In this review essay, missionary-scholar Jim Harries challenges Western assumptions used to decry the prosperity gospel as it is taught and believed in Africa.

Hermen Kroesbergen, ed., In Search of Health and Wealth: The Prosperity Gospel in African, Reformed Perspective (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2014).

In reviewing a book about Africa written in English, one is tempted to ignore constant category errors being made. I have chosen in this review not to ignore them.

The contributors to this book have embarked on an impossible, but nevertheless important task. Impossible, I suggest, because one cannot effectively evaluate African thinking using English. Important, because the issue they address is critical and topical. The book is an outcome of debates that occurred at Justo Mwale Theological University in Lusaka, Zambia, in 2012.

My own background affects my interpretation. As a young man, I was much influenced by Calvinism. I continue to love Calvin’s teaching. Yet, I struggle to see how it can fit in Africa. I lived in Zambia from 1988 to 1991. Since 1993, I have lived in Western Kenya. Reformed churches in my home area in Kenya (I am familiar with one or two, there may be more I do not know about) have been swamped by Pentecostalism. It is hard to see how a reformed church can thrive, except through foreign donations, which would then implicate them in a kind of prosperity teaching that this text sees itself as critiquing.

Chilenje gives us a run-down of the kinds of difficulties that the West has with prosperity teaching. In the following chapter, Zulu sees positive things in prosperity teaching, rejecting the idea that it is only a pathology. Ellington tells us that correct analysis of biblical texts would solve the problem of prosperity teaching. Banda, D. suggests that we shouldn’t attack prosperity unless or until we have a better alternative. Then Banda L. suggests that the best way to resolve the rift between reformed and Pentecostal churches, is through dialogue. Kroesbergen struggles not to condemn prosperity teaching as sheer folly, by looking at ways in which it enables African dignity. Soko sees prosperity teaching and Pentecostalism in general as a response to globalisation. Kroesbergen-Kamps realises that in Zambian minds, Christianity and modernism are integrally linked. Togarasei concludes the book, by suggesting that what prosperity-oriented Zambians are looking for is not flagrant wealth, but merely bread on the table.

Many hours were needed to edit and proofread this book (xi). This indicates a starting difficulty – the expectation that citizens of African countries should produce work of a literary standard that pleases Western scholars. The book presents many respectable avenues of exploration of prosperity teaching in Zambia. I very much appreciate the efforts made by its authors.

Included on the panel were Dr. Clifton Clarke (Fuller Seminary), Dr. Lisa Bowens (Princeton), Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins (Gordon-Conwell).

Left to right: Clifton Clarke, Lisa Bowens, Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, and Antipas Harris.
Image: Potters House

Theology as a reflection on God and his creatures is eternal, but some of the questions we ask and our discourse about God are rooted in our experiences, cultural beliefs and worldview. Therefore our understanding of theology is also rooted in our culture. The author, Professor Samuel Kunhiyop, (the current ECWA General Secretary and Professor of Ethic at Bingham University, Karu, Nigeria) fully aware of this, produced African Christian Theology sequel to his African Christian Ethics. In this book, Kunhiyop discusses a myriad of themes and topics in African Christian Theology. This book, therefore, constitutes an excellent introduction to systematic theology in relation to the traditional African worldview. The book can be referred to as “African Systematic Theology”. The book is written to address questions that arise from an African context. It helps readers to discover how theology affects our minds, our hearts and our lives. It is a sort of contextual theology. If Christian theology will be relevant to the occasion of any local people, it must take in to consideration the context in which theology will be done, particularly their cultural worldview (this is Ngugi Moshete’s thesis).

Professor Samuel Waje Kunhiyop exemplified this fact in the book. He sets out his method from the outset of the book “though I write as one who is convinced that Christianity based on biblical revelation stands above other religions, but my own understanding of Christianity in African context is that it should take African situation seriously while seeking to be true and explicit teachings of the scripture.” The author maintains that “Scripture is always interpreted within a context; Africa is the context in which I seek the true meaning of Scripture” (Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, pxiii). With this view, the author explores traditional African worldview about God and how he reveals himself. The book, though simplified and abridged (as said by the author), is divided into ten chapters with one appendix. Each chapter covers the major themes of systematic theology in a lucid manner. That is, the book seeks to articulate theologies in a way that ordinary Christian can understand. To ensure that the book actualizes its purpose, the author sets out some important hints on how to get the most of the book. In this thematic analysis in each chapter of the goal the author sets to achieve is to “articulate a theology that originates from an authentic search for the meaning of Scripture in order to apply it to contemporary African life” (p.xiii).

Missionary-scholar Jim Harries discusses the difference between the biblical categories of clean and unclean, holy and common. He argues that neither Africa or the West have a correct understanding of these concepts.

A story about man whose neighbours describe as a good Christian. The man was a passenger on a bus. He went to talk to the driver. Something upset him. He struck out at the driver. As a result, the bus crashed and everyone in it was killed. His neighbours argue, did the man go to heaven or hell?

Abstract

Many African people, as the Rekabites praised by God in Jeremiah 35, keep strictly to ancestral requirements. In parts of Africa, this is done to avoid death. Biblically we find two levels of holiness. Akathartos (unclean) contrasts to katharos (clean), but also bebelos (common) as distinct from hagios (holy). The latter (hagios) presupposes the existence of katharos, whereas something may be katharos without being hagios. These categories are largely forgotten in the West. African languages do not distinguish them clearly. Jesus’ emphasis was on achievement of hagios. This important and very positive orientation can easily be lost in contemporary theological education.

Introduction

The two categories – cleanliness and Godliness – have strong parallels. The distinction between them is often unclear. This article suggests that confusion in distinguishing these categories is exaggerated by Western people’s tendency to presuppose themselves to be hagios (holy instead of being common), while African people’s tendency is to seek to be katharos (clean) while remaining akathartos (unclean) and failing to perceive hagios.

Greek terms are used to represent biblical standards so as to avoid confusion with misunderstanding of translations of those terms on the part of Africa and of the West. The categories of ‘Africa’ and ‘Western’ are used loosely with the understanding that they are generalisations and that there are in both cases exceptions to what is herein stated.

Clean and unclean in African Churches

A group of KIST students [Kima International School of Theology in Maseno, Kenya] joined me a few years ago on a visit to an indigenous (African founded and African led) church near Yala. Many things struck them as interesting. One was to find that even while the service was going on and although the church was not full, some members sat listening to the service sitting outside the church building. When the students asked the pastor later, he told them that those people sitting outside were ‘unclean’. There were various reasons for them to have been unclean; some ladies were having their period, other people had been to funerals and handled a dead body, and so on. According to this church, such unclean people should not be in the holy place, i.e. the church building. I have in recent months asked a number of congregations in Luoland about a particular traditional law, and their take on its importance. Luo tradition states that a son should build his house in front of and below the parental house, with the door at right angles to the door of the main house, facing into the middle of the homestead. If you travel around Luo areas in Kenya, you will find that this pattern is almost invariably followed. On visiting church congregations, I have asked them whether they would be ready to contravene this ‘law’ and allow their sons to build their houses behind the parental house, if paid to compensate them for doing so. I have asked, would they be ready to allow their son to build behind their house, if given KSh100,000 [about $1,000]? Everyone in the church congregation expressed clear refusal. Then I asked if they would be ready to allow their son to build behind their house if offered KSh1,000,000 [almost $10,000]? Still everyone has refused. On a few occasions someone has taken the trouble to explain the justification for their refusal; having their son build behind the parental house would very likely result in his death, and no way would these people take any amount of money that would result in the death of their children.

A fresh look at how emphasizing full life can transform how we do mission.

Without life all else that may be considered of value is nothing. African people are not easily convinced of the hegemony of science that seems to sideline life itself. Once undermined, the rather groundless assumption that life only exists in a chemical host, is easily replaced by questions regarding the nature and activity of spiritual powers. So-called holistic mission often runs in the face of African reality through drawing on the products of a Western dualism that Africa does not share. Dualistic understandings result from faith in a high God, something that is best advocated from a vulnerable approach to mission.

Note: The author’s experience of Africa is limited. His comments refer to some of the African people and contexts with which he has personal familiarity.

Introduction

This article takes an original approach to the question of how to do mission in Africa. It is designed to help a missionary or potential missionary from the West to avoid some of the foibles that can stand in the way of effective ministry. It intends to help the West to see itself in an African mirror. It intends, through under cutting some Western mythology, to enable the Western reader to see Africa more clearly. It identifies and exposes issues that tend to discourage the development of deep and lasting intercultural relationship. Thus it intends to encourage healthy relationship.

This article points to limitations of the scientific/dualistic worldview that is very common in the West. It deems belief in science to be a pragmatic option undergirded by faith. It goes on to consider implications for understanding life that arise from the realisation that life itself falls outside of the realm of scientific discovery. Implications of the above are applied to the missionary encounter with African people. The weaknesses of dualism and science in engaging African worldviews are exposed. Some implications of these weaknesses are explored.

I am Alive

This author has over 25 years been increasingly immersed in African ways of life. Instead of having his own children he has informally adopted African children. Instead of using English at home he uses African languages engaging with those children. Instead of driving a car he rides a bicycle to visit villages of Western Kenya. Instead of seeing his identity as being to bring better things from the West to Africa, he endeavours to live God’s word in a contextually relevant way. Whether or not he has succeeded in this, his life outlook has definitely been influenced by the process. Those who like to see non-Western inputs into Western scholarship, Christian or otherwise, should bear in mind the above source of some perhaps otherwise unconventional approaches taken by this author.

I am alive, and life is all I have. Yes, I may have money, I may have a house, I may have a good reputation, I may have a family, but the value of all of these and everything else I have hinges on one thing – that I am alive. Should I no longer have life, then I could no longer consider myself to be in possession of the above things. In that sense; and that is really a most important if not the most important sense: life is all I have.[1]

Increasingly in the West it seems as if ‘science is it’. Everything seems to be measured by the dimensions of science. Even social disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology measure themselves against science; the more scientific the better. Some folks known as positivists or naturalists claim only to believe in that which is scientifically measurable. To them, what falls outside of the perceptible realm of science really does not exist. For them – value in life is evidently other than life itself. How strange! How peculiar – to value humanity according to what is not its essence.

All science is a product of life. There has never been a scientist who has not been alive. Yet true science seems to be done by those who ‘pretend’ that they are not. True scientists attempt, that is, to remove the influence of their being alive from the object of their investigation. Thus they convert, in their minds, that which they see as living beings, as if they were not alive at all. Thus is the foundation for objectivity. There is an assumption that things exist, whether or not they are perceived. The universe as a result becomes a place that pre-existed, in which people happen to have found a place. People have become a product of statistical chance. This is an amazing reversal; instead of starting with us or I as people have for centuries, science endeavours to suppose one’s non-existence, and then to theorise how one might have come to be.[2]

Science has its uses

Science has its uses, but may be a terrible slave-master. Science undoubtedly has its value. It has also had and continues to have many disciples. There seem to be people who believe that the ultimate purpose in life may be serving the needs of science. This belief is upheld despite the evident fact that the realm of science excludes life itself. Science presumes life to be meaningful but can provide no evidence for its meaningfulness. Science builds on a foundation laid by someone else: It seems to be clear that certain religious beliefs necessarily provide (and provided) a foundation from which science was able to emerge. I suggest that science can be an abuse of that foundation. It denies peculiar forms of European Christianity that underlie its own roots (Weber 1930).[3]