TOPIC: WHAT IS TRUTH?
TEXT: II TIMOTHY 4:1-8
FOCUS TEXT: JOHN 18:38
EVERYONE BELIEVES IN SOMETHING OR SOMEONE. FOR MOST PEOPLE THEIR BELIEF IS THE RESULT OF WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD FROM OTHERS. MANY TIMES THOSE WHO SPOKE TO THEM WERE DECIEVED THEMSELVES AND DID NOT KNOW THE TRUTH. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO BELIEVE THE TRUTH BT WHAT IS THE TRUTH?
1. TRUTH IS A STATEMENT OF WHAT IS REAL OR WHAT IS RIGHT AS COMPARED WITH WHAT IS FALSE OR WHAT RIGHT IS.
2. TRUTH IS A STATEMENT ABOUT THE ULTIMAE REALITIES OF LIFE. BECAUSE TRUTH HAS TO DO WITH ULTIMATE REALITY, TRUTH WILL AFFACT A PERSON’S DESTINY.
SITTING IN A CHAIR IS SIMPLE ILLUSTRATION OF TRUSTING IN SOMETHING. A PERSON WILL NOT SIT IN A CHAIR UNLESS HE OR SHE BELIEVES THAT WILL SUPPORT HIM OR HER.
CONSIDER FLYING IN A PLANE; BEFORE YOU ENTER A PLANE YOU MUST HAVE CONFEDENCE IN BOTH THE PLANE AND THE PILOT. YOU MUST BELIEVE THAT THE PLANE WILL FLY. WEATHER THE PLANE AND PILOT ARE TRUSTWORTHY OR NOT CAN BE A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. EVERYONE BELIEVES IN SOMETHING OR SOMEONE.FOR MOST PEOPLE THEIR BELIEF IS THE RESULT OF WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD FROM OTHERS. MAY TIMES THOSE WHO SPOKE TO THEM WERE DECIEVED THEMSELVES AND DO NOT KNOWTHE TRUTH. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO BELIEVE THE TRUTH WHAT
MANY PEOPLE THINK THAT IF SOMETHING IS SPOKEN BY A TEACHER IN SCHOOL, READ IT FROM INTERNET, WRITEN IN THE BOOK, HEARD VIA TELEVISION OR PRINT MEDIA IT MUST BE THE TRUTH. UNFORTUNATELY THAT IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. SOMETIMES TEACHERS AND WRITERS HAS BEEN TAUGHT WHAT IS WRONG AND SO THEY TELL OTHER WHAT IS WRONG.
HERE ARE ONE EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING THAT IS NOT TRUE AND HOW IT HAS AFFECTED MANY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IT. AMONG THE GREAT MANY EDUCATED EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS THERE IS A BELIEF THAT THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE STANDARDS OF RIGHT AND WRONG GIVEN BY GOD, AS THE BIBLE TEACHES. THESE PEOPLE DO NOT BELIEVE THAT GOD HOLDS THEM RESPONSIPLE FOR THEIR BEHAVIOUR. THEY HAVE NO STANDARD TO MEASURE RIGHT AND WRONG BEYOND THEIR OPINONS. THEY MAKE UP THEIR OWN RULES OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG. SOMETIMES THE RULES WE MAKE UP ARE BASED ON WHAT PERSONALLY WANT TO DO. ONE OF THE POPURAL SAYING IN NORTH AMERICA TODAY GOES LIKE THIS “IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT”
ONE WAY TO TEST THE TRUTH OF A PERSON’S WORDS IS TO SEE WHAT THAT PERSON’S ENEMIES SAY ABOUT HIM OR HER.WE SEE THIS HAPPENING IN SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY LIKE OUR HERE. WHAT WE BELIEVE WILL DETERMINE HOW WE ACT AND THE KIND OF PERSON WE ARE. BECAUSE WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. SO WHO HAS THE TRUTH AND WHO MAY BE TRUST?
IN THE WORLD TODAY THERE ARE MANY WHO CLAIM TO HAVE THE TRUTH. OUR ACTIONS RESULTS FROM WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE TRUE .IT IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT WE BELIEVE WHAT IS TRUE, OR WE MAY LOSE OUR SOUL FOREVER.
Wednesday 29 July 2009
The effect of divorce
Divorce has a lingering, detrimental impact on health that even remarriage cannot fully repair, a study suggests. A Chicago study involving 8,652 people aged 51 to 61 found divorced people have 20% more chronic illnesses such as cancer than those who never marry. The figure only drops to 12% for those who remarry, researchers write in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour. They say we start adulthood with a "health stock" that is kept or eroded depending on our marital experience.
Only those who are continuously married can expect the same rate of chronic health problems as the never-wedded, the study suggests. Although people who remarry after a divorce or being widowed do tend to be happier as a result - being no more depressed than those continuously married and less depressed than those who never married - they gain little in terms of chronic health conditions.
People who remarried had 12% more chronic health conditions than those continuously married, which was slightly less than the 20% for the divorced or widowed who did not remarry. Researcher Dr Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said divorce or widowhood undermines health because incomes drop and stress develops over issues such as shared child care. Whereas marriage tends to bring an immediate health benefit, in that it improves health behaviours for men and financial well-being for women.
But remarriage does not heal all. She said: "Some health situations, like depression, seem to respond both quickly and strongly to changes in current conditions. "In contrast, conditions such as diabetes and heart disease develop slowly over a substantial period and show the impact of past experiences, which is why health is undermined by divorce or widowhood, even when a person remarries." Anastasia de Waal, of the think tank Civitas, said: "This research highlights the fact that whilst divorce has become much more common, it can take not just a tremendous emotional and financial toll, but also a heavy health one."
Christine Northan, a counsellor for Relate, said: "I'm not surprised by the findings. It's another reason to work hard to make marriages last, unless it is a very destructive relationship. "It's a good idea if you can use a messy divorce to understand both yourself better and why the relationship did not work. "If you do that, you will be in a better place to go into a second successful marriage. "But if you are drawn to people who are toxic for you, then you may be better off staying single." She said a surprising number of people unconsciously look for someone like their first wife or husband and that the chance of a second marriage ending in divorce was two-fold.
source: BBC
Only those who are continuously married can expect the same rate of chronic health problems as the never-wedded, the study suggests. Although people who remarry after a divorce or being widowed do tend to be happier as a result - being no more depressed than those continuously married and less depressed than those who never married - they gain little in terms of chronic health conditions.
People who remarried had 12% more chronic health conditions than those continuously married, which was slightly less than the 20% for the divorced or widowed who did not remarry. Researcher Dr Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said divorce or widowhood undermines health because incomes drop and stress develops over issues such as shared child care. Whereas marriage tends to bring an immediate health benefit, in that it improves health behaviours for men and financial well-being for women.
But remarriage does not heal all. She said: "Some health situations, like depression, seem to respond both quickly and strongly to changes in current conditions. "In contrast, conditions such as diabetes and heart disease develop slowly over a substantial period and show the impact of past experiences, which is why health is undermined by divorce or widowhood, even when a person remarries." Anastasia de Waal, of the think tank Civitas, said: "This research highlights the fact that whilst divorce has become much more common, it can take not just a tremendous emotional and financial toll, but also a heavy health one."
Christine Northan, a counsellor for Relate, said: "I'm not surprised by the findings. It's another reason to work hard to make marriages last, unless it is a very destructive relationship. "It's a good idea if you can use a messy divorce to understand both yourself better and why the relationship did not work. "If you do that, you will be in a better place to go into a second successful marriage. "But if you are drawn to people who are toxic for you, then you may be better off staying single." She said a surprising number of people unconsciously look for someone like their first wife or husband and that the chance of a second marriage ending in divorce was two-fold.
source: BBC
Saturday 25 July 2009
In whom can we find the truth? (1King 18:16-39)
Topic: In whom can we find the truth?
Text: 1King 18:16-39
In this world everyone believes in something or someone. For many people belief is the result of what they have heard from others. Others also what they have seen from a person doing or done. However, many times those who spoke to them were deceived themselves and did not know the truth. It is important to believe the truth; but what is the truth?.
1.where can we find the truth
In African society the idea of truth is related to the stories and myths about life and human experiences which are passed down from one generation to another by elders or grandparents of the clan. In some years back when the moon was on in the night, the elders of the town will call the children and tell myths and stories about life and related it facts or truth.
The passage we just read was a story about the truth of powers. There are many different kinds of powers in the world. Political power, Religious power, the evil power and ultimate power is the one that belongs to God.
When the Prophet met people with different kind of power, he proved to them that there was and is only one power that comes with glory -God's power.
In John 18 Jesus was arrested and sent blasphemy that he claimed to call himself God. But in the midst of going through the punishment of death , Jesus claimed that “For this reason I came into the world, to testify to the Truth” (John 18:37) then the Roman governor Pontius Pilate asked him, “what is the Truth:
In John 14:6, Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the father expect through me. Can Jesus prove such a claim? And if Jesus is right, then other religious teachers and even many elders must be wrong.
In Japan as you are aware, there are many gods around us. The difference between Japan and Africa is that Africans believed that there is only one God called (Onyankopon) mean the most high one above all. So they believed that they cannot reach Him personally so they worship him through mediums like river, stones and forest ect.
So if someone claimed that truth of God, then we should find out that he used his power of truth for the good of others and not for his own benefit. Has there ever been such a person? To discover who has the truth let us briefly compare Christ Jesus with others who claimed to teach the truth. Let see who used his power only for the good of others.
2. Jesus Christ compared to other religious Teachers
What other man in history was born of a virgin woman? What other man ever lived a sinless and perfect life, for the good of others, as Jesus Christ did? When did Krishna of Hinduism ever calm the storm and waves for his followers? When did Guatemala of Buddhism ever clean the leper or give sight to those who born blind? When did the teacher of Confucius feed more than 5000 people men, women and children who listened his teaching? When did Mao Tse Tung of China ever heal an epileptic child? When did Marx of Lenin ever raise a widow’s only son form the dead?
What other man in history besides Jesus has ever answered the desperate prayer of hurting people who cried out to him for help? Which teacher or religious leader ever made 180 gallons of water into wine for the joy of newly married couples at their wedding feast? When did Mohammed die for the sins of mankind? When did Mohammed rise from the dead to give hope and eternal life?
The answers to these questions tell us that Jesus Christ was different and still different from every other man who ever lived. Although many religious leaders, teachers and prophets in history have claimed to teach the truth, only Jesus Christ has demonstrated by his life of perfect love, perfect holiness and perfect power that he is the way, the truth and the life as he claimed to be (John 14:6) When we compare Jesus to other persons in history, we find that there has never been a person like him. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we will find the truth, God’s forgiveness of our sins and eternal life with God forever.
Therefore the Bible tells us that we need to believe in the only one who came and die for all mankind and the whole authority has been given to him. “All the Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age”.
Text: 1King 18:16-39
In this world everyone believes in something or someone. For many people belief is the result of what they have heard from others. Others also what they have seen from a person doing or done. However, many times those who spoke to them were deceived themselves and did not know the truth. It is important to believe the truth; but what is the truth?.
1.where can we find the truth
In African society the idea of truth is related to the stories and myths about life and human experiences which are passed down from one generation to another by elders or grandparents of the clan. In some years back when the moon was on in the night, the elders of the town will call the children and tell myths and stories about life and related it facts or truth.
The passage we just read was a story about the truth of powers. There are many different kinds of powers in the world. Political power, Religious power, the evil power and ultimate power is the one that belongs to God.
When the Prophet met people with different kind of power, he proved to them that there was and is only one power that comes with glory -God's power.
In John 18 Jesus was arrested and sent blasphemy that he claimed to call himself God. But in the midst of going through the punishment of death , Jesus claimed that “For this reason I came into the world, to testify to the Truth” (John 18:37) then the Roman governor Pontius Pilate asked him, “what is the Truth:
In John 14:6, Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the father expect through me. Can Jesus prove such a claim? And if Jesus is right, then other religious teachers and even many elders must be wrong.
In Japan as you are aware, there are many gods around us. The difference between Japan and Africa is that Africans believed that there is only one God called (Onyankopon) mean the most high one above all. So they believed that they cannot reach Him personally so they worship him through mediums like river, stones and forest ect.
So if someone claimed that truth of God, then we should find out that he used his power of truth for the good of others and not for his own benefit. Has there ever been such a person? To discover who has the truth let us briefly compare Christ Jesus with others who claimed to teach the truth. Let see who used his power only for the good of others.
2. Jesus Christ compared to other religious Teachers
What other man in history was born of a virgin woman? What other man ever lived a sinless and perfect life, for the good of others, as Jesus Christ did? When did Krishna of Hinduism ever calm the storm and waves for his followers? When did Guatemala of Buddhism ever clean the leper or give sight to those who born blind? When did the teacher of Confucius feed more than 5000 people men, women and children who listened his teaching? When did Mao Tse Tung of China ever heal an epileptic child? When did Marx of Lenin ever raise a widow’s only son form the dead?
What other man in history besides Jesus has ever answered the desperate prayer of hurting people who cried out to him for help? Which teacher or religious leader ever made 180 gallons of water into wine for the joy of newly married couples at their wedding feast? When did Mohammed die for the sins of mankind? When did Mohammed rise from the dead to give hope and eternal life?
The answers to these questions tell us that Jesus Christ was different and still different from every other man who ever lived. Although many religious leaders, teachers and prophets in history have claimed to teach the truth, only Jesus Christ has demonstrated by his life of perfect love, perfect holiness and perfect power that he is the way, the truth and the life as he claimed to be (John 14:6) When we compare Jesus to other persons in history, we find that there has never been a person like him. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we will find the truth, God’s forgiveness of our sins and eternal life with God forever.
Therefore the Bible tells us that we need to believe in the only one who came and die for all mankind and the whole authority has been given to him. “All the Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age”.
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Sunday 15 March 2009
Send Off service for the Pastor of Nishinasuno Church
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Today is the 15th dayas of March 2009, was the send off service for Rev.Yoshio Ushio who have served the Nishinuno Church for the past 6 years. During his service as Minister in Charge of the Church, he was also nominated to serve as one of the counselors of the Asian Rural Institute till date. The Asian
Saturday 14 March 2009
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION.
African Christianity can only evolve out of the interaction of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the cultural experience of the people. Christianity has always been incarnate within a culture, first Hebrew, then Greek, then Roman, Western and Africa. Andrew Walls argues that “the principal evidence of the ongoing life of traditional African religion lies within African Christianity…African Christianity is shaped by Africa’s past”.1 As Bediako rightly mention ed, “no Christian theology in any age is ever simply a repetition of the inherited Christian tradition; that all Christian all Christian theology is an ‘adaptation’ of the gospel, had to express the gospel within the framework of Hellenistic culture. This study has shown that Christianity takes shape in the local setting and within the history of the people concerned. The Christian message is one and unchangeable but the people employ their worldviews and the totality of their being to understand the massage of Jesus Christ, to make it relevant to their daily life.
African Christianity can only evolve out of the interaction of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the cultural experience of the people. Christianity has always been incarnate within a culture, first Hebrew, then Greek, then Roman, Western and Africa. Andrew Walls argues that “the principal evidence of the ongoing life of traditional African religion lies within African Christianity…African Christianity is shaped by Africa’s past”.1 As Bediako rightly mention ed, “no Christian theology in any age is ever simply a repetition of the inherited Christian tradition; that all Christian all Christian theology is an ‘adaptation’ of the gospel, had to express the gospel within the framework of Hellenistic culture. This study has shown that Christianity takes shape in the local setting and within the history of the people concerned. The Christian message is one and unchangeable but the people employ their worldviews and the totality of their being to understand the massage of Jesus Christ, to make it relevant to their daily life.
Inclusive Paradigm
3 Inclusive Paradigm
Inclusive Paradigm affirms the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God.
Karl Rahner’s Inclusivist Approach
Rahner maintains that salvation comes only through faith in God through Christ and again argues the salvific presence of God in non- Christian religions. To hold the two principles in balance he argues that:
When we have to keep in mind both principles together, namely the necessity of Christian faith and the universal salvific will of God’s love and omnipotence, we can only reconcile them by saying that somehow all men must be capable of being members of the Church; and this capacity must not be understood merely in the sense of an abstract and purely logical possibility, but as a real and historically concrete one.1
Rahner gives four thesis to explain his position:
1.Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all men, which cannot recognise any other religion beside itself as of equal right. Rahner adds a statement to this thesis by saying, the fact that Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion must be balanced by the difficulties involved in discerning ‘when the existentially real demand is made by the absolute religion in its historically tangible form.’2
2.The universal salvific will of God revealed in Christ can be experienced by non-Christian religions. He argues that God must somehow offer grace to all those who have never properly encountered the Gospel. The grace of God must be made available through and not despite the non-Christian’s religion
3.A non-Christian may have already accepted God’s grace in the depths of his or her heart by doing good. If a non- Christian has responded positively to God’s grace, through selfless love for another, then even though it is not known objectively, that person has accepted the God that is historically and definitively revealed in Christ. God’s salvation cannot be divorced from Christ; hence the term ‘anonymous Christian’ is more appropriate than ‘anonymous theist’.
4.The church cannot be seen as an elite community of those who are saved as opposed to the mass of unredeemed non-Christian humanity. The church is a tangible sign of the faith, hope and love made visible, present and irreversible in Christ. The Inclusive approach affirms that the only possible normative truth basis for Christians is Christ, while accommodating the salvific experience in non-Christian religions. The inclusivist challenges the pluralist removal of Christ and his church from the centre of the universe of faiths and those exclusivist who sever the relationship between Christ and other faiths.
3.3 The Lordship of Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism
The Lordship of Christ is one of the central affirmation of the New Testament, the manner in which it was expressed was developed in the West where religious pluralism was not a big issue. Those of us Africans whose history, tradition, culture, and social relationship are different from those in the West do not find it easy to bear this burden of this heritage. This means that the involvement of African Christians in pluralist communities should be taken serious. The divine-human encounter in Jesus Christ is the basis for this confession.
The obvious mark of a Christian is the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (2Cor. 4:5; Rom. 10:9; Col. 2:6 etc). It signifies a new relationship of the believer to Jesus Christ, of commitment and loyalty, of surrendering oneself to God and to the one Lord, Jesus Christ. It is an affirmation that by virtue of his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has been exalted above all lords.
There are three main points in the New Testament that can help in understanding the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the context of religious pluralism. The first is the connection between the confession of Christ’s Lordship and faith in his resurrection. The second is the relation between the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord and his humility, his suffering, his emptying himself, his servant hood. The third is the unique combination of the fatherhood of God with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.3 This leads us to a major question as to how Christians can witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as they live with neighbours of other faiths. Christians should witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the salvation of Jesus Christ and actively involve in the struggle for justice. Christians should also share with neighbours of other faith that in Jesus Christ the Ultimate has become intimate with humanity, “that nowhere else is the victory over suffering and death manifested so decisively as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”4
4. African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
Christianity is universal; the particularity of African Christianity should provide a contribution to the universal church. This contribution will defuse the Afrikania claim that what Africa needs is African Traditional Religion as an alternate to Christianity. The following statements of Komfo Damuah confirm the challenge the movement poses to the Church. His fundamental problem with Christianity in Africa lies in what he said:
Christianity is generally viewed by Africans as not indigenously African, but rather a white man’s religion, because as in other ‘pagan’ areas of the world, Christian missionaries often opposed or denigrated traditional local customs and institutions: veneration of ancestors, traditional tribal ceremonies and authority systems, and polygamy…5
Damuah proposed a solution to the problem of what he called the great dilemma facing Africans today’ by calling for a ‘new synthesis’ a reconstruction of the traditional religion which he considers as the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He mentions in the Afrikania handbook what the movement wants to achieve.
It is not a new religion. It is a traditional African Religion ‘come alive’, reformed and updated. Afrikania is here not to destroy but to fulfil the dream of a new Africa. It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation.6
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa is the question of cultural identity: the question of Ghanaian Christian identity. Bediako has raised the following questions that need further research. Have churches in Africa especially the mainline churches, adequately indigenised the Christian gospel by making full use of the potential elements of faith rooted in our traditional religions?
Christianity and Islam: With particular reference to Shariah Law
Shariah or Islamic Law which has become a a big challenge to the world especially in some countries in Africa especially in Nigeria. The system of law that governed a flourishing Islamic society for centuries has become a backward practice of endorsing corporal punishment. The traditional practice of Islamic law has been overshadowed by extreme interpretations.
Shariah is founded on three sources: the Quran, traditions and guidance of the scholars in authority.
Extreme Shariah: Extremism in Islam constitutes a total disregard for the principles of inclusiveness inherent in the faith.
1.The Punishment for Theft: The punishment for theft is the amputation of the hand.
2.The Punishment for Adultery: The punishment for adultery is death by stoning.
3.Death Penalty: Many countries choose not to endorse the death penalty, and even among those that do, its application is tempered by rules.
Extremist Hegemony: Extremist leaders attempting to create a puritanical overnight, disregard the practical aspects inherent in Islamic law, and ignore the fundamentals of human nature and societal conditioning. They put themselves in a position where they must try and overpower man’s resistance by brute force in order to institute their system of governance. Extreme leaders exert tremendous effort to prevent Muslims from living under a democratic system. They aim to prevent the spread of democracy because it will cancel their hegemony.
In the year 2000 eleven Northern states in Nigeria re-Islamised their legal system. The penal codes have adopted most of the provisions and added new provisions on the Quranic offences like: Theft, Unlawful Sexual Intercourse, Robbery, Defamation, Drinking Alcohol. The fixed punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse are stoning to death for persons who are currently married or have ever contracted a valid marriage. For those who have never contracted a marriage, the punishment is one hundred lashes and in addition, banishment for men. Theft is to be punished by amputation of the right hand. Robbery is punished by death if a life has been taken, by death by crucifixion if both lives and property have been taken, by amputation of both the right hand and the left foot if only property has been taken, and by banishment if there was only a “hold up” without further aggravation. Drinking alcohol are both punishable with eighty lashes.
Faith, Tradition and Modernity
God has made us and we are in relationship with God whether we recognise it or not. The Bible speaks of humankind as God’s image, as being unique and communal, and as having an identity which is derived and not autonomous. The chief end of human existence is and will be always to serve God and enjoy him forever in both our personal and communal lives. There is an immerse confusion when we try to interrelate faith, tradition and modernity. Our priorities creates problems when God is left out of the game. The image of God is marred and tarnished. Of ourselves we are powerless, alienated fragmented, fearful. What makes a Christian anthropology good news, is the message that Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of God, came to share our humanity and to redeem it through the cross. Our wholeness depends on the quality of relationship with God.
Christian Faith and Tradition
The critical debate between Christian faith an d tradition pose serious questions regarding the role of tradition in Christianity and between tradition and modernity. During the Colonial period the traditional leaders took the approach of ‘Sankofa’ and the missionaries took the approach of ‘to wamanmmere gu’ do away with or throw away your cultural practices. According to the missionaries cultural values have no place in Christianity. The traditional leaders especially the Afrikania movement assert that Christianity is a foreign religion and therefore Africa must reject it and make African Traditional Religion her god given religion. The Afrikania Movement emphasises that: Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequate Africa’s quest for identity and self-determination. He posits that a reconstructed Traditional African Religion may be considered as a likely answer to Africa’s search for freedom and self-determination. ATR can exist in its own right on equal terms with other religions within an ecumenical framework.
The Afrikania Movement has raised pertinent questions regarding African Christianity, especially the question of identity. The movement is asking whether Christian Africa has adequately appropriated the faith that she espouses. Have Christian churches adequately indigenised the Christian gospel by making use of religious values in their culture? The movement rejects Christianity and advocates ATR as an alternative religion to Christianity. Rejecting Christianity is not the solution to African’s quest for authentic African religion. The challenge confronting the Church in Africa is appropriating positive ideas of faith from our tradition, which are compatible with the Christian faith and the scriptures.
Modernity, Information Technology and Christian Faith
The dominating technology today is the information technology which creates our images of the world. How do we as African Church relate to this global phenomenon when the Church in Africa is concerned about African spirituality. What sort of church do we need in an information society? The big challenge is a church on the move, always relevant for today’s world. If the church cannot communicate in the language and culture of this present generation, it is tragically out of touch, not only with the world today but also with the God of today. The church finds itself in a crisis of communication as we move into an information society. This modern culture is characterised by a belief in cause and effect – an indefinite cycle of production of consumption, self-interest with capital system. The message of most churches is based on cycle of production of consumption, self-interest – prosperity message.
Four interrelated reasons why we need to pay attention to information technology
1.It is a heartland technology which will influence all aspects of our life in a much more comprehensive way than the technology of the industrial society.
2.It raises questions about power and information gulfs
3.The speed of technological change is accelerating. As a result the technology, including bio and gene technology out runs the political decision processes
4.The consequences of the development of IT are far reaching and global.. The entire society may be transformed into a global village.
Technology as an Idol of Modern Culture
There is at least little doubt that the technology has become the universal language of modern culture. If you cannot read and talk that language you have lost even before you start. And the language is primarily that of IT. Wherever you go in the world, you see the footprints of our technology and hear the sound of its electronics.
The problem is that the worldview of technology turns everything upside down; it transforms the means into goals, and the good becomes pragmatic that which makes things happen. Technology creates our image of the world and defines society and worldview. What is dangerous here is the power we give to technology and the way we combine it with our self interest for where this happens technology will assume a religious character. The mistake is not in technology the problem began when we developed technology within a culture that no longer had room for a living God and His purpose for life. The culture in which the technology has been developed has gone astray and technology becomes an idol for this reason.
Where technology gains a religious character it becomes a threat to religion.
1.The technological worldview will divert our world’s interest, motivation, satisfaction, and energy away from a religious center. Example: empty churches in Europe
2.The technological worldview takes the power out of our religious vocabulary. Religious symbols images and rituals become meaningless.
3.The technological surroundings encourage a religiosity which has little or no interest in organised religion.
The church in Africa is caught in a middle of two strong ideologies
1.African Spirituality: Dealing with the African past – spirit world, ancestors, fetishism, witchcraft, worship of rivers, trees, stones etc.
2.Modern Technology – Major shift to the future with little or no relevance to our past.
The Church in Africa can not let go our past and discard our future. We need a good balance.
Extreme Spirituality – Has its problems. Especially when there is much emphasis on the devil. We see any move in a negative way creating fear and confusion. No attempt to venture to the future. We limit the power of God and give priority to the devil and his evil activities.
Extreme modernism – results in secularization.
Inclusive Paradigm affirms the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God.
Karl Rahner’s Inclusivist Approach
Rahner maintains that salvation comes only through faith in God through Christ and again argues the salvific presence of God in non- Christian religions. To hold the two principles in balance he argues that:
When we have to keep in mind both principles together, namely the necessity of Christian faith and the universal salvific will of God’s love and omnipotence, we can only reconcile them by saying that somehow all men must be capable of being members of the Church; and this capacity must not be understood merely in the sense of an abstract and purely logical possibility, but as a real and historically concrete one.1
Rahner gives four thesis to explain his position:
1.Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all men, which cannot recognise any other religion beside itself as of equal right. Rahner adds a statement to this thesis by saying, the fact that Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion must be balanced by the difficulties involved in discerning ‘when the existentially real demand is made by the absolute religion in its historically tangible form.’2
2.The universal salvific will of God revealed in Christ can be experienced by non-Christian religions. He argues that God must somehow offer grace to all those who have never properly encountered the Gospel. The grace of God must be made available through and not despite the non-Christian’s religion
3.A non-Christian may have already accepted God’s grace in the depths of his or her heart by doing good. If a non- Christian has responded positively to God’s grace, through selfless love for another, then even though it is not known objectively, that person has accepted the God that is historically and definitively revealed in Christ. God’s salvation cannot be divorced from Christ; hence the term ‘anonymous Christian’ is more appropriate than ‘anonymous theist’.
4.The church cannot be seen as an elite community of those who are saved as opposed to the mass of unredeemed non-Christian humanity. The church is a tangible sign of the faith, hope and love made visible, present and irreversible in Christ. The Inclusive approach affirms that the only possible normative truth basis for Christians is Christ, while accommodating the salvific experience in non-Christian religions. The inclusivist challenges the pluralist removal of Christ and his church from the centre of the universe of faiths and those exclusivist who sever the relationship between Christ and other faiths.
3.3 The Lordship of Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism
The Lordship of Christ is one of the central affirmation of the New Testament, the manner in which it was expressed was developed in the West where religious pluralism was not a big issue. Those of us Africans whose history, tradition, culture, and social relationship are different from those in the West do not find it easy to bear this burden of this heritage. This means that the involvement of African Christians in pluralist communities should be taken serious. The divine-human encounter in Jesus Christ is the basis for this confession.
The obvious mark of a Christian is the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (2Cor. 4:5; Rom. 10:9; Col. 2:6 etc). It signifies a new relationship of the believer to Jesus Christ, of commitment and loyalty, of surrendering oneself to God and to the one Lord, Jesus Christ. It is an affirmation that by virtue of his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has been exalted above all lords.
There are three main points in the New Testament that can help in understanding the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the context of religious pluralism. The first is the connection between the confession of Christ’s Lordship and faith in his resurrection. The second is the relation between the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord and his humility, his suffering, his emptying himself, his servant hood. The third is the unique combination of the fatherhood of God with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.3 This leads us to a major question as to how Christians can witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as they live with neighbours of other faiths. Christians should witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the salvation of Jesus Christ and actively involve in the struggle for justice. Christians should also share with neighbours of other faith that in Jesus Christ the Ultimate has become intimate with humanity, “that nowhere else is the victory over suffering and death manifested so decisively as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”4
4. African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
Christianity is universal; the particularity of African Christianity should provide a contribution to the universal church. This contribution will defuse the Afrikania claim that what Africa needs is African Traditional Religion as an alternate to Christianity. The following statements of Komfo Damuah confirm the challenge the movement poses to the Church. His fundamental problem with Christianity in Africa lies in what he said:
Christianity is generally viewed by Africans as not indigenously African, but rather a white man’s religion, because as in other ‘pagan’ areas of the world, Christian missionaries often opposed or denigrated traditional local customs and institutions: veneration of ancestors, traditional tribal ceremonies and authority systems, and polygamy…5
Damuah proposed a solution to the problem of what he called the great dilemma facing Africans today’ by calling for a ‘new synthesis’ a reconstruction of the traditional religion which he considers as the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He mentions in the Afrikania handbook what the movement wants to achieve.
It is not a new religion. It is a traditional African Religion ‘come alive’, reformed and updated. Afrikania is here not to destroy but to fulfil the dream of a new Africa. It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation.6
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa is the question of cultural identity: the question of Ghanaian Christian identity. Bediako has raised the following questions that need further research. Have churches in Africa especially the mainline churches, adequately indigenised the Christian gospel by making full use of the potential elements of faith rooted in our traditional religions?
Christianity and Islam: With particular reference to Shariah Law
Shariah or Islamic Law which has become a a big challenge to the world especially in some countries in Africa especially in Nigeria. The system of law that governed a flourishing Islamic society for centuries has become a backward practice of endorsing corporal punishment. The traditional practice of Islamic law has been overshadowed by extreme interpretations.
Shariah is founded on three sources: the Quran, traditions and guidance of the scholars in authority.
Extreme Shariah: Extremism in Islam constitutes a total disregard for the principles of inclusiveness inherent in the faith.
1.The Punishment for Theft: The punishment for theft is the amputation of the hand.
2.The Punishment for Adultery: The punishment for adultery is death by stoning.
3.Death Penalty: Many countries choose not to endorse the death penalty, and even among those that do, its application is tempered by rules.
Extremist Hegemony: Extremist leaders attempting to create a puritanical overnight, disregard the practical aspects inherent in Islamic law, and ignore the fundamentals of human nature and societal conditioning. They put themselves in a position where they must try and overpower man’s resistance by brute force in order to institute their system of governance. Extreme leaders exert tremendous effort to prevent Muslims from living under a democratic system. They aim to prevent the spread of democracy because it will cancel their hegemony.
In the year 2000 eleven Northern states in Nigeria re-Islamised their legal system. The penal codes have adopted most of the provisions and added new provisions on the Quranic offences like: Theft, Unlawful Sexual Intercourse, Robbery, Defamation, Drinking Alcohol. The fixed punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse are stoning to death for persons who are currently married or have ever contracted a valid marriage. For those who have never contracted a marriage, the punishment is one hundred lashes and in addition, banishment for men. Theft is to be punished by amputation of the right hand. Robbery is punished by death if a life has been taken, by death by crucifixion if both lives and property have been taken, by amputation of both the right hand and the left foot if only property has been taken, and by banishment if there was only a “hold up” without further aggravation. Drinking alcohol are both punishable with eighty lashes.
Faith, Tradition and Modernity
God has made us and we are in relationship with God whether we recognise it or not. The Bible speaks of humankind as God’s image, as being unique and communal, and as having an identity which is derived and not autonomous. The chief end of human existence is and will be always to serve God and enjoy him forever in both our personal and communal lives. There is an immerse confusion when we try to interrelate faith, tradition and modernity. Our priorities creates problems when God is left out of the game. The image of God is marred and tarnished. Of ourselves we are powerless, alienated fragmented, fearful. What makes a Christian anthropology good news, is the message that Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of God, came to share our humanity and to redeem it through the cross. Our wholeness depends on the quality of relationship with God.
Christian Faith and Tradition
The critical debate between Christian faith an d tradition pose serious questions regarding the role of tradition in Christianity and between tradition and modernity. During the Colonial period the traditional leaders took the approach of ‘Sankofa’ and the missionaries took the approach of ‘to wamanmmere gu’ do away with or throw away your cultural practices. According to the missionaries cultural values have no place in Christianity. The traditional leaders especially the Afrikania movement assert that Christianity is a foreign religion and therefore Africa must reject it and make African Traditional Religion her god given religion. The Afrikania Movement emphasises that: Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequate Africa’s quest for identity and self-determination. He posits that a reconstructed Traditional African Religion may be considered as a likely answer to Africa’s search for freedom and self-determination. ATR can exist in its own right on equal terms with other religions within an ecumenical framework.
The Afrikania Movement has raised pertinent questions regarding African Christianity, especially the question of identity. The movement is asking whether Christian Africa has adequately appropriated the faith that she espouses. Have Christian churches adequately indigenised the Christian gospel by making use of religious values in their culture? The movement rejects Christianity and advocates ATR as an alternative religion to Christianity. Rejecting Christianity is not the solution to African’s quest for authentic African religion. The challenge confronting the Church in Africa is appropriating positive ideas of faith from our tradition, which are compatible with the Christian faith and the scriptures.
Modernity, Information Technology and Christian Faith
The dominating technology today is the information technology which creates our images of the world. How do we as African Church relate to this global phenomenon when the Church in Africa is concerned about African spirituality. What sort of church do we need in an information society? The big challenge is a church on the move, always relevant for today’s world. If the church cannot communicate in the language and culture of this present generation, it is tragically out of touch, not only with the world today but also with the God of today. The church finds itself in a crisis of communication as we move into an information society. This modern culture is characterised by a belief in cause and effect – an indefinite cycle of production of consumption, self-interest with capital system. The message of most churches is based on cycle of production of consumption, self-interest – prosperity message.
Four interrelated reasons why we need to pay attention to information technology
1.It is a heartland technology which will influence all aspects of our life in a much more comprehensive way than the technology of the industrial society.
2.It raises questions about power and information gulfs
3.The speed of technological change is accelerating. As a result the technology, including bio and gene technology out runs the political decision processes
4.The consequences of the development of IT are far reaching and global.. The entire society may be transformed into a global village.
Technology as an Idol of Modern Culture
There is at least little doubt that the technology has become the universal language of modern culture. If you cannot read and talk that language you have lost even before you start. And the language is primarily that of IT. Wherever you go in the world, you see the footprints of our technology and hear the sound of its electronics.
The problem is that the worldview of technology turns everything upside down; it transforms the means into goals, and the good becomes pragmatic that which makes things happen. Technology creates our image of the world and defines society and worldview. What is dangerous here is the power we give to technology and the way we combine it with our self interest for where this happens technology will assume a religious character. The mistake is not in technology the problem began when we developed technology within a culture that no longer had room for a living God and His purpose for life. The culture in which the technology has been developed has gone astray and technology becomes an idol for this reason.
Where technology gains a religious character it becomes a threat to religion.
1.The technological worldview will divert our world’s interest, motivation, satisfaction, and energy away from a religious center. Example: empty churches in Europe
2.The technological worldview takes the power out of our religious vocabulary. Religious symbols images and rituals become meaningless.
3.The technological surroundings encourage a religiosity which has little or no interest in organised religion.
The church in Africa is caught in a middle of two strong ideologies
1.African Spirituality: Dealing with the African past – spirit world, ancestors, fetishism, witchcraft, worship of rivers, trees, stones etc.
2.Modern Technology – Major shift to the future with little or no relevance to our past.
The Church in Africa can not let go our past and discard our future. We need a good balance.
Extreme Spirituality – Has its problems. Especially when there is much emphasis on the devil. We see any move in a negative way creating fear and confusion. No attempt to venture to the future. We limit the power of God and give priority to the devil and his evil activities.
Extreme modernism – results in secularization.
The Pluralist Paradigm
2 The Pluralist Paradigm
(a)John Hick’s Pluralist Approach
John Hicks adopts the pluralist view. According to John Hicks, God is the centre and that all religions serve and revolve around Him. Hicks theological argument is based on the affirmation of the universal salvific will of God. ‘We say as Christians that God is the God of universal love, that he is the Creator and Father of all mankind, that he wills the ultimate good and salvation of all men’.
Hick asks whether such a God could have ‘ordained that men must be saved in such a way that only a small minority can in fact receive this salvation? His answer is ‘No’. It is precisely the doctrine of a God of universal love that dictates Hick’s answer.
The theological argument of the universal salvific will of God is a fundamental principle of the pluralist approach. Hick has been criticized by many theologians for abandoning the central Christian truth of the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the only to salvation and subverting the distinctiveness of Christianity.
The trust of Hick’s argument is twofold. First, ‘New Testament scholarship has shown how fragmentary and ambiguous are the data available to us’, so much so that he has called Jesus ‘the largely unknown man of Nazareth’. Hence, there is not enough historical evidence on which to base a claim for the divinity of Jesus and such evidence as there is, shows that the historical Jesus did not make for himself the claims that the Church was later to make for him.
According to Hick, the attitude of Christians to other religions need not be characterised by mistrust, desire to convert or superiority, but a will to learn and grow together towards the truth.
(b)Osofo Komfo Damuah’s Pluralist Approach
Komfo Damuah began his Christian ministry as Roman Catholic priest. He furthered his education in United States. Twenty five years after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest he left the Catholic Church and founded the Afrikania Mission and took the name of Osofo Okomfo (fetish priest) Kwabena Damuah. While in the Roman Catholic ministry he did his PhD at Howard University and wrote on the topic ‘The changing perspective of Wasa Amanfi traditional religion in contemporary Africa’.
The focus for Damuah’s study was his own people group in the Wasa Amanfi, which he came to consider as a statement of divine self-disclosure through the traditional religion.Damuah also linked his study to the modern Africa search for independence from the Colonial rule. He proposed five key statements for Africa independence:
The profundity of Traditional African Religion and how it pervades every aspect of traditional Africa;
1.How this characteristic is ingrained even today in the twentieth century non-Westernised African
2.How Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequately Africa’s quest for identity and self-determination
1How a reconstructed Traditional African Religion may be considered as a likely answer to Africa’s search for freedom and self-determination
(3)That Traditional African Religion can exist in its own right on equal terms with other religions within an ecumenical framework.
The most important part of his thesis was the last chapter ‘The Search for a New Synthesis’. He states what he considered to be the problem:
The conflict over the meaning of being African runs through all African life today – religion, the arts and popular culture and education – so that it is in these areas that many of the crucial struggles over Africa’s future in the world are being decided. When it comes to religious values, contemporary Africa is the battleground of four contending forces:
Traditional Religion, Christianity, Islam and religiously indifferent materialism. The traditional religions seem to be everywhere in decline, … There is no attempt to capitalise on any specific traditional religion. Nowhere in Africa is there anything parallel to the organised pressures for a return to Hindu theocracy found in India, State Shinto in Japan.
Having isolated traditional religion as the most crucial index of the critical state of African societies, Damuah then sought to show how both Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequately Africa’s search for identity and self-determination. Damuah’s new synthesis is a reconstruction of the traditional religion, which he affirmed as being within the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He states that:
The time has come when the African intellectual must take a new look and help resuscitate Traditional African Religion so that she can take her rightful place in the struggle for liberation and self-determination. The fact that she has been able to survive despite the encroachment of Christianity and Islam is an indication that there is something in the tradition, which God wants, preserved.
The Afrikania mission that Damuah established seeks to be a ‘universal’ religion from Africa and from African tradition, reaching to the wider world with universal vocation. It is traditional African religion with the aim of fulfilling the dream of the new Africa. ‘It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation’.
The most fundamental challenge of Damuah and Afrikania to Christianity in Africa is the issue of identity, the problem of the identity of Christian Africa. Damuah sums up the challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa in his own words:
Mental bondage is mental violence
Religious bondage is invisible violence
Cultural bondage is cultural suicide
The time for liberation (is) now.
3.2.3 Inclusive Paradigm
Inclusive Paradigm affirms the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God.
Karl Rahner’s Inclusivist Approach
Rahner maintains that salvation comes only through faith in God through Christ and again argues the salvific presence of God in non- Christian religions. To hold the two principles in balance he argues that:
When we have to keep in mind both principles together, namely the necessity of Christian faith and the universal salvific will of God’s love and omnipotence, we can only reconcile them by saying that somehow all men must be capable of being members of the Church; and this capacity must not be understood merely in the sense of an abstract and purely logical possibility, but as a real and historically concrete one.1
Rahner gives four thesis to explain his position:
1.Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all men, which cannot recognise any other religion beside itself as of equal right. Rahner adds a statement to this thesis by saying, the fact that Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion must be balanced by the difficulties involved in discerning ‘when the existentially real demand is made by the absolute religion in its historically tangible form.’2
2.The universal salvific will of God revealed in Christ can be experienced by non-Christian religions. He argues that God must somehow offer grace to all those who have never properly encountered the Gospel. The grace of God must be made available through and not despite the non-Christian’s religion
3.A non-Christian may have already accepted God’s grace in the depths of his or her heart by doing good. If a non- Christian has responded positively to God’s grace, through selfless love for another, then even though it is not known objectively, that person has accepted the God that is historically and definitively revealed in Christ. God’s salvation cannot be divorced from Christ; hence the term ‘anonymous Christian’ is more appropriate than ‘anonymous theist’.
4.The church cannot be seen as an elite community of those who are saved as opposed to the mass of unredeemed non-Christian humanity. The church is a tangible sign of the faith, hope and love made visible, present and irreversible in Christ. The Inclusive approach affirms that the only possible normative truth basis for Christians is Christ, while accommodating the salvific experience in non-Christian religions. The inclusivist challenges the pluralist removal of Christ and his church from the centre of the universe of faiths and those exclusivist who sever the relationship between Christ and other faiths.
3.3 The Lordship of Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism
The Lordship of Christ is one of the central affirmation of the New Testament, the manner in which it was expressed was developed in the West where religious pluralism was not a big issue. Those of us Africans whose history, tradition, culture, and social relationship are different from those in the West do not find it easy to bear this burden of this heritage. This means that the involvement of African Christians in pluralist communities should be taken serious. The divine-human encounter in Jesus Christ is the basis for this confession.
The obvious mark of a Christian is the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (2Cor. 4:5; Rom. 10:9; Col. 2:6 etc). It signifies a new relationship of the believer to Jesus Christ, of commitment and loyalty, of surrendering oneself to God and to the one Lord, Jesus Christ. It is an affirmation that by virtue of his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has been exalted above all lords.
There are three main points in the New Testament that can help in understanding the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the context of religious pluralism. The first is the connection between the confession of Christ’s Lordship and faith in his resurrection. The second is the relation between the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord and his humility, his suffering, his emptying himself, his servant hood. The third is the unique combination of the fatherhood of God with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.3 This leads us to a major question as to how Christians can witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as they live with neighbours of other faiths. Christians should witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the salvation of Jesus Christ and actively involve in the struggle for justice. Christians should also share with neighbours of other faith that in Jesus Christ the Ultimate has become intimate with humanity, “that nowhere else is the victory over suffering and death manifested so decisively as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”4
4. African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
Christianity is universal; the particularity of African Christianity should provide a contribution to the universal church. This contribution will defuse the Afrikania claim that what Africa needs is African Traditional Religion as an alternate to Christianity. The following statements of Komfo Damuah confirm the challenge the movement poses to the Church. His fundamental problem with Christianity in Africa lies in what he said:
Christianity is generally viewed by Africans as not indigenously African, but rather a white man’s religion, because as in other ‘pagan’ areas of the world, Christian missionaries often opposed or denigrated traditional local customs and institutions: veneration of ancestors, traditional tribal ceremonies and authority systems, and polygamy…5
Damuah proposed a solution to the problem of what he called the great dilemma facing Africans today’ by calling for a ‘new synthesis’ a reconstruction of the traditional religion which he considers as the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He mentions in the Afrikania handbook what the movement wants to achieve.
It is not a new religion. It is a traditional African Religion ‘come alive’, reformed and updated. Afrikania is here not to destroy but to fulfil the dream of a new Africa. It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation.6
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa is the question of cultural identity: the question of Ghanaian Christian identity. Bediako has raised the following questions that need further research. Have churches in Africa especially the mainline churches, adequately indigenous the Christian gospel by making full use of the potential elements of faith rooted in our traditional religions?
Christianity and Islam: With particular reference to Shariah Law
Shariah or Islamic Law which has become a a big challenge to the world especially in some countries in Africa especially in Nigeria. The system of law that governed a flourishing Islamic society for centuries has become a backward practice of endorsing corporal punishment. The traditional practice of Islamic law has been overshadowed by extreme interpretations.
Shariah is founded on three sources: the Quran, traditions and guidance of the scholars in authority.
Extreme Shariah: Extremism in Islam constitutes a total disregard for the principles of inclusiveness inherent in the faith.
1.The Punishment for Theft: The punishment for theft is the amputation of the hand.
2.The Punishment for Adultery: The punishment for adultery is death by stoning.
3.Death Penalty: Many countries choose not to endorse the death penalty, and even among those that do, its application is tempered by rules.
Extremist Hegemony: Extremist leaders attempting to create a puritanical overnight, disregard the practical aspects inherent in Islamic law, and ignore the fundamentals of human nature and societal conditioning. They put themselves in a position where they must try and overpower man’s resistance by brute force in order to institute their system of governance. Extreme leaders exert tremendous effort to prevent Muslims from living under a democratic system. They aim to prevent the spread of democracy because it will cancel their hegemony.
In the year 2000 eleven Northern states in Nigeria re-Islamised their legal system. The penal codes have adopted most of the provisions and added new provisions on the Quranic offences like: Theft, Unlawful Sexual Intercourse, Robbery, Defamation, Drinking Alcohol. The fixed punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse are stoning to death for persons who are currently married or have ever contracted a valid marriage. For those who have never contracted a marriage, the punishment is one hundred lashes and in addition, banishment for men. Theft is to be punished by amputation of the right hand. Robbery is punished by death if a life has been taken, by death by crucifixion if both lives and property have been taken, by amputation of both the right hand and the left foot if only property has been taken, and by banishment if there was only a “hold up” without further aggravation. Drinking alcohol are both punishable with eighty lashes.
Faith, Tradition and Modernity
God has made us and we are in relationship with God whether we recognise it or not. The Bible speaks of humankind as God’s image, as being unique and communal, and as having an identity which is derived and not autonomous. The chief end of human existence is and will be always to serve God and enjoy him forever in both our personal and communal lives. There is an immerse confusion when we try to interrelate faith, tradition and modernity. Our priorities creates problems when God is left out of the game. The image of God is marred and tarnished. Of ourselves we are powerless, alienated fragmented, fearful. What makes a Christian anthropology good news, is the message that Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of God, came to share our humanity and to redeem it through the cross. Our wholeness depends on the quality of relationship with God.
(a)John Hick’s Pluralist Approach
John Hicks adopts the pluralist view. According to John Hicks, God is the centre and that all religions serve and revolve around Him. Hicks theological argument is based on the affirmation of the universal salvific will of God. ‘We say as Christians that God is the God of universal love, that he is the Creator and Father of all mankind, that he wills the ultimate good and salvation of all men’.
Hick asks whether such a God could have ‘ordained that men must be saved in such a way that only a small minority can in fact receive this salvation? His answer is ‘No’. It is precisely the doctrine of a God of universal love that dictates Hick’s answer.
The theological argument of the universal salvific will of God is a fundamental principle of the pluralist approach. Hick has been criticized by many theologians for abandoning the central Christian truth of the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the only to salvation and subverting the distinctiveness of Christianity.
The trust of Hick’s argument is twofold. First, ‘New Testament scholarship has shown how fragmentary and ambiguous are the data available to us’, so much so that he has called Jesus ‘the largely unknown man of Nazareth’. Hence, there is not enough historical evidence on which to base a claim for the divinity of Jesus and such evidence as there is, shows that the historical Jesus did not make for himself the claims that the Church was later to make for him.
According to Hick, the attitude of Christians to other religions need not be characterised by mistrust, desire to convert or superiority, but a will to learn and grow together towards the truth.
(b)Osofo Komfo Damuah’s Pluralist Approach
Komfo Damuah began his Christian ministry as Roman Catholic priest. He furthered his education in United States. Twenty five years after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest he left the Catholic Church and founded the Afrikania Mission and took the name of Osofo Okomfo (fetish priest) Kwabena Damuah. While in the Roman Catholic ministry he did his PhD at Howard University and wrote on the topic ‘The changing perspective of Wasa Amanfi traditional religion in contemporary Africa’.
The focus for Damuah’s study was his own people group in the Wasa Amanfi, which he came to consider as a statement of divine self-disclosure through the traditional religion.Damuah also linked his study to the modern Africa search for independence from the Colonial rule. He proposed five key statements for Africa independence:
The profundity of Traditional African Religion and how it pervades every aspect of traditional Africa;
1.How this characteristic is ingrained even today in the twentieth century non-Westernised African
2.How Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequately Africa’s quest for identity and self-determination
1How a reconstructed Traditional African Religion may be considered as a likely answer to Africa’s search for freedom and self-determination
(3)That Traditional African Religion can exist in its own right on equal terms with other religions within an ecumenical framework.
The most important part of his thesis was the last chapter ‘The Search for a New Synthesis’. He states what he considered to be the problem:
The conflict over the meaning of being African runs through all African life today – religion, the arts and popular culture and education – so that it is in these areas that many of the crucial struggles over Africa’s future in the world are being decided. When it comes to religious values, contemporary Africa is the battleground of four contending forces:
Traditional Religion, Christianity, Islam and religiously indifferent materialism. The traditional religions seem to be everywhere in decline, … There is no attempt to capitalise on any specific traditional religion. Nowhere in Africa is there anything parallel to the organised pressures for a return to Hindu theocracy found in India, State Shinto in Japan.
Having isolated traditional religion as the most crucial index of the critical state of African societies, Damuah then sought to show how both Christianity and Islam do not seem to satisfy adequately Africa’s search for identity and self-determination. Damuah’s new synthesis is a reconstruction of the traditional religion, which he affirmed as being within the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He states that:
The time has come when the African intellectual must take a new look and help resuscitate Traditional African Religion so that she can take her rightful place in the struggle for liberation and self-determination. The fact that she has been able to survive despite the encroachment of Christianity and Islam is an indication that there is something in the tradition, which God wants, preserved.
The Afrikania mission that Damuah established seeks to be a ‘universal’ religion from Africa and from African tradition, reaching to the wider world with universal vocation. It is traditional African religion with the aim of fulfilling the dream of the new Africa. ‘It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation’.
The most fundamental challenge of Damuah and Afrikania to Christianity in Africa is the issue of identity, the problem of the identity of Christian Africa. Damuah sums up the challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa in his own words:
Mental bondage is mental violence
Religious bondage is invisible violence
Cultural bondage is cultural suicide
The time for liberation (is) now.
3.2.3 Inclusive Paradigm
Inclusive Paradigm affirms the salvific presence of God in non-Christian religions while still maintaining that Christ is the definitive and authoritative revelation of God.
Karl Rahner’s Inclusivist Approach
Rahner maintains that salvation comes only through faith in God through Christ and again argues the salvific presence of God in non- Christian religions. To hold the two principles in balance he argues that:
When we have to keep in mind both principles together, namely the necessity of Christian faith and the universal salvific will of God’s love and omnipotence, we can only reconcile them by saying that somehow all men must be capable of being members of the Church; and this capacity must not be understood merely in the sense of an abstract and purely logical possibility, but as a real and historically concrete one.1
Rahner gives four thesis to explain his position:
1.Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all men, which cannot recognise any other religion beside itself as of equal right. Rahner adds a statement to this thesis by saying, the fact that Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion must be balanced by the difficulties involved in discerning ‘when the existentially real demand is made by the absolute religion in its historically tangible form.’2
2.The universal salvific will of God revealed in Christ can be experienced by non-Christian religions. He argues that God must somehow offer grace to all those who have never properly encountered the Gospel. The grace of God must be made available through and not despite the non-Christian’s religion
3.A non-Christian may have already accepted God’s grace in the depths of his or her heart by doing good. If a non- Christian has responded positively to God’s grace, through selfless love for another, then even though it is not known objectively, that person has accepted the God that is historically and definitively revealed in Christ. God’s salvation cannot be divorced from Christ; hence the term ‘anonymous Christian’ is more appropriate than ‘anonymous theist’.
4.The church cannot be seen as an elite community of those who are saved as opposed to the mass of unredeemed non-Christian humanity. The church is a tangible sign of the faith, hope and love made visible, present and irreversible in Christ. The Inclusive approach affirms that the only possible normative truth basis for Christians is Christ, while accommodating the salvific experience in non-Christian religions. The inclusivist challenges the pluralist removal of Christ and his church from the centre of the universe of faiths and those exclusivist who sever the relationship between Christ and other faiths.
3.3 The Lordship of Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism
The Lordship of Christ is one of the central affirmation of the New Testament, the manner in which it was expressed was developed in the West where religious pluralism was not a big issue. Those of us Africans whose history, tradition, culture, and social relationship are different from those in the West do not find it easy to bear this burden of this heritage. This means that the involvement of African Christians in pluralist communities should be taken serious. The divine-human encounter in Jesus Christ is the basis for this confession.
The obvious mark of a Christian is the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord (2Cor. 4:5; Rom. 10:9; Col. 2:6 etc). It signifies a new relationship of the believer to Jesus Christ, of commitment and loyalty, of surrendering oneself to God and to the one Lord, Jesus Christ. It is an affirmation that by virtue of his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has been exalted above all lords.
There are three main points in the New Testament that can help in understanding the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the context of religious pluralism. The first is the connection between the confession of Christ’s Lordship and faith in his resurrection. The second is the relation between the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord and his humility, his suffering, his emptying himself, his servant hood. The third is the unique combination of the fatherhood of God with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.3 This leads us to a major question as to how Christians can witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as they live with neighbours of other faiths. Christians should witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the salvation of Jesus Christ and actively involve in the struggle for justice. Christians should also share with neighbours of other faith that in Jesus Christ the Ultimate has become intimate with humanity, “that nowhere else is the victory over suffering and death manifested so decisively as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”4
4. African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
Christianity is universal; the particularity of African Christianity should provide a contribution to the universal church. This contribution will defuse the Afrikania claim that what Africa needs is African Traditional Religion as an alternate to Christianity. The following statements of Komfo Damuah confirm the challenge the movement poses to the Church. His fundamental problem with Christianity in Africa lies in what he said:
Christianity is generally viewed by Africans as not indigenously African, but rather a white man’s religion, because as in other ‘pagan’ areas of the world, Christian missionaries often opposed or denigrated traditional local customs and institutions: veneration of ancestors, traditional tribal ceremonies and authority systems, and polygamy…5
Damuah proposed a solution to the problem of what he called the great dilemma facing Africans today’ by calling for a ‘new synthesis’ a reconstruction of the traditional religion which he considers as the divine purpose for Africa and for the world. He mentions in the Afrikania handbook what the movement wants to achieve.
It is not a new religion. It is a traditional African Religion ‘come alive’, reformed and updated. Afrikania is here not to destroy but to fulfil the dream of a new Africa. It is Africa’s religion of today’s generation, but it is open to all, irrespective of race, creed, colour or ideological orientation.6
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge Afrikania poses to Christianity in Africa is the question of cultural identity: the question of Ghanaian Christian identity. Bediako has raised the following questions that need further research. Have churches in Africa especially the mainline churches, adequately indigenous the Christian gospel by making full use of the potential elements of faith rooted in our traditional religions?
Christianity and Islam: With particular reference to Shariah Law
Shariah or Islamic Law which has become a a big challenge to the world especially in some countries in Africa especially in Nigeria. The system of law that governed a flourishing Islamic society for centuries has become a backward practice of endorsing corporal punishment. The traditional practice of Islamic law has been overshadowed by extreme interpretations.
Shariah is founded on three sources: the Quran, traditions and guidance of the scholars in authority.
Extreme Shariah: Extremism in Islam constitutes a total disregard for the principles of inclusiveness inherent in the faith.
1.The Punishment for Theft: The punishment for theft is the amputation of the hand.
2.The Punishment for Adultery: The punishment for adultery is death by stoning.
3.Death Penalty: Many countries choose not to endorse the death penalty, and even among those that do, its application is tempered by rules.
Extremist Hegemony: Extremist leaders attempting to create a puritanical overnight, disregard the practical aspects inherent in Islamic law, and ignore the fundamentals of human nature and societal conditioning. They put themselves in a position where they must try and overpower man’s resistance by brute force in order to institute their system of governance. Extreme leaders exert tremendous effort to prevent Muslims from living under a democratic system. They aim to prevent the spread of democracy because it will cancel their hegemony.
In the year 2000 eleven Northern states in Nigeria re-Islamised their legal system. The penal codes have adopted most of the provisions and added new provisions on the Quranic offences like: Theft, Unlawful Sexual Intercourse, Robbery, Defamation, Drinking Alcohol. The fixed punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse are stoning to death for persons who are currently married or have ever contracted a valid marriage. For those who have never contracted a marriage, the punishment is one hundred lashes and in addition, banishment for men. Theft is to be punished by amputation of the right hand. Robbery is punished by death if a life has been taken, by death by crucifixion if both lives and property have been taken, by amputation of both the right hand and the left foot if only property has been taken, and by banishment if there was only a “hold up” without further aggravation. Drinking alcohol are both punishable with eighty lashes.
Faith, Tradition and Modernity
God has made us and we are in relationship with God whether we recognise it or not. The Bible speaks of humankind as God’s image, as being unique and communal, and as having an identity which is derived and not autonomous. The chief end of human existence is and will be always to serve God and enjoy him forever in both our personal and communal lives. There is an immerse confusion when we try to interrelate faith, tradition and modernity. Our priorities creates problems when God is left out of the game. The image of God is marred and tarnished. Of ourselves we are powerless, alienated fragmented, fearful. What makes a Christian anthropology good news, is the message that Jesus Christ, the incarnate word of God, came to share our humanity and to redeem it through the cross. Our wholeness depends on the quality of relationship with God.
Approaches to Religious Pluralism in Africa
Approaches to Religious Pluralism in Africa
There are three different approaches to religious pluralism: Exclusivist, Pluralist and Inclusive paradigms
1. Exclusivist Paradigm.
They maintain that all have sinned including other religions and that Christ offers the only valid way to salvation.
(a)Hendrik Kraemer’s Exclusivist Approach
Kraemer, an advocate of exclusivism, says that, “God has revealed the Way and the Life and the Truth in Jesus Christ and wills this to be known through the world. That salvation is found only through the grace of God revealed in Christ”.
(b)Byang Kato’s Exclusivist Approach
Byang Kato’s starting point is that the Bible is God’s Word in its entirely, without errors. It is the final authority in all that affirms. He considered ‘inerrancy’ so important that, he would not accept infallibility as an adequate description of the trustworthiness of the Bible.
In Kato’s view the whole exercise of exploring other religious values and ideas and appropriating them for a possible contribution to African Christian thought is a denial of ‘the sufficiency of the scriptures as the sole authority for faith and practice. He is of the view that the church in Africa is heading towards universalism. He defines universalism as ‘the belief that all men will eventually be saved whether they believe in Christ now or not’. He gives reasons why universalism poses a threat to African Christianity.
First, he mentions modern mission agencies. Some American Baptist missionaries have a universalistic view and those who oppose such a view ask why these missionaries should be allowed to serve on the mission field.
Secondly, the new political awareness in Africa promotes universalism. There is a search for political solidarity and the goal of African Government is to unify all ethnic groups into one nation. ‘Universalism would be an excellent tool for uniting people of different faiths.
Thirdly, Africa is searching for personal identity and this makes the continent prone to syncretism.
Fourthly, the reawakening of African traditional religious thought of some African Christian scholars promotes universalism. Kato agrees to a partial and superficial method of adaptation of African Christianity. His view point is that Christians should be willing to adapt African culture to Christianity provided it does not conflict with scripture.
Kato’s understanding of the relationship between other religions and the Christian faith is that they constitute two distinct and discontinuous entities. Kato’s viewpoint on the centrality of the Bible as the starting point for doing theology in Africa is his important contribution to modern African Christianity.
There are three different approaches to religious pluralism: Exclusivist, Pluralist and Inclusive paradigms
1. Exclusivist Paradigm.
They maintain that all have sinned including other religions and that Christ offers the only valid way to salvation.
(a)Hendrik Kraemer’s Exclusivist Approach
Kraemer, an advocate of exclusivism, says that, “God has revealed the Way and the Life and the Truth in Jesus Christ and wills this to be known through the world. That salvation is found only through the grace of God revealed in Christ”.
(b)Byang Kato’s Exclusivist Approach
Byang Kato’s starting point is that the Bible is God’s Word in its entirely, without errors. It is the final authority in all that affirms. He considered ‘inerrancy’ so important that, he would not accept infallibility as an adequate description of the trustworthiness of the Bible.
In Kato’s view the whole exercise of exploring other religious values and ideas and appropriating them for a possible contribution to African Christian thought is a denial of ‘the sufficiency of the scriptures as the sole authority for faith and practice. He is of the view that the church in Africa is heading towards universalism. He defines universalism as ‘the belief that all men will eventually be saved whether they believe in Christ now or not’. He gives reasons why universalism poses a threat to African Christianity.
First, he mentions modern mission agencies. Some American Baptist missionaries have a universalistic view and those who oppose such a view ask why these missionaries should be allowed to serve on the mission field.
Secondly, the new political awareness in Africa promotes universalism. There is a search for political solidarity and the goal of African Government is to unify all ethnic groups into one nation. ‘Universalism would be an excellent tool for uniting people of different faiths.
Thirdly, Africa is searching for personal identity and this makes the continent prone to syncretism.
Fourthly, the reawakening of African traditional religious thought of some African Christian scholars promotes universalism. Kato agrees to a partial and superficial method of adaptation of African Christianity. His view point is that Christians should be willing to adapt African culture to Christianity provided it does not conflict with scripture.
Kato’s understanding of the relationship between other religions and the Christian faith is that they constitute two distinct and discontinuous entities. Kato’s viewpoint on the centrality of the Bible as the starting point for doing theology in Africa is his important contribution to modern African Christianity.
The Challenge from the Non-Christian Religions
The Challenge from the Non-Christian Religions
It is often said that our age is one of increasing materialism, which has resulted in the widening the gap between the rich and the poor. And this has also resulted in a revolt against all forms of religion. Sometimes these are associated with political movements and politicians use these occasions for their own ends. A combination of politics and religion produces a compound of immense dynamic energy. This has been the case again and again in the history of the church. A typical example is the Reformation period. In Africa we find many of the non-Christian religions, in alliance with political movements, asserting their claims with fresh vigor.
They bring a challenge that is both positive and negative. On the one hand they deny the claim of Christianity to be the final or even the highest – type of religion; on the other hand they invite Christians to join with them in resisting the advance of materialism unfair trade, civil wars and ethnic tensions, HIV Aids2
Other Religions refusal to admit the superiority of Christianity
The main tradition of Christendom has always claimed that the Christian religion is not only superior to all others, but is final and absolute truth for all time. This claim has, indeed never been admitted by the adherents of other faiths. In 1862, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University, published a Mahomedan commentary on the Bible at Ghazipur. He commented that ‘We Mohammedans hold that Jesus Christ is honorable in this world, and in the world to come…The Apostles of Christ were inspired men…The Injeel (Gospels) are all true and sacred records, proceeding primarily from God.’3 In 1922 Syed Ahmer Ali maintained that in every department of life the teaching and example of Muhammad is superior to that of Jesus Christ. Sir Md. Iqbal has affirmed that while European (Christian) ideas are today hindering the progress of humanity, Islam alone points the true way of advance.4
It is often said that our age is one of increasing materialism, which has resulted in the widening the gap between the rich and the poor. And this has also resulted in a revolt against all forms of religion. Sometimes these are associated with political movements and politicians use these occasions for their own ends. A combination of politics and religion produces a compound of immense dynamic energy. This has been the case again and again in the history of the church. A typical example is the Reformation period. In Africa we find many of the non-Christian religions, in alliance with political movements, asserting their claims with fresh vigor.
They bring a challenge that is both positive and negative. On the one hand they deny the claim of Christianity to be the final or even the highest – type of religion; on the other hand they invite Christians to join with them in resisting the advance of materialism unfair trade, civil wars and ethnic tensions, HIV Aids2
Other Religions refusal to admit the superiority of Christianity
The main tradition of Christendom has always claimed that the Christian religion is not only superior to all others, but is final and absolute truth for all time. This claim has, indeed never been admitted by the adherents of other faiths. In 1862, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University, published a Mahomedan commentary on the Bible at Ghazipur. He commented that ‘We Mohammedans hold that Jesus Christ is honorable in this world, and in the world to come…The Apostles of Christ were inspired men…The Injeel (Gospels) are all true and sacred records, proceeding primarily from God.’3 In 1922 Syed Ahmer Ali maintained that in every department of life the teaching and example of Muhammad is superior to that of Jesus Christ. Sir Md. Iqbal has affirmed that while European (Christian) ideas are today hindering the progress of humanity, Islam alone points the true way of advance.4
African Christianity and Religious Pluralism
Christianity exists in a world of religious pluralism, so the Christian attitude to other religions is a pressing issue on today’s pastoral agenda. In Africa one of the major challenges facing the continent as a clash of civilisation is religious pluralism. The three major religions in Africa are: Christianity, Islam, and African Traditional Religion.
The major question confronting the African Christian is the Christian attitude to other religions. How confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ as we live and work together with neighbours of other faiths? Why have the Islam and ATR posed a great challenge to Christianity? The major religions in Africa, Islam and ATR, deny the claim of Christianity to be the final or even the highest type of religion. The Christian faith has always claimed that Christian religion is not only superior to all others, but is final and absolute truth for all time. This claim has indeed never been admitted by these major religions. In 1922, Syed Ameer Ali, in his book ‘The Spirit of Islam’, maintained that in every department of life, teaching and example of Mohammed is superior to that of Jesus Christ.1 S.A.W. Bukhari of the Jamalia Arabic College, Madras, writes; ‘revelation is not the monopoly of one section of the people to the exclusion of another. Allah is not the God of the Jews or Christians or Muslims only’.2
In Africa, Islam and African Traditional Religion are reacting to the Global transformation that is taking place. The reaction is a mixture of anger, incomprehension and violent hatred. The notion of a clash of civilization in which Muslims and African Traditional Religion are seen as the main opponents. This has raised many questions like:
1.Does the Quran preach violence?
2.Do Muslims hate Jews and Christians?
3.Why is the message of peace and compassion of the world’s religion lost in the din of anger and hatred?
The major question confronting the African Christian is the Christian attitude to other religions. How confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ as we live and work together with neighbours of other faiths? Why have the Islam and ATR posed a great challenge to Christianity? The major religions in Africa, Islam and ATR, deny the claim of Christianity to be the final or even the highest type of religion. The Christian faith has always claimed that Christian religion is not only superior to all others, but is final and absolute truth for all time. This claim has indeed never been admitted by these major religions. In 1922, Syed Ameer Ali, in his book ‘The Spirit of Islam’, maintained that in every department of life, teaching and example of Mohammed is superior to that of Jesus Christ.1 S.A.W. Bukhari of the Jamalia Arabic College, Madras, writes; ‘revelation is not the monopoly of one section of the people to the exclusion of another. Allah is not the God of the Jews or Christians or Muslims only’.2
In Africa, Islam and African Traditional Religion are reacting to the Global transformation that is taking place. The reaction is a mixture of anger, incomprehension and violent hatred. The notion of a clash of civilization in which Muslims and African Traditional Religion are seen as the main opponents. This has raised many questions like:
1.Does the Quran preach violence?
2.Do Muslims hate Jews and Christians?
3.Why is the message of peace and compassion of the world’s religion lost in the din of anger and hatred?
2. African Christianity and the concept of Time and History
2. African Christianity and the concept of Time and History
Another significant feature in dealing with African Christianity in Post-modern world is African conceptualisation of time. It is a renewal of history, a fresh appreciation of past events revisited in the present and projected into the future. It runs ahead towards the new, towards the new, towards the future, even in repetitions. As Paul Tillich explains, “the time of creation is not determined by the physical time in which it is produced but by the creative context, which is used and transformed by it”1 Mbiti’s understanding of the African view of time was first expressed in his doctoral thesis, in which he attempted to examine New Testament eschatology from an African cultural perspective. He did a study of the Akamba (his own tribe in Kenya) and came to the conclusion that Akamba’s view of time can be conceived of as two-dimensional ‘with a long past and a dynamic present’, the future is virtually non-existent.2 He later generalised this to be true of the thinking of all of Africa.
The linear concept of time in Western thought with an indefinite past, present and infinite future is practically foreign to African thinking. The future is virtually absent because event which lies in it have not taken place, they have not been realised and cannot, therefore constitute time… What is taking place now no doubt unfolds the future, but once an event has taken place, it is no longer in the future but in the present and what is past.3
According to Mbiti this understanding of time under girds the African understanding of himself or herself, the community and his or her universe. He asserts, “when Africans reckon time, it is for a concrete and specific purpose, in connection with events but not just for the sake of mathematics”4 The modern Africa is discovering the future dimension of time due to Christian teaching, Western education and modern technology. Mbiti’s concept of time may be identified with the Akamba tribe but it is an over-generalisation to state that this concept of time is true for all of Africa. Nor is it the ‘key’ for understanding “the African worldview”. The diversity of Africa with over a thousand languages shows that the concept of time among the Akamba tribe may be different from that of others. The Asante (a major ethnic group in Ghana) concept of time is different from that of the Akamba people, because the past is revisited in the present and projected into the future. It is more than cyclical or linear; it has the notion of a ‘spiral’. Mbiti’s understanding of time cannot be accepted as definitive for all Africa, but it does give valuable insights to a concept of time among Akamba that is very different from that of the Asante. What is different between the Akamba and Asante is that while in Akamba future is virtually non-existent in Asante the past is projected into the future. This means that any religion that does not give the Asante a linkage to his past as a key to future orientation is likely to be misunderstood or ignored.
Another significant feature in dealing with African Christianity in Post-modern world is African conceptualisation of time. It is a renewal of history, a fresh appreciation of past events revisited in the present and projected into the future. It runs ahead towards the new, towards the new, towards the future, even in repetitions. As Paul Tillich explains, “the time of creation is not determined by the physical time in which it is produced but by the creative context, which is used and transformed by it”1 Mbiti’s understanding of the African view of time was first expressed in his doctoral thesis, in which he attempted to examine New Testament eschatology from an African cultural perspective. He did a study of the Akamba (his own tribe in Kenya) and came to the conclusion that Akamba’s view of time can be conceived of as two-dimensional ‘with a long past and a dynamic present’, the future is virtually non-existent.2 He later generalised this to be true of the thinking of all of Africa.
The linear concept of time in Western thought with an indefinite past, present and infinite future is practically foreign to African thinking. The future is virtually absent because event which lies in it have not taken place, they have not been realised and cannot, therefore constitute time… What is taking place now no doubt unfolds the future, but once an event has taken place, it is no longer in the future but in the present and what is past.3
According to Mbiti this understanding of time under girds the African understanding of himself or herself, the community and his or her universe. He asserts, “when Africans reckon time, it is for a concrete and specific purpose, in connection with events but not just for the sake of mathematics”4 The modern Africa is discovering the future dimension of time due to Christian teaching, Western education and modern technology. Mbiti’s concept of time may be identified with the Akamba tribe but it is an over-generalisation to state that this concept of time is true for all of Africa. Nor is it the ‘key’ for understanding “the African worldview”. The diversity of Africa with over a thousand languages shows that the concept of time among the Akamba tribe may be different from that of others. The Asante (a major ethnic group in Ghana) concept of time is different from that of the Akamba people, because the past is revisited in the present and projected into the future. It is more than cyclical or linear; it has the notion of a ‘spiral’. Mbiti’s understanding of time cannot be accepted as definitive for all Africa, but it does give valuable insights to a concept of time among Akamba that is very different from that of the Asante. What is different between the Akamba and Asante is that while in Akamba future is virtually non-existent in Asante the past is projected into the future. This means that any religion that does not give the Asante a linkage to his past as a key to future orientation is likely to be misunderstood or ignored.
Christianity and African Traditional Culture
1. Christianity and African Traditional Culture
The critical debate between the missionaries and traditional leaders posed serious questions regarding the role of culture in Christianity. The traditional leaders took the approach of “cultural revivalism”, that is, reviving the culture in its totality. The missionaries took the approach of “cultural anti-revivalism” that is, doing away with or throwing away the cultural practices.1
The ‘cultural revivalists’ including the Afrikania movement argues firstly that the commitment to the cultural heritage of the people will serve as the basis of the search for cultural identity and cultural pride and unite them as a society. Secondly, reviving one’s culture would also create authentic values for the future, ‘their perception of reality, their understanding of themselves, and their shared apprehension and interpretation of societal experience’2 Thirdly, there is the assumption that recovering and developing one’s cultural past becomes the basis of making a contribution to global civilisation. Fourthly, they argue that cultural revivalism will lead to mental freedom from a colonial mentality. According to Okomfo Damuah, ‘mental bondage is mental violence, religious bondage is invisible violence and cultural bondage is cultural suicide’.3 Colonial rule makes the colonised people intellectually servile to the ideas and values of the Colonial Government. Fifthly, they argue that the reason why some societies in Ghana are not developing is due to the fact that they tend to use foreign ideas to which they have no ideological attachment. Okomfo Damuah mentioned that, “the main trend is to discover our own authentic native values and grow from those roots rather than trying to be an extension or offshoot of other traditions”4 Lastly, they argue that reviving the cultural past will contribute to national integration and nation building.
The argument of the ‘cultural revivalists’ referring to the missionaries is that if Christianity is going to grow in Africa and also ‘catch-up’ with modernity then Africa must abandon a great part of their cultural practices that is archaic and primitive.5 The attitude of the church towards all traditional beliefs suggests that Christians should abandon any form of contact with spirit-powers and spirit –ancestors, all use of magic and fear of witchcraft.6 Any attempt to revive the cultural practices would be irrelevant to the goals and concerns of the African Christian.
The firm stand of these two groups has led to tensions, confusions, controversies and inconsistencies, and this is due to the failure to distinguish between what may be regarded as positive and negative elements in the culture. It is this failure that led the revivalist group to regard the entire culture to be positive, good, and perfect, while the anti-revivalist group saw everything in the culture negative, worthless and good for nothing.
The grounds for evaluating where a tradition should be accepted, refined or abandoned may be several. Some may see a tradition to be dysfunctional and hampers the progress of a society, “others may see it as discordant with the ethos of a new set of cultural values that a new generation is bent on establishing”7others may see it as morally unacceptable to the society.
In my view, neither the revivalists nor the anti-revivalist are entirely correct in their argument and criticism. They are both mistaken and unjustifiable views. The anti-revivalist (I am referring to the extreme group) position implies that though culture is the embodiment of people’s way of life nothing useful can be derived from the ideas, values and practices of their culture. They see no reason why the past must be revived. Gospel and culture are for them ‘polar’ concepts that cannot be integrated.8 In my view, to argue that a great part of people’s culture be rejected is unacceptable. In fact a total rejection of one’s cultural past would be absurd. The revival of some cultural values is very legitimate and relevant, and this is what this study is seeking to do. But not every aspect of a cultural heritage ought to be revived. Thus it will be impossible for me to support the position of the revivalist, if that position were to advocate the revival of the whole corpus of the culture. For the revivalist also argues that for development to take place the whole culture must be revived. I disagree with this position, because some cultural elements hinder progress. The revivalist who does not show any awareness of the negative features of the culture that impede progress, is misguided and his view will be counterproductive.
My position is neither cultural revivalism nor cultural anti-revivalism but appropriating the positive elements in African culture. By appropriation I mean, critically examining ideas and values embedded in African culture and giving them a theological meaning. Some of the values would have to be retrieved, refined, improved, and re-evaluated. There are values that can be regarded as so fundamental to the existence of the African culture that they transcend every generation. Appropriating these elements and giving them theological meaning will suggest that something worthwhile can be developed from the African cultural past.
The critical debate between the missionaries and traditional leaders posed serious questions regarding the role of culture in Christianity. The traditional leaders took the approach of “cultural revivalism”, that is, reviving the culture in its totality. The missionaries took the approach of “cultural anti-revivalism” that is, doing away with or throwing away the cultural practices.1
The ‘cultural revivalists’ including the Afrikania movement argues firstly that the commitment to the cultural heritage of the people will serve as the basis of the search for cultural identity and cultural pride and unite them as a society. Secondly, reviving one’s culture would also create authentic values for the future, ‘their perception of reality, their understanding of themselves, and their shared apprehension and interpretation of societal experience’2 Thirdly, there is the assumption that recovering and developing one’s cultural past becomes the basis of making a contribution to global civilisation. Fourthly, they argue that cultural revivalism will lead to mental freedom from a colonial mentality. According to Okomfo Damuah, ‘mental bondage is mental violence, religious bondage is invisible violence and cultural bondage is cultural suicide’.3 Colonial rule makes the colonised people intellectually servile to the ideas and values of the Colonial Government. Fifthly, they argue that the reason why some societies in Ghana are not developing is due to the fact that they tend to use foreign ideas to which they have no ideological attachment. Okomfo Damuah mentioned that, “the main trend is to discover our own authentic native values and grow from those roots rather than trying to be an extension or offshoot of other traditions”4 Lastly, they argue that reviving the cultural past will contribute to national integration and nation building.
The argument of the ‘cultural revivalists’ referring to the missionaries is that if Christianity is going to grow in Africa and also ‘catch-up’ with modernity then Africa must abandon a great part of their cultural practices that is archaic and primitive.5 The attitude of the church towards all traditional beliefs suggests that Christians should abandon any form of contact with spirit-powers and spirit –ancestors, all use of magic and fear of witchcraft.6 Any attempt to revive the cultural practices would be irrelevant to the goals and concerns of the African Christian.
The firm stand of these two groups has led to tensions, confusions, controversies and inconsistencies, and this is due to the failure to distinguish between what may be regarded as positive and negative elements in the culture. It is this failure that led the revivalist group to regard the entire culture to be positive, good, and perfect, while the anti-revivalist group saw everything in the culture negative, worthless and good for nothing.
The grounds for evaluating where a tradition should be accepted, refined or abandoned may be several. Some may see a tradition to be dysfunctional and hampers the progress of a society, “others may see it as discordant with the ethos of a new set of cultural values that a new generation is bent on establishing”7others may see it as morally unacceptable to the society.
In my view, neither the revivalists nor the anti-revivalist are entirely correct in their argument and criticism. They are both mistaken and unjustifiable views. The anti-revivalist (I am referring to the extreme group) position implies that though culture is the embodiment of people’s way of life nothing useful can be derived from the ideas, values and practices of their culture. They see no reason why the past must be revived. Gospel and culture are for them ‘polar’ concepts that cannot be integrated.8 In my view, to argue that a great part of people’s culture be rejected is unacceptable. In fact a total rejection of one’s cultural past would be absurd. The revival of some cultural values is very legitimate and relevant, and this is what this study is seeking to do. But not every aspect of a cultural heritage ought to be revived. Thus it will be impossible for me to support the position of the revivalist, if that position were to advocate the revival of the whole corpus of the culture. For the revivalist also argues that for development to take place the whole culture must be revived. I disagree with this position, because some cultural elements hinder progress. The revivalist who does not show any awareness of the negative features of the culture that impede progress, is misguided and his view will be counterproductive.
My position is neither cultural revivalism nor cultural anti-revivalism but appropriating the positive elements in African culture. By appropriation I mean, critically examining ideas and values embedded in African culture and giving them a theological meaning. Some of the values would have to be retrieved, refined, improved, and re-evaluated. There are values that can be regarded as so fundamental to the existence of the African culture that they transcend every generation. Appropriating these elements and giving them theological meaning will suggest that something worthwhile can be developed from the African cultural past.
CHALLENGES FACING AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY IN THE POST MODERN WORLD
CHALLENGES FACING AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY IN THE POST MODERN WORLD
INTRODUCTION
Christianity is the outcome of the response of faith of the early church to the saving presence of God in the God-man, Jesus Christ. That saving presence was radiated through the life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. “The Word became a human being and lived among us. We saw his glory, full of grace and truth. This was the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son”. (John 1:14)
Any authentic theology must start ever anew from the focal point of faith, which is the confession of the Lord Jesus Christ who died and raised for us; and it must be built or rebuilt in a way which is both faithful to the inner thrust of the Christian revelation and also in harmony with the mentality of the person who formulates it.1
Since Christianity must be culturally continuous we must retrieve, and interpret these fundamental religious values in the African traditional religion and how these values provide a way of understanding the gospel, that is, God’s revelation in Christ. The revelation of God in Christ is forever available to people of all generations and cultures. This eternal availability of God’s saving presence in Christ is rooted in the historical incarnation. However, the very fact of historical incarnation suggests that the presence of Christ is not always effectively mediated to one culture.2 There is always a search for living and relevant symbols that mediate the saving presence of God in Jesus Christ. The basic question now is; “Does God have something to say to the African People through cultural ideas of faith?” Does African traditional religion provide clues to name this “More” of God?
This exercise of rediscovering and naming this “More” of God in African traditional thought has become necessary because the early missionaries did not recognise the potency of the religious value in the African worldview and how they could be used to interpret Christianity in Africa. The superficiality of the average African commitment to Christ is the result of the failure of early missionaries to take African culture seriously.
Historically, Christianity was brought to Sub-Saharan Africa after it had taken definite form in the West. “The framework of the theology brought from the West to Africa however, was set, forged in the interaction between the original Jewish world view and that of the Greeks and later Europeans.”3 After over a thousand years of its existence in the West, Christianity was introduced to Africa with little or no attempt at local cultural integration. Christianity was equated in the minds of Africans with Western Christianity, education and civilisation; it was a foreign religion, which had been transplanted to a foreign soil and which had not taken root. The early missionaries thought that their understanding of God as revealed in Christ had an identical application in all situations irrespective of different worldviews and self-understandings. The African may not come to a full understanding of Christ unless Christ is presented to him or her from the perspective of his or her worldview. According to Bediako, “…the African who has become a disciple in the kingdom is called to bring his ‘Africanness’ into that kingdom to enrich it and to contribute to its varieties of beauty.1 Mbiti also makes the point that “Christianity must become ‘native’ in tropical Africa just as it is ‘native’ in Europe and America. It must therefore deepen its roots in the context of our community life, the soil where the gospel is being planted”2
The challenges facing Christianity in Africa include the following:
1.Christianity and African Traditional Culture
2.African Christianity and the Concept of Time and History
3.African Christianity and Religious Pluralism
4.African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
INTRODUCTION
Christianity is the outcome of the response of faith of the early church to the saving presence of God in the God-man, Jesus Christ. That saving presence was radiated through the life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. “The Word became a human being and lived among us. We saw his glory, full of grace and truth. This was the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son”. (John 1:14)
Any authentic theology must start ever anew from the focal point of faith, which is the confession of the Lord Jesus Christ who died and raised for us; and it must be built or rebuilt in a way which is both faithful to the inner thrust of the Christian revelation and also in harmony with the mentality of the person who formulates it.1
Since Christianity must be culturally continuous we must retrieve, and interpret these fundamental religious values in the African traditional religion and how these values provide a way of understanding the gospel, that is, God’s revelation in Christ. The revelation of God in Christ is forever available to people of all generations and cultures. This eternal availability of God’s saving presence in Christ is rooted in the historical incarnation. However, the very fact of historical incarnation suggests that the presence of Christ is not always effectively mediated to one culture.2 There is always a search for living and relevant symbols that mediate the saving presence of God in Jesus Christ. The basic question now is; “Does God have something to say to the African People through cultural ideas of faith?” Does African traditional religion provide clues to name this “More” of God?
This exercise of rediscovering and naming this “More” of God in African traditional thought has become necessary because the early missionaries did not recognise the potency of the religious value in the African worldview and how they could be used to interpret Christianity in Africa. The superficiality of the average African commitment to Christ is the result of the failure of early missionaries to take African culture seriously.
Historically, Christianity was brought to Sub-Saharan Africa after it had taken definite form in the West. “The framework of the theology brought from the West to Africa however, was set, forged in the interaction between the original Jewish world view and that of the Greeks and later Europeans.”3 After over a thousand years of its existence in the West, Christianity was introduced to Africa with little or no attempt at local cultural integration. Christianity was equated in the minds of Africans with Western Christianity, education and civilisation; it was a foreign religion, which had been transplanted to a foreign soil and which had not taken root. The early missionaries thought that their understanding of God as revealed in Christ had an identical application in all situations irrespective of different worldviews and self-understandings. The African may not come to a full understanding of Christ unless Christ is presented to him or her from the perspective of his or her worldview. According to Bediako, “…the African who has become a disciple in the kingdom is called to bring his ‘Africanness’ into that kingdom to enrich it and to contribute to its varieties of beauty.1 Mbiti also makes the point that “Christianity must become ‘native’ in tropical Africa just as it is ‘native’ in Europe and America. It must therefore deepen its roots in the context of our community life, the soil where the gospel is being planted”2
The challenges facing Christianity in Africa include the following:
1.Christianity and African Traditional Culture
2.African Christianity and the Concept of Time and History
3.African Christianity and Religious Pluralism
4.African Christianity and Afrikania Movement
Thursday 12 March 2009
ARI Community Voices 2008-2009
I selected these words for you Shin Jin do means in Japanese as (God) (People)(Soil). This is from "Love God,Love Neighbor, Love Soil" I believe you are the one who will do like this, as a pastor, as a leader, amd as a farmer. See you some day and may God bless you.
Yukiko san -2001
From: Tomoko san, the Assistant Director of Asian Rural Institute.
Dear Timothy,
Merry Christmas to you! Thanks you for being with us, being a part of the staff community as model graduate of ARI. You are a gift from God to ARI this year and ARI grew. Thanks for your dedicated service and love. May God bless your family and Ghana.
2008
Timothy,
It was so nice to meet you. Without knowing your face, just through emails and phone calls, I have already liked you and respected you very much. I wish I could have more chance to talk to you, then you have been able to teach me more about life...!
But you advices, your sharing with me through your experience have touched my heart and stay with me deeply. Thank you for thinking of me. One day, I want to visit you in Ghana. I hope we will stay in touch so that I can learn from you more & more.
Happy Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Miss you.
Sincerely yours
Michi.
Dated: December 25, 2008
Timothy-san
Thank you for your big smile and your powerful working. You are powerful but you are also very gentle at the same time. I like who you are.
Tomoyo-san
Dated:12:o3:09
Yukiko san -2001
From: Tomoko san, the Assistant Director of Asian Rural Institute.
Dear Timothy,
Merry Christmas to you! Thanks you for being with us, being a part of the staff community as model graduate of ARI. You are a gift from God to ARI this year and ARI grew. Thanks for your dedicated service and love. May God bless your family and Ghana.
2008
Timothy,
It was so nice to meet you. Without knowing your face, just through emails and phone calls, I have already liked you and respected you very much. I wish I could have more chance to talk to you, then you have been able to teach me more about life...!
But you advices, your sharing with me through your experience have touched my heart and stay with me deeply. Thank you for thinking of me. One day, I want to visit you in Ghana. I hope we will stay in touch so that I can learn from you more & more.
Happy Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Miss you.
Sincerely yours
Michi.
Dated: December 25, 2008
Timothy-san
Thank you for your big smile and your powerful working. You are powerful but you are also very gentle at the same time. I like who you are.
Tomoyo-san
Dated:12:o3:09
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Information on Malaria
Malaria is a disease caused by the blood parasite Plasmodium, which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Infected humans experience flu-like symptoms that can result in coma and death. Malaria, from the Medieval Italian words malaria or â bad air, infects more than 500 million people a year and kills more than a millions” one person dies about every 30 seconds. The disease is particularly devastating in Africa, where it is a leading killer of children. In addition to being home to the deadliest strain of malaria and the mosquito best equipped to transmit the disease, many areas in Africa lack the proper infrastructure and resources to fight back.
The disease is a self-perpetuating problem with large-scale impact on societies and economies. Malaria accounts for up to half of all hospital admissions and outpatient visits in Africa. In addition to the burden on the health system, malaria illness and death cost Africa approximately $12 billion a year in lost productivity. The effects permeate almost every sector. Malaria increases school absenteeism, decreases tourism, inhibits foreign investment, and even affects the type of crops that are grown.
Malaria is Both Preventable and Treatable
Malaria is both a preventable and treatable disease. It can be prevented by giving families and individuals insecticide-treated bed nets to sleep under and taking steps to kill mosquitoes where they breed and when they enter houses to feed at night. At the same time, anti-malarial drugs such as artemisinin and other combination therapies that are widely available can treat malaria before it becomes deadly.
Malaria has been brought under control and even eliminated in many parts of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Yet in Africa, with increasing drug resistance and struggling health systems, malaria infections have actually increased during the last three decades.
Bed Nets
Despite the magnitude of the problem, there is a simple and cost-effective solution to prevent malaria deaths. For just $10, we can purchase a bed net, deliver it to a family, and explain its use. Bed nets work by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. A family of four can sleep under an insecticide-treated bed net, safe from malaria, for up to four years. The benefits of bed nets extend even further than the family. When enough nets are used, the insecticide used to deter mosquitoes makes entire communities saferâ including even those individuals who do not have nets.
Although $10 for a bed net may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for most people at risk of malaria, many of whom survive on less than $1 a day. Nets are a simple, life-saving solution, but we need your help to provide them to those in need.
Anti-Malarial Drugs
Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are the most effective drugs currently available for treating malaria. Less expensive ACTs need to be developed and strategies to deliver them need to be implemented and evaluated so that the therapies can be accessed by the people who need them. Artemisinin-based combination therapies are also used to help pregnant women by administering at least two monthly treatment doses of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. More than 70 percent of pregnant women in Africa attend prenatal clinics at least once during their pregnancy. A regime of SP helps protect pregnant women from possible death and anemia and also prevents malaria-related low birth weight in infants, which causes about 100,000 infant deaths annually in Africa.
Killing Mosquitoes through Indoor Residual Spraying
While bed nets are generally effective in Africa wherever they are consistently used, sometimes specialized teams are organized to spray an insecticide on the inside walls of houses (a process known as Indoor Residual Spraying or IRS). IRS kills female mosquitoes when they rest on sprayed surfaces after feeding on a person, reducing malaria transmission to others. Only female mosquitoes can transmit malaria. In special circumstances, teams are also organized to eliminate or treat mosquito breeding sites with another type of environmentally friendly insecticide. However, because the African malaria mosquitoes are so prolific and have such a broad range of breeding habits, this type of “larval control†may not be applicable in some areas.
Life-Saving Facts
For just $10 we can buy a bed net, distribute it to a family, and explain its use.
Insecticide-treated bed nets can keep a family safe for up to four years.
Nothing But Nets has partnered with the Measles Initiative to deliver the nets to even the most hard-to-reach areas of Africa.
Other Facts & Historical Anecdotes about Malaria
Only female mosquitoes can transmit malaria.
Malaria’s etymological roots are in the Italian language, and “malaria†translates literally as “bad air,†a reference to the early belief that the disease was caused by breathing the stale, warm, humid air found around swamps.
Four Nobel prizes have been awarded for work associated with malaria to Sir Ronald Ross (1902), Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (1907), Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1927), and Paul Hermann Müller (1948).
Two important, currently used anti-malarial drugs come from plants whose medicinal values have been noted for centuries: artemisinin from the Qinghao plant (Artemisia annual, China, 4th century) and quinine from the cinchona tree (South America, 17th century).
In the poorest parts of the world, where effective window screens are lacking, insecticide-treated bed nets are arguably the most cost-effective way to prevent malaria transmission. One bed net costs just $10 to buy and deliver to individuals in need. One bed net can safely last a family for about four years, thanks to a long-lasting insecticide woven into the net fabric.
Studies show that use of insecticide-treated bed nets can reduce transmission as much as 90% in areas with high coverage rates. Bed nets prevent malaria transmission by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. The African malaria mosquitoes generally bite late at night or early morning, between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. A bed net is usually hung above the center of a bed or sleeping space so that it completely covers the sleeping person. A net treated with insecticide offers about twice the protection of an untreated net and can reduce the number of mosquitoes that enter the house and the overall number of mosquitoes in the area.
Currently, nets are treated with pyrethroid insecticides. These insecticides have very low levels of toxicity to humans, but are highly toxic to insects. By repelling the mosquitoes, a bed net can protect other people in the room outside the net. When enough nets are used in an area, the insecticide used in the net fabric makes entire communities safer even for those individuals who don’t have nets.
How Bed Nets get to Africa
With the money raised for Nothing But Nets, the UN Foundation and the campaign’s partners work with the Measles Initiative – one of the most successful vaccination efforts ever undertaken – to purchase bed nets and distribute them in countries and communities in greatest need.
The Measles Initiative is a partnership of the American Red Cross, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the UN Foundation, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF. Since this integrated campaign began in 2001, nearly 250 million children across Africa have been vaccinated against measles and the number of measles cases reduced by 60%.
Child Health Interventions and Bed Net Distributions
Building on this success, the Measles Initiative has expanded to provide a package of critical child heath interventions, such as Vitamin A, de-worming medicines, the oral polio vaccine and insecticide-treated bed nets.
Since 2002, the Measles Initiative has distributed over 23 million bed nets in 18 countries across Africa through these integrated child health campaigns. In 2006 alone, almost 20 million bed nets were distributed in 10 African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria.
How Bed Nets are Distributed through the Measles Initiative
Coordination with African Governments
Each year the Measles Initiative coordinates with African governments to determine which countries will undertake measles campaigns. This is based on the prevalence and spread of the disease, the number of years since the last campaign, and the interest and preparedness of each country. Such coordination is necessary to conduct effective and efficient campaigns as well as ensure sustainability. To date, 12 countries have been chosen to conduct measles campaigns in 2007.
Government and NGO Coordination of Bed Nets
During the planning process for a measles campaign (which can take 6 to 9 months), a country can choose to integrate other health interventions such as insecticide-treated bed nets. When a country decides to distribute bed nets during its measles campaign, the Measles Initiative and the country government coordinate the planning for each such that they are fully integrated. Together, WHO, UNICEF and the local ministry of health determine where to purchase the bed nets and who will be responsible for bed net storage, distribution, social mobilization, and follow-up surveying.
Distribution of Bed Nets and Education on their Use
Throughout the integrated child health campaign, children travel to vaccination posts where they receive the measles vaccine and other medicines, as well the insecticide-treated bed net. Health workers and volunteers provide the immunizations and educate children and their families on the use of the bed nets, while observers from various agencies and organizations monitor the activities of the campaign and provide support to the health workers and volunteers as needed.
Evaluation
The evaluation of the bed net distribution generally takes place just prior to the rainy season, providing an opportunity to re-educate families on the use of the bed nets as they enter the time of year during which mosquitoes tend to be more prevalent.
Sending Nets. Saving Lives
This entire process of purchasing and distributing insecticide-treated bed nets to children under the age of five, as well as providing education and follow-up surveying on their use, is accomplished at the cost of just $10 per bed net.
Although $10 for a bed net may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for most people at risk of malaria in Africa, where many people survive on less than $1 a day. Malaria has been brought under control and even eliminated in many parts of Asia, Europe and the Americas. Yet in Africa, malaria infections have actually increased over the last three decades. Malaria is a leading cause of death of children in Africa, killing nearly one million children each year. Every day 3,000 children die from the disease.
LUANDA, Angola (UMNS) -- Sometimes malaria can kill a child before anyone even knows the child has been infected.
The Rev. Domingos Kafuanda says the recent death of an 8-year-old girl in his congregation was a grim reminder of how deadly malaria can be.
The child was singing in the children's choir on Sunday. "She was happy and playing," he says. "We got word she died the next day of malaria."
People sometimes ignore a headache and fever that may be the first symptoms of being infected, he says.
"Malaria can be in your body for a long time. Children can have fever one day and be feeling well the next; that is why it is so important to be tested," he says. "Her death really moved the church and reminded us we need to be vigilant about prevention and testing."
The complications are that not every mosquito carries malaria, and sometimes it is just impossible to avoid getting bitten.
Kafuanda, a United Methodist district superintendent for the Angola West Annual (regional) Conference, was bedridden with a high fever from malaria just two days before he spoke to United Methodist News Service about the killer that claims so many lives in this southwest African country.
He says he sleeps under a mosquito net and is well aware of the danger, "but sometimes you have to get out from under the net, and sometimes mosquitoes get inside."
Breeding grounds
Neighborhoods that lack potable water, adequate sewage systems and are overcrowded create the perfect breeding grounds for misery.
Dr. Pedro Francisco Chagas and Dr. Laurinda Quipungo sat down with a United Methodist delegation from the Board of Global Ministries and United Methodist Communications to talk about the problems they face every day in another part of the country at the Malanje Provincial Hospital.
“We have a population of 1.2 million in 14 municipalities,†Chagas says. “It is a dream of mine to have one doctor for every 10,000 people. Right now that dream is far from coming true, he says.
Setting priorities is hard because the problems are so many, he says. The top diseases the doctors face are malaria, respiratory problems, gastric problems, AIDS/HIV and sleeping sickness. The greatest threat is to children under 5 and pregnant women.
"If a child has a fever, the first thing we must assume is malaria," says Quipungo, a pediatric doctor who is also the wife of Bishop Jose Quipango, United Methodist leader of the East Angola Annual (regional) Conference.
Along with fever and headaches, other symptoms are coughing and convulsions, sometimes followed by a coma. Children often become anemic, which weakens their ability to fight off the disease. Cerebral malaria attacks the brain, and the person never fully recovers, Quipungo says.
"Sometimes parents see the hospital as the last alternative, and it is too late when they bring in their children."
No protection
Jose Vieira Dias Van-Dunem, the vice minister of health for Angola, says 30 years of war have left the country without much protection from deadly diseases.
"Resources are not elastic," he says. "Many resources went to the war and were not used for health or potable water. In the last four years, that is becoming the past."
Angola won its 16-war of liberation from Portugal in 1975 but was thrust into a long civil war that lasted from 1976 to 2001. Thousands died, infrastructures were destroyed across the country, and more than 2 million people were displaced.
The government's top priorities are promoting education, health and national unity, and fighting poverty, Van-Dunem says. The church has a major role to play.
Angola had the deadliest outbreak of Marburg disease ever recorded in 2005. When the fatal disease swept through the country last year, Van-Dunem says he went to see the African religious leaders. He told them to tell people to stop the African tradition of kissing and touching the dead body because the disease was spreading as a result. The word got out and the disease was stopped.
Churches can help with education, he says.
In seven of the 18 northern provinces, sleeping sickness is a major problem. The disease is spread by the bite of a tsetse fly, and 40,000 people die every year in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Van-Dunem says the fly is attracted to black or dark blue cloth so the government has made traps of dark cloth to catch the flies.
"People are stealing the traps to make clothing for their children," he says. "Then the children become the traps for the flies.
"We as Africans listen to our elders," he says. "Our relationship with churches is very important, but we have to be greedy, we want more."
Monday 9 March 2009
My involvement in ministry
My Involvements in Christian Ministry
I was converted in December 1983 and baptized to Boamang Baptist Church the first indigenous church in Ghana, March 1984. As an active member of the church, I was ordained as one of the first Deacons in the church in 1989 for the first time of the history of the church since 1954, and was I then asked to be in charged of the Evangelism and mission ministry of the church from 1989 -1990. From1990-1992, I was elected as church leader to serve the church when the pastor –Rev. A.K. Ankrah resigned. It was during this period that I felt the call into full time ministry. I therefore enroll at the Ghana Baptist Theological Seminary then Ghana Baptist Seminary from 1992-1995, where I graduated with Certificate in Theology. I took me supervisory work under Rev. Mark Nti one of our senior ministers in St. James Baptist Church-Kumasi for my three years in the Seminary.
After my graduation, I was called to serve as a minister in charge of Evangelism, mission and discipleship at Antioch Baptist Church from July 1995-1997. During the period I led the church to plant a church which I develop leaders to take over from me.
I responded to a call to serve Saviour Baptist Church-Fumesua in April 1997, where I am serving to date. I met about 40 members in the church, and they were meeting at classroom for worship and other meeting. With prayer and much effort we increased from 40 to 250 which the active Sunday attendance is 150 to 200. After serving the church for one year I was recommended by the church to be ordained and so therefore I was ordain in 1st August 1998 and was gazette the same by the Government of Ghana
I am able to build a church auditorium and mission house with one time help from some friends in USA who visited us in 1999 for children ministry and true love wait. I have also led the church to plan two churches and developed leaders for those churches. I am involved in preaching, teaching, discipleship development, counseling, and evangelism among other duties. One of the most wonderful situations that keep on going is the helping hands of the Almighty God. I was informed by the church leaders the financial position of the church but because the Good Lord wants me to serve the and bring His people that has been bought by price together, I did not depending on the monthly salary so much so I started with one hundred thousand cedis which about is $11.00 They increased to two hundred thousand cedis which was about $22.00 the following year. As at the time I am writing, my monthly salary is four hundred thousand cedis which about $43.00. I have a wife with four kids and adopted 3 from her family. I am the tenth born of my parent both deceased.
I also served as a chairman of the welfare and social for the Kumasi South Baptist Association from 1998-2001 involving 72 churches. Which most of them are in the rural communities, my duties were to teaching the leaders and congregation in developing their potentials and see to the needs and the welfare of the ministers in the rural communities. I elected to serve the Association as Chairman in January 2001 I had an opportunity to study community development at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan the same year so I handed over to my vice Chairman while I have served for three months.
I was also served the Kumasi Area Baptist Minister Fellowship, a Fellowship of about 100 ministers of the Ghana Baptist Convention as Treasurer and I served the fellowship in that capacity from 1998-2001. I was a member of the constitutional committee and Ethics Committee of the Fellowship. During my time I introduced a membership and dues card and since they are using them with modification.
I had an honorary responsibility as Director of Special Duties at the office of the General Secretary-Rev. Frank Adams of the Ghana Baptist Convention till he resigned to join the All Africa Baptist Fellowship. During this period I was able to introduce special tags for the delegates at Ghana Baptist Convention’s Annual Sessions which they are since using them at Annual Session and adopted by the Minister Conference
I had opportunity to study Community Development at Asia Rural Community in Japan and Philippines from March 2001- March 2002. I have been involved in social ministry after my returned from Asia. I have begun training and also serve as consultant to the youth and pastors in our churches and to the member of the communities I served.
I was called by Rev. Dr. Frank Adams to serve as supporting staff in part-time basis at his office (All Africa Baptist Fellowship) as his part-time Administrative Secretary till the office recruited a full-time Administrative Secretary and I was asked to serve as a project and Administrative Coordinator under the Peace and Development desk at for All Africa Baptist fellowship since 2002 up to date.
Since 2005 to 2006 I worked with an International NGO called “His Nets” based in USA in conjunction with personnel from Ghana Healthy Service distributing free Treated Mosquito Nets to pregnant women, children under five years and sickle cell patients.
In 2005 June we distributed 1800 Net to 3 Districts where Malaria prevalent rate are very high. We also donated some to Hospitals for children’s wards. The year 2006 June ,we distributed 2600 Net to 4 Districts, 7 orphanages, 4 Churches, 3 Hospitals included a Muslim hospital. Last year I did a follow-up assessment and the results was positive. Malaria in those places has drastically reduced. This is a summary of my involvement in the Christian ministry since my conversion. continue 10/3/09
Wednesday 4 March 2009
ARI Pictures
Ms. Nozuko-the Queen of Africa with Uncle Timo after hergraduation
2008 African Graduates with Uncle Timo and our Nurse
Rev.Dr & Mrs Takami the founder of Asian Rural Institutewith Mrs.Tomoko Arakawa, the Assistant Directress after
the 2008 graduation day
Uncle Timo and grandchildren at his inlaw's final funeral rites. from right; kwabena Dwomo, Eno Akua, Florence Addai, Uncle Timo, Akwasi Addai, Kwasi Panin, and Georgina
36th Foundation Day of ARI and the 2008 participants Choir group
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