THE exploitation of Africa's rich natural resources has brought with it rapid social change. Everywhere in Africa new societies are evolving—societies with new attitudes, new controls and values; everywhere tribal life has disintegrated or is in the process of disintegration; old social bounds are giving way to new groupings. Communities which have hitherto known only simple village life find themselves forced into new patterns. But men and women still remain. The church has a mission to fulfill—a duty to give these uprooted people hope and assure them of God's redeeming love."
The above is quoted from a talk early in 1958 by Henry Makulu, an African from Northern Rhodesia. Apart from its clear statement of the situation and its lively command of English, it is remarkable for one new fact: here is an African speaking for the whole of Africa, not only for his own country. Until quite recently an African was not so much conscious of being an African as of being a Kikuyu or a Yoruba, a Hausa or a Waganda. A few have risen above this to a common loyalty in Kenya or Nigeria or Uganda; but very few so far see it for the whole of Africa. The Dark Continent, once it was opened up by Europeans, became a patch-work of colonial territories, and now is one of separate emergent nations. The breaking in upon Africa of European ideas has meant demands for independence, freedom from control by other nations, even extreme cries of "Africa for the Africans."
It is a very dangerous period in the development of Africa; in the heart of this restlessness is the Church of Christ. Her guidance during the next few decades is the most important factor in modern Africa. Her function is seen as a stabilizing element that will enable Africa to change without doing violence to herself or the rest of the world. It is the church that has taken education to Africa, and with it the Bible. If the African is thinking of independence today, it is because the church taught him to read—taught him to read the Bible, thus nurturing the African upon that Food which produced the Western democracies. Here are two examples of how effectively the Bible is used in Africa. The first is from a recent talk on the subject of Christian home life by an assistant bishop in Kenya, Obadiah Kariuki.
"I propose to say something first about Christian home life as it ought to be," he began in startling simplicity. "It is well understood that God is love, and that in His love He made man. It was not enough for man to live by himself. God made a wife and blessed the couple to multiply on earth. As the Bible says, a man shall 'leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh.' It is only in a truly Christian home that such a state of affairs is possible. The future of Africa depends on the Christian home, which in turn requires trained African leaders."
The second example comes from the Buganda Church in Uganda. The language of this people is Luganda, and their Bible has a remarkable history. It was born of careful experiment, men like Mackay and George Pilkington taking their part; but it was the Africans who hammered out the version on their native anvil. The men who did that knew how to use the Bible, whether as preachers or as Christians confronting the problems of their daily lives. Frequently the chiefs would refer to the Bible for the solution of political difficulties.
However, faced with Islam's confidence in the Koran, the unsure, halting Christians —particularly as I met them in West Africa —are falling back. The commonest description of Christians by a Moslem is, "You are like people living in unfinished houses." At the moment when the teaching of the Bible is needed to help build a just new social order, Christians hardly know how to use it. This is the tragedy of the African church today.
John Taylor of the International Missionary Council can report about this Buganda Church that it is dangerously out of touch with the Word of God. "The simple village people," he writes, "struggle to read the Bible but are baffled very easily by its apparent contradictions. Among Christians who have some knowledge of the faith— catechists and clergy, devout laity, even those in revival fellowship—the Bible is used more often to underline and illustrate familiar and stereotyped doctrines than as a living source of new knowledge and direction. Where it is read without comprehension it leads to discouragement; where there is some understanding it is used conservatively in much the same way as proverbial wisdom."
In the south a pattern of relations between blacks and whites is now developing that alarms the whole of Africa. Christians are being told that this pattern of "apartheid" is what the white man's religion inevitably brings; to become Christian seems to mean remaining a second-class citizen, if you are a black man. This is an impression which a Bible-reading church must deal with, and in some parts of Africa is dealing with, whereas in the north a vigorous Islam is laying claim to the whole of Africa.
In the discussion at the AllAfrica Church Conference we watched Africa discovering herself. One group in particular, which included a former president of this African Congress from South Africa, plus the leader of the opposition in Ghana, struck a note of awareness: "We thank God that He has planted His church in Africa. . . . The church has a duty to bear witness in humility to the will of God for man in organized society. It must uphold righteousness, champion the oppressed and declare the sovereignty of God over all creation, including the institutions of man." "The church should encourage its members to meet together to consider their common Christian responsibility in relation to the issues of government facing Africa at this hour," the group statement concludes.
Finally, the church has a duty to give true pastoral care to those of its members who are called to take an active part in the politics of the new African lands. That is the voice of Africa—the Christian Africa that is to be.—Reprinted by permission from the Bible Society Record.
