Koinonia

Living on the Seam of History: African Christianity Part 7, Towards a Missiological and Theological Renaissance

“The Bible is being enthusiastically read with fresh new eyes and with a new sense of immediacy. It is being read by people familiar with persecution and suffering. It is being read by believers who are often a tiny minority in the midst of a climate hostile to their faith. It is being read by believers who understand the bold, revolutionary implications of the gospel. It is being read by people who take its message seriously and fully anticipate the supernatural in-breaking of the kingdom in their midst. The gospel is being read afresh as good news. The result is that the church of Jesus Christ is growing in unprecedented ways in parts of the world once only regarded as the mission field. So, while 4,300 people may be leaving the church every day in Europe and North America, 16,500 are comic to faith each day in Africa alone.” (Tennent, Timothy C. Theology in the Context of World Christianity, 270-271)

Christopher J.H. Wright, author of the new book, The God I Don’t Understand, agrees in this clip and speaks of the implications of these changes:

Living on the Seam of History: African Christianity Part 6 My Neighbour's Faith by John Azumah

Africa has an interreligious and interfaith environment that is unique in many ways. We have multi-faith families, clans, ethnic groups and nations. At each of these levels, African Muslims and Christians have a lot of things that bind them together, including kinship ties, shared languages and citizenship. If I may use my own case as an example, I come from a family where believers in Traditional African Religion, Muslims and Christians live and share basically everything. My Muslim uncle made significant contributions towards my theological training and about 95 per cent of the family members who attended my ordination service were Muslim. Similarly, when there is anything involving a family member, all members of the family, irrespective of their religious affiliation, are called upon to contribute. (1)

John Azumah writes as a man in the thick of the tenuous relationship between Muslims and Christians. With family, friends and community members who are Muslim (see African Christian Ethics for a reminder of how important and different the African sense of community is then a Western sense) he seeks evangelism; effective evangelism from one African to another.

As we have seen throughout this series living on the seam of history means more than just acknowledging the growth of the global Church, it means learning from the global Church as we move forward. In My Neighbour’s Faith John Azumah seeks to explain Islam to Christians in both the West and East, bringing his expertise and home-grown experience to the forefront of his writing and theology.

Living on the Seam of History: African Chrisitanity Part 5

With today’s post I would like to take a longer look at Samuel Waje Kunhiyop’s African Christian Ethics. It is part of the Hippo Books line. I’ve been quoting from it occasionally throughout this series but I believe Kunhiyop’s work merits its own post. In the introduction he describes the need for writing this book:

“A cursory look at the syllabi in many Bible colleges and seminaries in Africa will show that Christian ethics is often packaged along with Western ethics as if they are one and the same thing. They are not. The two have become confused because Western missionaries did not bring a naked gospel but one dressed in their own clothes and shoes. Students who should be studying African Christian ethics are too often engaged in wrestling with teleological, deontological, utilitarian and relativistic ethical theories emanating from the West. What should be taught in African theological colleges is an ethics that is African, biblical and Christian. That is what this book seeks to provide.” (p. 6)

Living on the Seam of History, Part 4: The Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit does the wok of spiritual transformation or change in us, leading us to put off the thoughts and deeds of the old self and put on those of the new self. When we act in a way that shows we are not willing to put off the old self, The Holy Spirit is grieved and disappointed. Even though the Spirit has sealed us for the day of redemption that redemption has still to be consummated. In the intervening period, we are not to do anything that will grieve the Spirit.” (Turaki, Yusufu, Africa Bible Commentary, p.1435)

As we have said in previous posts, we live on the seam of history, looking towards a more global Christianity. The center of the Church has, in recent history, been in the West but has now shifted to Africa and the East. As a result, we in the West can learn much about the Holy Spirit through African eyes. Pneumatology has a different foundation in Africa than in the West, and the United States particularly.

Living on the Seam of History 3: African Christology

Last week we briefly examined African theology, particularly relating to the Muslim culture that permeates the continent. We asked the question is God the same as Allah, and if so, is that an evangelistic in-road? With this post I hope to examine the basics of African Christology. Who is Christ in African eyes, and what can we learn from that perspective?

“No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” – John 1:18 (NIV)

“There are many in Africa who deny the message of this passage (John 1:1-18). They may call themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses or representatives of Christ, but unless their message proclaims that Jesus is God, the Creator of all things, and the only basis upon which any man or woman receives blessings from God, they are to be condemned for their blasphemy. They are to be prayed for, but are also to be shunned. False teaching finds ready soil in Africa due to the natural religiosity of African people. It is time, however, that we in Africa became a little more discerning, to distinguish truth from error. We must guard the truths taught in this passage with all our being if we are to be on the same side as God, whose word clearly tells us that Jesus is God.” (Ngewa, Africa Bible Commentary, p. 1254)

African Christology is a growing field. Dr. Timothy Tennent affirms in Theology in the Context of World Religions that in last 40 years African theological scholarship has made unprecedented leaps forward, and that among this new library of material there emerges four distinct characteristics of African Christology:

Living on the Seam of History 2: God in Africa

God, does he exist? And who is he anyway?

“Africans regard debate about the existence of God as ridiculous. They take it as a given. God is the foundation and explanation of all creation and existence. If he did not exist, nothing else would exist.” (Kunhiyop, African Christian Ethics, HippoBooks 2008, p.17)

In much of the western world the debate about the existence of God is not so easily dismissed as ridiculous. “New Atheists” and others frequently and openly challenge God’s existence and those who believe in him.

Though belief in God according to Kunhiyop is not a problem in Africa, we cannot look at God from a truly African perspective without butting heads with Islam. It has been said that “in the 20th Century Islam has gained more converts in Africa than has Christianity.” ("Islam in AFrica" September 10, 2008, http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-IslaminA.html)

With Africans so readily believing in God, and with so many Muslim converts, one question is frequently raised: Is the Allah the same God as the Christian God? Or otherwise asked: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

Living on the Seam of History 1: African Christianity

"We are now in the midst of one of the most dramatic shifts in Christianity since the Reformation. Christianity is on the move and is creating a seismic change that is changing the face of the whole Christian movement. Every Christian in the world, but especially those in the West, must understand how these changes will influence our understanding of church history, our study of theology, and our conception of world missions.” – Timothy Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity (Zondervan, 2007, p.2)

“Living on the Seam of History” is a series of blog posts that will explore the “dramatic shift” in Christianity that Dr. Tennent so rightly points out.

“(It is a) shift in theological discourse, whereby the universal truths of the gospel are being revisited and retold in new, global contexts…” (Tennent, p.2)

We will attempt to see and learn first from Africa, a member of the global church that is often only viewed as the mission field. Some African theologians are trying to change that:

“For too long we have been recipients of the benefits of the gospel, and with few exceptions most of our church communities do not anticipate, let alone participate in, mission. We do not see it as our duty to go and spread the good news to people within our own countries, or to people beyond the borders of our own countries. This is disobedience to the words of the Lord of heaven and earth.” (Kapolyo, Joe Africa Bible Commentary Ed. Tokunboh Adeyemo, Zondervan 2006, p.1170)

Fellow pilgrims Tokunboh Adeyemo (Africa Bible Commentary), Tim Tennent (Theology in the Context of World Christianity), John Azumah (My Neighbor’s Faith), and Samuel Waje Kunhiyop (African Christian Ethics), will be our guides in this blog series. The latter two are the first two releases in the brand new HippoBooks imprint (see www.hippobooks.net).

All of our “guides” demonstrate through sound biblical scholarship what it means to “live on the seam of history,” and look towards a brighter, more theologically global future. Please check back every Wednesday for this seven part series.

--Andrew