The Contribitions of African Initiated Churches to the Global Church and its Mission (original) (raw)
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The changing faces of African Independent Churches as development actors across borders
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
The religious transnationalism evident in the 21st century has heralded a new paradigm of religion ‘made to travel’ as adherents of religions navigate various cultural frontiers within Africa, Europe and North America. The role of Africa in shaping the global religious landscape, particularly the Christian tradition, designates the continent as one of the major actors of the Christian faith in the 21st century. The inability of European Christianity to address most of the existential realities of Africans and the stigmatisation of African Traditional Religion mainly contributed to the emergence of African Independent Churches in the 19th century in Africa. The emergence and proliferation of African Independent Churches in Africa was Africa’s response to Europeanised Christianity with its imperialistic doctrines and practices that negated expectation of its new context – Africa. Despite the declining fortunes of Christianity in the West, African Christianity, which includes the Afric...
FACULTY OF THEOLOGY, 2020
Throughout much of the twentieth century, the emergence of so-called African Independent, Indigenous or Initiated Churches was one of the most fascinating religious developments in Africa, contributing heavily both to the growth and indigenisation of Christianity outside the Western-initiated mission churches. African instituted churches is a widespread phenomenon whereby a large number of former adherents of the mission Churches have separated in order to assert their right or freedom from the larger ecclesiastical control- founding new movements or organizations independent from direct or indirect control of the western world. Most of them emphasize the combination of Christianity and African culture. Most of the Churches have an African character and interact with the African world view. They try to appropriate the gospel within the African context. Their historical and theological significance has been well-captured by Allan Anderson (2001: 5) with the term African Reformation, meaning that “the entire AIC movement in all its many forms throughout represents such an indigenous Reformation and transformation of Christianity on a continental scale unprecedented in the history of the worldwide church.”
The African Church as a Mixed Bag
African Theological Journal for Church and Society, 2021
The primary focus of this article is on the remnant nature and scope of the African church. Thus, I employ the biblical concept of a "remnant" to argue that the present demographical statistic of church growth in Africa does not translate to a concrete or tangible moral and ethical impact on society. In spite of the Southward movement of the centre of gravity of Christianity, the African church remains vulnerable like a remnant. It is in short supply of strong prophetic voices against enormous socioeconomic , socio-political, and socio-religious injustices or corrupt practices at all spheres, including the church itself. The concept of a "remnant" is a key concept in the Old Testament (OT). It indicates a distinction between the "true" believers and the large bulk of outwardly religious people that does not abide by the basic requirements of being the people of God. I am using it in this article to make a comparison between the statistical evidence and the real impact on the society. Therefore, in the article I seek to argue that the African church statistics should not bluff us. Of course, looking at the multidimensional social, ethical, moral, economic, political and religious matters confronting the African continent even where the church seems to be in the majority, one cannot help but conclude that the African church is a remnant church. But, how can one convince a reader that African Christianity is a remnant faith when the current statistics is showing otherwise? For example, in 2020 the Center for the Study of Global Christianity published data that claimed, "[T]here are more than 631 million Christians that currently reside in Africa." 1 This figure accounts for 45 percent of the Africa's population. Furthermore, the Pew Research Center postulated that, "By the year 2060, six of the top ten countries with the largest Christian populations will be in Africa." 2 In spite of this apparent growth of the church, this paper argues that the African church is a remnant. Taking the statistical evidence available at face value, it is ridiculous to say that the African church is a remnant. Of course, we can define a remnant as a few people who remain after a catastrophe or war has struck the larger group. In the sense that we are using this concept here, we are not only referring to numbers or quantity. Rather, we are concerned with both the quantity and quality. What are the evidences that the African church is a remnant? The paper seeks to answer this question by addressing the following issues: the African church and its remnant reality; why the African church still remains a remnant church in spite of its enormous numerical growth; and the need for a radical spirituality.
In Quest of Wholeness: African Christians in the New Christianity
The decline of Christianity in the West has not meant the demise of that faith as some overzealous sociologists in the last century predicted, but has been compensated by the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. Southern Christianity comes with plenty of local color that makes it different from what was or is practiced in the West. In some cases those marks are so different that Western Christians may not even recognize certain elements of the faith. This component of newness in the expression of Christianity in the South has led some to speak of a w new Christianity." This article focuses on how this new Christianity manifests itself in Africa and explains how its explosive growth there is partly empowered by the African understanding that religion is crucial in the human quest for wholeness. This is why the new Christianity focuses on those aspects of African tradition and culture that are perceived as impediments to achieving wholeness. It describes the background that gave birth to the new Christianity in Africa, and then critically examines some of its focal elements. The article concludes with observations concerning how the new Christianity in Africa can influence world, and especially Western, Christianity. In recent years numerous observers of contemporary Christianity have called our attention to the remarkable growth of the Christian religion, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. They have observed how the decline of Christianity in the West (Northern Hemisphere), especially in Europe,
An Aspect of the Character of Christianity in Africa
Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 2008
Much has been written on and about Christianity in Africa but with relatively little on the subject of understanding it. This is an alarming state of affairs if we take it that Christianity in Africa may soon become the pre-eminent expression of Christianity in the world. To stimulate, therefore, a critical discussion on the subject of understanding Christianity in Africa, I give my observations on an aspect of the character of Christianity in Africa, by which I mean its form. I argue that the interface between the Christian faith and Africa’s ‘enchanted’ world is what predominantly gives shape to, and accounts for, Christianity in Africa. Although this is best seen in African Instituted Churches, it is also present in Mission Churches.
Indigenous Christianity came into being in Africa through the initiatives of the concerned indigenous Africans who felt that Christianity should better be expressed in the African perception and worldview. This initiative was deployed to wipe off factionalism and bring together African Christians with their African feelings and passions towards generating African thoughts in Christianity. This strategy was necessary to connect the gulf created by the “foreign evangelists” who came to “pioneer” a Christianity that was incompatible with the socio-cultural and political worldview of the continent.
Types and Butterflies: African Initiated Churches and European Typologies
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 2001
A typology may overlook the complexities of a subject and may even distort our understanding of it. As often as not such has been the case with attempts to apply typologies to African Initiated Churches. In the words of South African anthropologist Martin West, "It must be questioned whether the various typologies have in fact added significantly to our knowl edge of the independent church movement: too often they are like Leach's butterfly collecting, where information is pigeon holed and the terms of reference are inadequately explained."! This comment highlights exactly the difficulty faced by students of African Independent Churches, or, as I prefer to call them, African Initiated Churches (henceforth, AICs).2 The ten dency is to start with presuppositions drawn from one particular African country and then to apply them in sweeping generaliza tions for the rest of the continent. Over time, however, as knowl edge of these churches increases, many exceptions are discov ered. The picture becomes bewildering, and generalizations prove altogether inadequate. Harold Turner, one of the more perceptive and sensitive observers of AICs, advises that it is best to think of a typology "of tendencies andemphases rather than of individual religious bodies and movements.. .. The only safe course is to proceed to construct an African typology based on the ways in which the phenomena tend to be grouped.:? My intention, in this essay, is to offer a typology based on Turner's advice. An African Reformation The Research Unit for New Religions and Churches at Selly Oak, Birmingham, England,' founded by Turner in 1981, administers the internationally acclaimed Harold Turner Collection, which contains over 25,000 documents focusing on the Christian move ments in the Third World that demonstrate the interaction be tween Christianity and indigenous or so-called primal religions. About half of the documents pertain to the AICs. AICs are undoubtedly a major force in African Christianity today, one manifestation of the shifting of the center of gravity of