Deliverance Ministry in an African Cultural Perspective, by Jim Harries

In order to be internationally acceptable, formal discourse in a language such as English has to follow prescribed conventions. It is, therefore, extremely difficult to learn details about a non-English culture using English. An example may illustrate this. The Luo people of Western Kenya have something called chira. A large number of deaths are regularly attributed to chira. Chira is a wasting away of the body caused by an angering of ancestral spirits that results from a breaking of traditional taboo. There is no known English equivalent term. The closest contemporary English word that is these days as widely used as is chira amongst the Luo, is AIDS (and its translation to Dholuo; ayaki). A further drawback of the use of chira as a substitute for the real epidemic of AIDS is that people are not supposed to believe in it. In formal or educated circles those who ‘believe in it’ are considered primitive. Because of this loss in translation, Luo people are likely to attribute someone being sick and dying to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (almost impossible to translate long-hand into Dholuo), while attaching all the grave content of chira to the same word.

One reason Westerners are often kept from the frontlines of ministry in Africa, and confined to offices in the roles of receiving and dispersing of funds and other administration, is because they are poorly informed of what is going on ‘on the ground’. This is because if they get too close, they are likely to upset things. If this hindrance is to be overcome and the Westerner is to begin to comprehend the culture they are guests in, they must interact with life as local people do it—starting with using the local language in their ministry.

Native-English speakers should realise that they are at a disadvantage by comparison with locals if they use their English in ministry outside of the native-English world. Locals may understand one another pretty well using English, as they presuppose content to words such as “AIDS” in the example given above. A native-English speaker will, however, be misguided to suppose that locals will grasp the full meaning of words or idioms from their own cultural background.

Taking this look at deliverance ministry as a case study, we have found that appropriate sensitivity to context for the establishment of a sustainable groundwork for deliverance is likely to be achieved only if a foreign missionary engages in ministry using local languages and by depending on local resources. This is what vulnerable mission is all about—growing the kingdom of God sustainably by immersion in the local context of language and culture and depending on local resources.

Conclusion

The linguistic and financial domination of the Western church can give the impression that Christianity in Africa is still in ‘apprenticeship’ and needing constant guidance from the West. If, however, the African church is doing things differently than the Western church because of its cultural context, then an important place for that context must be left in the planning of deliverance ministries for Africa from the West. Presumably then, styles of deliverance that are inappropriate in one context may still be appropriate in another.

Once the importance of contextual knowledge in ministry is accepted, an important question for Westerners wanting to contribute to the growth and development of the African church, is how this is to be acquired? The ‘distorting’ impacts of the use of non-indigenous languages and resources are articulated in this article. The ‘way forward’ in ministry inter-culturally is found to be for some missionaries to confine themselves in ministry to the use of the languages and resources of the people being reached.

PR

Tags: crosscultural mission, Jim Harries, vulnerable mission

Category: Ministry, Pneuma Review, Winter 2011