’African Churches Willing to Pay Their Own Bills’: The Role of Money in the Formation of Ethiopian-type Churches with Particular Reference to the Mzimba Secession Graham A. Duncan (original) (raw)
Related papers
Regnum Publishers, 2016
The African Church has shown a lot of potential in sustaining herself financially but at the same time she has kept tagging herself to her mother churches in Europe and America, and to some extent she has been unable to get off her dependency trend. Just like the African nations strove for independency in the mid-1900s, the African Church has also struggled since then to fight her tendency to being a big baby, that is, still depending on her mother churches even after she has grown to maturity. The poverty in Africa does not help this church get to the level of self-sustainability because many of her churches can not raise the same resources locally. This paper seeks to understand these dynamics and struggles in the African church.
Missions are money and money is missions: Methodist Ecclesiology in South Africa, 1872-2004
This article examines the close relationship between the church and money, as manifested in the breakaway churches from the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) from the 19th to the 20th century. The Methodist Church has had more secessions than any other mainline denomination in South Africa.1 One of the key factors leading to these secessions was the disagreement about money. This is because the leadership of the Methodist Church, most of whom were white and privileged, often did not practise equality and transparency when it came to money. The article also argues that the disagreements about money were a manifestation of racism and mistrust of black leadership by their white counterparts. The author uses five case studies of secession in the life of the MCSA to show how money became a bone of contention that led to breakaways. The case studies are (1) the formation of Unzondelelo in the 1874; (2) the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal in 1892; (3) the formation of the Ethiopian Church in 1892; (4) the formation of the Methodist Church in Africa in 1930; and (5) the formation of the United Methodist Church of South Africa in 1978.
Themes in African Church History: Missionary Motives, Merits and Mistakes
Namibian Theological Research Papers, 2019
The Protestant missionary movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries have for some time come under severe criticism both by many Western scholars and an increasing number of their African peers. Protestant missionaries are charged with displacing indigenous African cultures and supporting the political and economic colonisation on the African continent. Writing from a Namibian perspective, Anthony Brendell and Thorsten Prill demonstrate that the overall picture painted by the critics is often harsh, and at times prejudiced with negative strokes. Contrary to their claims, the majority of missionaries did not come to Africa with an imperialist, racist or sexist agenda. Most missionaries were driven by compassion for people who needed to hear and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, that does not mean that they were faultless. Their zeal for the gospel and the mission of the Church did not prevent missionaries from making serious mistakes. One of these mistakes was the practice of paternalism, as the example of the Rhenish Missionary Society shows. While most Rhenish missionaries, who worked in Namibia in the forties and fifties of the 20th century, declared that their goal was the transformation of the missionary led Rhenish Mission Church into a unified independent Namibian church, a strong paternalistic attitude among them undermined this endeavour. For the benefit of their African fellow Christians, so they believed, Rhenish missionaries ignored their desire for more autonomy. Being convinced that they knew best what was good for them, the missionaries passed over the wishes of their Namibian church members. The consequences were serious. Missionary paternalism not only prompted the Nama Secession in 1946 and the Herero Secession in 1955 but also contributed to the schism in the Rhenish Baster Congregation in Rehoboth and the subsequent formation of the Rhenish Church in Namibia in 1962.
FUNDING AFRICAN MISSIONARIES: BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology AJET 40.1(2021) , 2022
Increasingly, Africa is not only receiving missionaries but also sending missionaries of her own. Churches and mission agencies around the world are well-poised to support this effort, but there is often uncertainty concerning how African missionaries are best funded, especially considering existing financial disparities. This paper explores the biblical and theological foundations that should guide financial support of the mission movement in Africa and concludes by pointing out some implications and suggestions
Towards a biblical model of funding missions: the case of the Church of Pentecost in Ghana
Conspectus, 2018
The objective of this study is to find out how the Church of Pentecost in Ghana, a missional African church, can improve the funding of its African missions. Based on a modified version of the Osmer model of practical theology, the study used literary, biblical analysis and qualitative approaches. The missions-funding praxis of the church was analysed against biblical guidelines, to formulate improved praxis relevant to Africa-to-Africa missionsfunding. The study does not only suggest improvement to missions -funding praxis for the Church of Pentecost, but could be useful to other missional churches in Africa. It could also provide guidance for missiology and church administration students in African seminaries. The study is timely for missions-funding, given the emerging trend of Africa-to-Africa missions.
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.