AFRICANEWS
AFRICAIndependent Churches and Developmentby Maurice Onyango
In Africa today the average standard of education of the population, and of the African independent churches congregations, is rising constantly. How are the leaders of AICs to meet the needs and expectations of their church members in the present day? This is only one of the many challenges they have to meet. Over 40 African Independent church leaders held a workshop in Johannesburg (South Africa) from 1st to 8th of December 1996. The workshop was convened by the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), the continental umbrella of African Independent Churches based in Nairobi. Participants were drawn from Nigeria, Cameroon, Zaire, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and most of the Southern African states such as Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Zambia were also represented. The workshop looked at the reasons why the AICs broke away from the missionary churches and discovered that the basic cause was what they saw as the incompatibility of vision between the colonial system widely supported by the large mission churches and the Africans more humane vision of society. The workshop also analysed the present world economic system and saw that the consequences for the South have been disastrous. The system cannot continue to consume the world resources at the present rate without bringing about the collapse of the very system. Could the AICs offer an alternative system? Was it feasible that the most despised churches in the most despised continent offer an alternative humane world? The workshop looked at the theological justification for social transformation and questioned the reason behind the missionaries concentration on evangelism whose long term effect was the creation of the gap between evangelism and development. "We are the victims of the heritage of the missionaries," said Rev. Dika Akwa of Cameroon, "who preached in the church and let people go home. Of the missionaries who believed that evangelism begins and ends in the church building. Rather we believe that evangelism is a witness which must be seen in the effort to transform everyday life. Witness is word and action united". How then can the African Independent Churches achieve or work for a more humane society? Three strategies were suggested at the workshop. The first was to influence the present political and economic policies in an effort to change the system. This method has been favoured by some large AICs such as the Church of Christ in Africa attempting to work closely with president Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, and by the Kimbanguist of Zaire working closely with the government of president Mobutu Seseko. Yet history has proved that while the Churches may be sincere, the governments may not be. So the danger is for the churches to be co-opted by the states. The second option would be to create a new society in which people live according to transformed norms and set a model for the rest of the world. Some AICs have tried to do this a number of ways. For example, the Zionist Christian Church in South Africa tries to recreate a spiritual African Kingdom that does not relate with the South African economy. In Kenya, the Legio Maria has tried the same. The danger, some delegates pointed out, was that this may lead a church to retreat from the world, with of course some negative consequences. The third strategy, which found the support of most delegates, is for the AICs to combine the two first strategies. This would lead to a counter culture approach where the independent churches try to live as a new society but network with the rest of the Christian community. Marginalisation made some AICs regard material development as un-spiritual and worldly. They concentrated in salvation, healing and prayer. Only few AICs were involved during the colonial period in establishing their own schools as a means of advancing and liberating their people. More recently, church leaders from both groups of AICs have felt themselves under pressure from the example of the missionary churches to start development programmes based largely on secular profit motivated models of social work. "Their pastors however," says Rev. Lawford Imunde, a Presbyterian church minister who has worked with the AICs for a number of years, "are often at a loss when asked to explain how development relates to their pastoral ministry, or to give coherent and biblical rationale for the church's involvement in development". As a result the whole concept of development appears foreign to many of the AIC leaders, even in churches whose founders during the colonial period sought to uplift their people, and struggled to defend African values and the dignity and humanness of the African society. According to Rt. Rev. Dr. Mathew Ajuoga, who is the Chairman of the OAIC, "Our rationale for being involved in development and social transformation cannot be merely political or secular. As Christians we are called to share in the restoration of the whole fallen creation, inspired by the example Christ and empowered by His Holy Spirit. We are called to be co-workers with God in returning the world to His original plan and purpose." The AICs should not be ashamed of the way in which their spirituality embraces the whole of life, says rev. Dika, "and in which there is a special emphasis of prayer and the Holy Spirit'."
| CONTENTS | AFRICANEWS HOMEPAGE |
USAGE/ACKNOWLED Contents can be freely reproduced with acknowledgements. The by-line should read: author/AFRICANEWS. Send a copy of the reproduced article to AFRICANEWS.
AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 8034, Nairobi, Kenya
|