Thoughts on African Instituted Churches

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On October 6th, Dr. Nimi Wariboko lectured on AICs (African Initiated Churches or African Independent Churches), dealing with important issues of African Christianity such as African’s definition of religion and salvation; the nature of prosperity gospel; and reasons of the AIC’s rapid growth in Africa.

After the lecture, our members shared their reflections on his lecture. At first, our discussion centered on the fine line between syncretism and contextualization of AIC. Some students showed interested in AIC’s successful contextualization, but other students criticized their blending of two traditions, namely Christianity and African traditional religion. But to this critic, one student pointed out that we should not blame or put down one syncretism and uphold our own syncretism. He thought that it might be true that African Christians may do it with traditional religions, but churches in the west tend to do the same with materialism. Thus we must be gentle in our approach. Other students agree that we should recognize our own syncretism first before criticizing AIC’s syncretism.

Some critical comments against AICs were heard about AIC’s prosperity gospel (of course the prosperity gospel is not limited to AIC): One student criticized the so called prosperity gospel since it is materializing the gospel. Another student agreed with him saying that the prosperity gospel can be dangerous because it sometimes correlates salvation with the external and material. He added, “the New Testament speaks extensively about apostles having little in the eyes of the world.” Some students also showed concerns over the fact that many African preachers became preachers without proper theological background.

However, many students found positive aspects of AIC’s total or holistic understanding of salvation which includes not just saving souls but also saving bodies, which can be extended to saving all creatures. One student explains more about the holistic notion of salvation in Africa by mentioning some AIC’s tradition of confessing ecological sins. According to him, in some AIC, people confess sins against nature (for example, I cut down trees but did not plant new ones) in baptismal ceremony. And this comment made students think about ecological sins committed by western Christians.

At the end of discussion one student pointed out that Dr. Wariboko’s lecture was too focused on describing distinct characteristics of African Pentecostalism. He commented that we should more emphasize on the common traits of AIC as Christian community that above and beyond the cultural influence. Due to the lack of time, we could not talk much about this issue, but one student replied that the simple fact that Pentecostal churches are focusing on the presence of the Holy Spirit should be considered as a sign that they focus on common experiences with other Pentecostal churches outside Africa.

Hye Jin Lee, discussion moderator

Statistical center of gravity of Christianity

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

In this week, instead of having guest speaker, Dr. Johnson lectured on the change of the “statistical center of Gravity” in global Christianity. After the lecture, our group members shared precious reflections on the lecture and given questions. First, I raised question regarding the relevance of the terms global north and south. If the global north only means Europe and North America, what is the difference between using western/non-western dichotomy and using global north/south? I also pointed out that although the demographic center has been moving toward global north, financial center has not been much changed.

A student argued that Western theology is more based on tradition and bible. Thus, when it goes into the missions field among non Christians in the non-west there are some conflicts with many issues (e.g. polygamy, which is a societal concept, but rejected in most western theology). He proposed that missionaries from the west need to be even more understanding of what is happening in the south and learning the societal and cultural differences. B student agreed to A and added to that there need to be more partnerships with the churches in the global south when engaging in discipleship and evangelism. Simultaneously, she criticized the attitudes of some theologians belong to global South for their acceptance of Western theology without much reflections. For example, in her view, Korean theologians are so eager to learn and import theology from the west without taking much consideration eastern cultures being steeped in Buddhism. Therefore, she believes that there should be more contextualized theology within Korea (or any other southern country). C student, although he agreed that the church in the global south is too theologically dependent on the church of the global north, showed a slightly different opinion. According to him, there are indeed many contextualized works of theologians in the global South. The problem is that these works are not being translated into English. Thus, there is high need for more translated works of theology from the south into the North. He believes that. Student D pointed out that finances can be an important factor even in the theological issues. Thus, we need to pay attention to how the financial superiority of the global north is also causing theological dominance from the global north.

About the role of each Church in the global North and South for the future of Christianity, student A and C emphasized the importance of having the perspective that both global North and South are the half bodies of the body of Christ. In addition, since Global south does not have a long Christian history, he claimed that Global north needs to help the global south to avoid syncretism, etc. Student B and D pointed out that Syncretism is also found in global North pointing out how syncretistic Christianity in the global north is with things such as materialism, or certain post modern philosophies. However, all group members unanimously agreed that we should understand the interdependence of the church in the Global north and south.

Hye Jin Lee, discussion moderator