogmatic political ideology of African politicians which denied rights and freedoms and some of these Christian leaders have mounted a fight for justice in countries like Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and more recently in Kenya and Cameroon.

Early church and state collaboration in Rwanda created a complex society, but ethnic tensions led to several civil wars, culminating in the 1994 genocide. In Uganda, Idi Amin’s destructive forces which rained havoc on the church led to the death of Archbishop Janani Luwum; while in Kenya and Cameroon in recent years, church-state tensions have emerged from the strong oppositional relationship between well-known clerics like Bishop Henry Okullu in Kenya and Christian Cardinal Tumi in Cameroon. If Christianity as it was transmitted to Africans by missionaries indeed repre-

sents the ambiguities of modernity, the Southern African region has seen both the destructive aspects of the world which modernity with the assistance of Christianity created, but it has also seen the critical appropriation of Christianity to oppose, fight, and claim human dignity in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa where apartheid was defeated and the new rainbow nation was born. The new nation promulgated a legal instrument that called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help the country address the crimes and abuses of the past and negotiate ways to secure the future. In that region, Christian leaders like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Allan Boesak, Canon Banana, and Bishop Abel Mozurewa fought dehumanization on the basis of their theological convictions. The dynamic, and sometimes contentious, relationship between the Christian

tradition and temporal powers in Africa has not always been negative. The Christian Church in Africa has established educational institutions, health services, agricultural projects, some of which go back to the colonial and missionary era such as the successful experiments with agriculture in Zimbabwe by the United Church of Christ. What used to be called mission schools and health centers dotted the African landscape but today they are administered by African leaders. In the twenty-first century these institutions have been a beacon of hope as Africans have battled HIV and AIDS and more recently the ebola virus disease. In many ways these institutions were seen as instruments of conversion and westernization or civilization as some thought, but church leaders today continue to see these institutions as a form of imitatio Christi and an opportunity to make the Christian message of love an embodiment of social justice. These social ministries have called attention to environmental degradation and the African initiated churches in Zimbabwe have been at the forefront of an ecological ministry which has involved massive reforestation and restoration of the environment. We have also argued that Christianity in Africa is about more than institutions

and doctrinal positions – it is a lived experience. While the institutions provide the theatre of engagement, individual Christians and different Christian communities share in a lived experience which is manifested in a number of practices. In this book we have tracked the expressive dimension of the Christian culture demonstrating that during the missionary era, African Christians adopted western hymns and formed choirs. Africans later composed music and developed a large repertoire of music which incorporates and speaks to the African reality.

Africans have a lively and expressive culture of music and dance which has become part of the dynamism of African Christianity. Christianity as a lived experience has had some of its most contested ideals

over sexuality, marriage, and recently same-sex relationships. Missionary tradition imposed Victorian morality as a way of eliminating what they thought was African transgressive sexuality. The misunderstanding of African sexuality and marriage systems heightened criticism of sexual life in African Christianity. In the context of marriage, polygamy was demonized and in some cases men who were married to more than one wife were excluded from church. We have argued that the rise of Pentecostalism has brought sexuality to the forefront again. There is a new and contentious debate on homosexuality. This contestation on same-sex relations has led church leaders to condemn same-sex relations and many have supported punitive sanctions against same-sex relationships, and others have endorsed the death penalty. There is a growing perspective that the opposition to same-sex relations is driving Christian churches in Africa to ignore human rights and personal freedoms. Human rights remain a core value which Christian churches in Africa hold dear and must continue to work to preserve as a co-value of the faith. Christian lived experience continues to face challenges of living with a collapsed health care system. Christian churches have transformed former medical missions into church health care systems and use bio-medical approaches to health care as a major resource for their respective communities, thus enhancing public health in Africa. Faith healing remains appealing to many of the African Initiated Churches. Healing is considered an integral part of the Christian life. The second major question we must answer as we conclude this book is: what

are some of the issues scholars could explore in the future? First, it is important for scholars of African Christianity to continue their studies and analyses of the growth of African Christianity at a time of globalization. Global communication technology and the World Wide Web, as well as social media, are increasingly being used even for church business, counselling and dissemination of biblical texts and for management purposes. The place Africa has attained in global Christianity requires new critical appreciation from scholars. Such a critical appreciation should be celebratory without being apologetic. But such a celebration of the ecclesial community should also raise new questions about the nature of faith in the twenty-first century and scholars should probe how that faith continues to reflect and celebrate African values. Scholarly analysis should also explore the impact of African leadership on the Christian movement around the world. This calls for an analysis that will probe what African presence has contributed to global Christianity in addition to sitting at the table of global Christian leadership. Critical studies could also explore the impact of globalization on African Christianity. Globalization is a hotly contested term because some interpret the forces that have created greater openness, ease of travel, the increasing connectivity of economic, social, intellectual, and technological forces as a natural

development in an evolving world. Others see globalization as another invention of modernity that disguises the hegemony of the dominant forces in global trade and continues to create conditions of dependency. One thing is clear, regardless of one’s position on this: the Christian movement in Africa finds itself in a global context that is very different from two or three decades ago. The full implications of this for African Christianity still have to be analysed. Second, there is a need for a robust and systematic study of the outreach of

African Christianity in a global context. The research questions here could include an investigation into the conditions that would make the African churches continue to demonstrate what is emerging as a trend: the grounding of Christianity in a local as well as a global vision to make Christianity remain true to what missiologists continue to consider the marching orders of the Christian tradition, to make disciples of all nations. Missions remain an important concept for Christianity, but scholars need to explore if current practices replicate the problematic dimensions of missions. What is involved in the new global missions from an African perspective? In what directions are the resources of missions flowing? African Christianity has gone through major transitions in missions, which in the twentieth century have been described as missio dei. Traditional mission strategies have changed significantly and also affected the nature and task of the career missionary. For example, old terms like “mission field” and “medical missions” no longer apply. Even the term “overseas mission” is problematic. What we have seen in the past three decades has included the rise of tent makers international, so called third world missions, and increasingly missionaries from what, for a lack of a better term, is now called “the Global South” go all over the world. Yet during the same period we have seen the rise and redefinition of short term missionaries. Today’s short term missionary experience can be a short term of one or two weeks. The ones who go on such mission travels execute a well-planned project, or see patients at clinics in villages where the people have little access to biomedical facilities and occasionally complete the trip with a safari, something which others may condemn, but on a lighter note it would be good to remember that the animals are part of God’s worldwide family. Therefore, the rise and deployment of missionaries from the global south and the development of the new short termers have added conceptual and theoretical paths for scholars of African Christianity to explore. More importantly these developments have added a new social, theological, and ecclesial reality, an expansive mission terrain and different styles of missionary activity that invite constant scholarly analysis. Third, future analysis of African Christianity should probe the question of

Christianity and the economy as part of a larger exploration of religion and the political economy in the African context. The major problem with the postneocolonial state, in my view, has been the decline of the economy which has rendered many Africans unable to attain a minimum level of wellbeing, let alone contribute significantly to economic and social development. While some

changes have taken place after the dark days of economic decline between 1980 and the year 2000, many African economies have not recovered and may not do so for a long time. It is important for researchers of African Christianity to examine the situation and analyze the position of African churches on the economy. Scholars could and should interrogate the paths taken by the African church towards economic development. Such critical analysis could yield data for stake holders to map out the road of economic development which the African church has travelled, but introduce new ideas that could contribute to a holistic perspective on the political economy. Such a hope calls for a bold exploration of the economic options available for African countries. The major models and systems, such as socialism and capitalism, require critical thinking, and I think a robust Christian theological perspective could be instrumental in suggesting reforms and offer prospects for a market economy that is robust, sustainable, and empowering. I think the key to this lies in articulating a Christian and ecclesial vision that is open to the world where democratic ideals and legal instruments are respected and deployed in the search for the good. Critical scholarship on religion and the political economy could provide useful insights for churches to engage in projects that would regenerate the political economy and also make the churches important dialogue partners on economic development. The state of Christianity and the political economy has not received the

attention it deserves in studies of African Christianity. While I am sympathetic to the many voices that have decried the growing prosperity gospel and the use of religious and Christian leadership positions for personal embourgeoisement, more studies and analysis could strengthen a critical dialogue and inform the ecclesial community on some of the key issues in the economy and development in Africa. One way forward in such research is to work with economists and market experts to understand the global, political economy and engage the stake holders and policy makers in Africa in a broad conversation with the Christian tradition as part of a broad analysis of the political economy and ways of enlightening Africans to understand their context and find ways to contribute to the building of resources that will make individuals thrive and sustain their own ecclesial institutions. In doing this, scholars would also explore the thorny and controversial relationship between the prosperity gospel and miracles in light of the economic situation in Africa. A key question here could be the extent to which the prosperity gospel distracts from a viable social justice program which engages the state in a critical discourse about the equitable distribution of state resources and the creation of a climate for rational economic growth rather than dependence on miracles. Fourth, more research is needed in the area of Christianity and the arts. Such

studies need to probe the arts in all its forms and media, as well as the aesthetic dimension of the arts and its relationship to the Christian tradition in Africa. There is literature on Christian architecture in Africa but further studies are needed to fully come to understand the creation of the sacred spaces which have defined and shaped Christianity in Africa.