Gospel and Culture: Nigerian Pentecostalism as a Case Study for African Contributions to Intercultural Theology
by
Maureen Ugochi Ononiwu
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliffe College and the Graduate Centre for Theological Studies of the Toronto School of Theology. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology awarded by Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto .
© Copyright by Maureen Ugochi Ononiwu 2020 Gospel and Culture: Nigerian Pentecostalism as a Case Study for African Contributions to Intercultural Theology
Maureen Ugochi Ononiwu Master of Theology Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto 2020 Abstract
This study proposes Nigerian Pentecostalism as an appropriate case study on proper engagement between the gospel and culture. The aim is to show that insights from the faith practices of Nigerian Pentecostalism can lead to further understanding of the relationship between gospel and culture.
The implication of this research concerns the field of intercultural theology. Building upon past scholarship on the intricate relationship between gospel and culture, this thesis contributes to the ongoing conversation on the subject, which aims to examine how intercultural dialogue between Western and non-Western forms of Christianity can shed insights on the relationship between gospel and culture. The particular ways in which Nigerian Pentecostalism can contribute to this dialogue is an area that has thus far not been fully explored. This research is a contribution towards filling this gap.
The study suggests that as Christianity becomes increasingly centered in the global South
(and Eastern hemisphere), the Church in the global South (or non-Western world) presents fresh theological insights to the Western Church as it struggles to define its identity and witness in an increasingly secular and post-Christian context. In particular, the research will illustrate some of the specific ways in which the Christian voices from the South; Nigerian Pentecostalism in this case, can enrich the theology and mission of our post-Christian Western context – hopefully serving as a resource for both the academic and wider faith communities.
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Acknowledgment
This research is dedicated to the memory of my beloved dad:
Late Chief Engr. George Ononowu
The Aka na pkusu 1 of Abba
May 24, 1949 - December 15, 2017
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CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1
Methodology………………………………………………………………………………5
Procedure………………………………………………………………………………...7
Chapter One: The Contemporary Western Church Context………………………………..9
1.1 The Priority of Intercultural Theology in the Context…………………………………...9
1.2 Contextualization………………………………………………………………………...12
1.3 Attributes of the Context in Relation to Gospel and Culture………………………….…15
1.3.1 Modernism and Postmodernism…………………………………………...18
1.3.1.1 Modernism……………………………………………………....18
I.3.1.2 Postmodernism…………………………………………………..21
1.3.2 Scientism…………………………………………………………………...22
1.3.3 Secularism………………………………………………………………….25
1.3.4 Individualism………………………………………………………………27
1.3.5 Pluralism…………………………………………………………………...29
1.3.6 Renewed Interest in Spirituality……………………………………………30
1.4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….……32
Chapter Two: Biblical Mandate for Proper Cultural Engagement…………………………34
2.1 Biblical Rationale for Intercultural Theology…………………………………………....35
2.2 Contextualization - Countercultural Model of Gospel-Culture Engagement……………37
2.3 Insights from Biblical Gospel-Culture Engagement……………………………………..38
2.3.1 Genesis…………………………………………………………………….39
2.3.2 The Exile…………………………………………………………………...40
2.3.3 The Injunction of Christ……………………………………………………42
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2.3.4 The Exhortation of Paul to the Early Church………………………………42
2.4 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….44
Chapter Three: Nigerian Pentecostalism as Case Study for Gospel-Cultural Engagement.46
3.1 Nigerian Pentecostalism as Significant to Intercultural Theology & Contextualization...48
3.2 Nigerian Pentecostalism as a distinct Form of Pentecostalism…………………………..52
3.3 Key Points in the History of Nigerian Pentecostalism…………………………………...55
3.3.1 The Context of Modern Nigerian Pentecostal Origins…………………….58
3.3.2 Key Points in the Growth of Modern Nigerian Pentecostalism……………60
3.4 Nigerian Pentecostalism in Relation to Gospel-Culture Engagement…………………...65
3.4.1 The Primacy of the Bible…………………………………………………..66
3.4.2 The Work of the Holy Spirit……………………………………………….70
3.4.3 Prayer, Healing, and Deliverance………………………………………….71
3.4.4 Welcoming and Participatory Community………………………………...74
3.4.5 Worship and Witness………………………………………………………76
3.4.6 Civic Engagement………………………………………………………….79
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………83
Summary of Chapter One………………………………………………………………..83
Summary of Chapter Two………………………………………………………………..84
Summary of Chapter Three………………………………………………………………85
Implications for the Western Church Today……………………………………..………86
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….92
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INTRODUCTION
How might attributes of a theology which arises from an African Church context inform the increasingly post-Christian North American Church context? This is the question I plan to explore in this paper, using the Nigerian Pentecostal Church as a case study on intercultural theology to examine the possible insights the spirituality and faith practices of a Church in the global South might present to the contemporary Western Church (specifically the Church in
North America), in engaging the increasingly post-Christian ethos of its culture.
The intricate relationship between gospel and culture is a reigning subject in contemporary theological discourse. The contemporary Western Church is struggling to find its place in society as it faces an unprecedented waning in ecclesiastical participation and cultural influence.1 “Canada has changed considerably in the last 50 years from a country that was widely
Christian in belief and practice to one that is significantly more secular.”2As Stuart Murray puts it, the Western church is currently “experiencing cultural turbulence as the long era of
Christendom comes to an end.”3 In other words, the Church in the West is in a post-Christendom era. According to Murray, post-Christendom means that the influence of Christianity on public debate and personal belief and behavior has diminished.4 Many theologians now recognize that with the end of Christendom and the accompanying marginalization of the Church, Christians in the Western culture are being challenged to welcome fresh ways of being Church and engaging in mission.
1 Bradley Truman Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015), 1. 2 Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom, 51. 3 Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Carlisle [England]: Paternoster, 2004), xv. 4 Murray, Post-Christendom, 5.
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During the last decade, some theologians are beginning to identify intercultural dialogue between Western and non-Western forms of Christianity as an opportunity to glean fresh ways of doing Church and mission. William Shenk has espoused that the Churches in the West “urgently need resources for responding to the challenges of evangelizing their own culture, which regards itself as post religious” and that these resources may well be found outside the West.5 According to Walter J. Hollenweger, for Christians and theologians (especially those in dominant cultures such as the West) to be true to their calling, “they must ask themselves whether or not there are cultural media outside their own tradition which can serve as the raw material and tools for doing theology.”6
Intercultural theology presents fresh insights for the Western Church in engaging culture for two significant reasons: First, the inflow of immigrants in the last decades, many from the
Southern and Eastern countries, into the West, has diversified the Church’s landscape in terms of ethnicity and culture. In essence, the mainline Western Church is being challenged from within by not just secular philosophies but also by ethnic minority Churches.7 Second, the past century has seen the gravity of global Christianity increasingly shifting from the West, southwards, to
Africa and Latin America, and eastwards to Asia. As Joel A. Carpenter surmises, “today
Christianity is a global faith, but one that is more vigorous and vibrant in the global South than among the world’s richer and more powerful regions.”8 And Africa is playing a key role in this story because it presents, as Carpenter and some intercultural theology proponents have pointed
5 William R. Shenk, “Recasting Theology of Mission: Impulses from the Non-Western World,” in Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity, ed. Robert L. Gallagher and Paul Hertig (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 131. 6 Walter J. Hollenweger , “Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Perceptions and Prospects of World Christianity, ed. Richard Friedli et al (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010), 21. 7 Richard Burgess, “Practical Christianity and Public Faith: Nigerian Pentecostal Contributions to Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 145. 8 Joel A. Carpenter, “Preface,” in The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, ed. Lamin O. Sanneh and Joel A. Carpenter (NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), vii.
3 out, “the most dramatic case of rapid growth, local variation and culture-transforming influence.”9 Andrew Walls, a forerunner of intercultural (or cross-cultural) theology and leading missiologist, has long espoused that African Christianity stands out in becoming the new representative Christianity of the twenty-first century.10 Nigeria is an important arena in this respect.
As Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria is home to one of the most vibrant Christian communities in the world, reflecting the shift in the global center of Christianity from the North to the South.11 And Pentecostalism plays a significant role in Nigerian Christianity. As Richard
Burgess puts it, the vitality of Christianity in Nigeria “is due to the popularity of the Pentecostal constituency and the penetration of Pentecostal spirituality into the mainline churches, including the Roman Catholic and Anglican communities.”12 Hence the Nigerian Pentecostal Church presents us with a viable representation of contemporary African Christianity for examining the possible insights the African Church might present to the Western context on doing mission.
However, while many contemporary theologians and missiologists are beginning to recognize the need for intercultural perspectives on theology, including the premise that African
Christianity brings a lot to the table, especially on the relationship between the gospel and culture,13 the particular contributions and insights that African Christianity (specifically Nigerian
Pentecostalism) has to offer to intercultural theology are yet to be explored fully.
This thesis thus examines the contribution that Nigerian Pentecostalism offers to intercultural theology. The thesis develops the notion that the faith and spiritual practices of
9 Carpenter, “Preface,” vii. 10 Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 85. 11 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 146. 12 Ibid. 13 Some notable theologians who have recognized the contribution of Nigerian Pentecostalism to intercultural theology are Allen Anderson 2011, Richard Burgess 2011, Ogbu kalu 2008, Lamin Sanneh and Joel Carpenter 2005.
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Nigerian Pentecostalism present the Western Church with insights for engaging the contemporary culture in an increasingly post-Christian context. The thesis will further argue that the strength of Nigerian Pentecostalism in appealing to its context lies in the fact that the Church resounds with the indigenous spirituality and offers alternative means of dealing with the socioeconomic and political realities of the context while also challenging elements of the culture that are considered incompatible with the gospel. In other words, the Nigerian Church engages the culture and serves contextual needs while also striving to transform the culture. In this sense, the Nigerian Pentecostalism corresponds with Stephen Bevan’s countercultural model of contextualization,14 which espouses that “if the gospel is to truly take root within a people’s context, it needs to challenge and purify the context” while also engaging the context.15 Insights on the vibrant spirituality of an African Christianity could serve as an inspiration for the contemporary North American Church, whose struggle to define its identity and witness to its cultural context can be summed up as a decline in Christian spirituality.
In describing the spirituality of Nigerian Pentecostalism, this thesis does not prescribe that the particular practices of African Christianity be adopted or planted into the Western context. However, the aim of the thesis is to present a case study on the extent to which attributes of a global south Church might inform the Western post-Christian culture as it increasingly struggles to engage its cultural context with the gospel. As the thesis will show, the Christian expression should be indigenous to the context. Also, the case study does not suggest that
African Christianity and Nigerian Pentecostalism in particular, are an absolutely perfect representation of Christian mission. Like many other Christian cultures, since the birth of
Christianity, African Christianity has had its share of undesirable history and practice
14 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 150. 15 Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 117.
5 perpetuated by unscrupulous claimants to the faith. But, as Obgu Kalu insightfully points out, the wheat and tares must perforce grow together: “the achievement of Pentecostals lies in their innovative responses to challenges embedded in the African map of the universe.”16
Methodology
In examining the insights that a church in the global South can present to the mission of the Church in the post-Christian West (particularly North America), the main methodology that this thesis will employ is intercultural theology. An underpinning goal of this thesis is to present intercultural theology as an appropriate resource for addressing some of the challenges of the
North American church, using Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study on the effectiveness of intercultural dialogue between Western and non-Western forms of Christianity in navigating gospel and culture. As described in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, intercultural theology “refers to the awareness of and engagement with different expressions of theology as they exist between different cultures;”17 paying particular attention to “the identity of non-Western forms of Christianity in dialogue with Western forms.”18 Though intercultural theology also encompasses dialogue between different religions, I will focus on the Christian religion. Using Nigerian Pentecostalism19 as a case study, the thesis will aim to show that the
16 Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: Global Discourses, Migrations, Exchanges, and Connections, eds. Wilhelmina Kalu, Nimi Wariboko, and Toyin Falola (Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 2010), 130. 17 Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham, eds. “Introduction,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 2 (Cartledge and Cheetham cited Wisjen 2003’s discussion on this subject). 18 Ibid, Back cover definition of Intercultural Theology. 19 In examining Nigerian Pentecostalism, I am following Ogbu Kalu’s approach of identifying the character of African Pentecostalism, which he describes as a “charismatic and revivalist ferment” stamped with an African identity. 2008, viii, 23. Kalu and other African Pentecostal missiologists recognize that African Pentecostalism is a complex landscape that is neither static nor homogenous; they espouse the promotion of the experiences of the Holy Spirit as a major characteristic of African Pentecostalism.
6 global North has something to learn about Church mission (especially as it relates to gospel and culture) from Africa’s more recent encounter with Christianity.20
Another methodology that will be employed is contextualization. I will apply contextualization as a sub-methodology to examine the relationship between gospel and culture, in presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study for intercultural theology. Bevans defines the contextualization of theology as “the attempt to understand Christian faith in terms of a particular context.”21 Thus, the thesis will encompass two particular contexts– the first will examine the Western Church context, as it becomes an increasingly post-Christian culture. And the second will present African Christianity, specifically the Pentecostal Church in Nigeria, as an inspiration for engaging the gospel in a particular culture.
In terms of sources, the works of Nigerian-born Ogbu Kalu, a prolific historian and theologian on African Christianity, will serve as main resource on African Christianity and
Pentecostalism. Other primary sources will include Walter J. Hollenwegner, one of the pioneers of intercultural theology. My experiences in African Pentecostalism as well as in the Western
Church will also be a useful resource. Secondary materials will include the works of Lamin
Sammeh, Nimi Wariboko, Allan Anderson, Richard Burgess, Bradley Truman Noel, David
Bosch, Stanley Grenz, Andrew Walls, and a host of other contributors to intercultural theology, contextual theology, Western ecclesiology and the role of the African Church in contemporary
Christianity.
20 Lamin Sanneh 2003, raised this notion and called for more study on this. Lamin O. Sanneh, Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2003). 21 Bevans, Models, 3.
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Procedure
This thesis will be laid out as follows:
Introduction:
The introduction will establish the general context and reason for the study, setting the stage for the thesis. I will raise the research question, outline the subject matter and direction of the thesis, orient the reader to contemporary scholarship on the subject matter and introduce the thesis statement. I will also describe the methodology and procedure to be followed in developing the thesis.
Chapter One: The Contemporary Western Church Context
In Chapter One, I will paint a picture of the Western Church context, specifically in
North America. I will explore some major attributes of our North American society arising out of changing social values regarding faith and religion, which exercise an influence in the thought and practice of the Church’s theology and mission. My aim is to show the uneasy relationship between the gospel and culture in the context, drawing out the longings of the Church in the increasingly secular and post-Christian context. This section will set the stage for the call for insights on fresh ways of being Church and engaging in mission in the context. The suggestion will be for insights on proper engagement between the gospel and the contemporary culture.
Chapter Two: Biblical Mandate for Proper Cultural Engagement
Before presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study for a flourishing gospel- cultural relationship, I will first examine the scriptural rationale for a proper cultural engagement in Chapter Two. Using theological partners such as Bradley Noel, Christopher Wright, Walter
Brueggemann and Leslie Newbigin, I will argue that the Bible calls Christians to engage and shape the culture in a biblically faithful manner. In other words, be the salt and light in the world.
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Chapter Three: Nigerian Pentecostalism as Case Study for Gospel-Cultural Engagement
Chapter Three will constitute the crux of the paper. I will present Nigerian
Pentecostalism, a viable representation of African Christianity, as a case study on intercultural theology to determine the possible insights the spirituality and faith practices of a Church in the global South might present to the contemporary Western Church (specifically the Church in
North America), in engaging the increasingly post-Christian ethos of its culture. I will outline the history of Nigerian Pentecostalism from its pre-1980s inception till present day, highlighting its role as a main expression of African spirituality. I will then examine popular attributes and theological themes of Nigerian Pentecostalism. The study will demonstrate that the vitality of
Nigerian Pentecostalism (and African Christianity in general) and its appeal to the cultural context lies 1) in the fact that the Church resonates with the indigenous spirituality and 2) in its culture transforming influence - challenging elements of the culture that are deemed incompatible with the gospel. My aim is to propose that the study of Pentecostalism in Africa leads to further understanding of the relationship between Christianity and culture.
Conclusion:
The concluding section of the research will review the conclusions of each chapter, tying them together with a summary analysis. I will then highlight Nigeria’s contribution to intercultural theology by describing to what extent the attributes and theological themes of
Nigerian Pentecostalism, examined in the previous section, can provide biblically faithful insights for the North American Church in engaging the challenges of the gospel-culture relation in its contemporary context.
Chapter One
The Contemporary Western Church Context
Introduction
This chapter is an attempt to paint a picture of the general attributes of the North
American Church context as it navigates post-Christianity. The chapter will thus lay the ground work for the call for fresh insights on being Church and engaging in mission in the North
American religious landscape. The suggestion will be that there is a need for new perspectives on proper (biblically mandated) engagement between the gospel and the contemporary Western culture. I will begin by examining the priority for intercultural theology in the context, with a focus on pointing out why intercultural theology fulfils the onus of offering a fresh methodology on proper gospel-culture encounter. Next, I will describe why contextualization of theology is important and its relevance to this paper. And finally, I will outline major aspects of the contemporary Western Church context in relation to the complex relationship between gospel and culture, which have been recognized by missiologists like Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch,
Stanley Grenz and Bradley Truman Noel.
1.1 The Priority of Intercultural Theology in the Context
Our North American Christian setting has been changing, significantly; “becoming secular, post-Christian and religiously diverse.”22 The contemporary Church climate is characterized by a general malaise in Christianity and a growing decline in mainline denominations. There has been clamour in the last few decades for new techniques to address these downward trends in Church health
22 Kenneth Archer’s summation on the Back Cover in Bradley Truman Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015).
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. Many theologians have been calling for new methodology on doing theology and being
Church in the Western hemisphere, for some years now. Intercultural theology is emerging as a method of doing theology in the North American Church context, as the Church endeavours to navigate an increasingly post-Christian cultural landscape.
What exactly is intercultural theology? As I have provided some definition of what intercultural theology (as a method for gospel-culture engagement) means, in the Introduction section of this paper,23 my outline here will be a further elaboration on that description. The term was first promulgated by missiologist Walter J. Hollenweger in 1979, as he studied the rapid development of Church and theology in the global South and Eastern countries, with emphasis on the emerging Pentecostal, Evangelical and Independent Churches in the ‘third world’ countries.24 Hollenwger has since proposed that to be true to their calling, it is imperative that
Christians and theologians, especially those in the Western world, begin to open their minds to insights and cultural materials from those outside their own context that could serve as tools for doing theology,25 a sentiment shared with theologians such as Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls,
Allen Anderson, Frans Wijsen, Mark J. Cartledge, to name a few. Thus, intercultural theology refers to the awareness of and engagement with different expressions of theology as they exist between different cultures;26 with special emphasis on the identity of non-Western forms of
Christianity in dialogue with Western forms.27
Why intercultural theology as a methodology for being church and doing theology? For
23 See “Methodology” in the Introduction section of this paper, page 7. 24 Frans Wijsen, “Intercultural Theology Instead of Missiology,” in Towards an Intercultural Theology: Essays in Honour of Jan A.B. Jongeneel, ed. Martha Theodora Frederiks, Meindert Dijkstra, and A. W. J. Houtepen (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Meinema, 2003), 39-54. 25 Walter J. Hollenweger, “Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Perceptions and Prospects of World Christianity, ed. Richard Friedli, Jan A.B Jongenee, Klaus Koschorke and Werner Ustorf (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010), 21. 26 Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham, eds.”Introduction,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 2 (Cartledge and Cheetham cited Wisjen’s 2003 discussion on this subject). 27 Ibid, Back cover definition of Intercultural Theology.
11 one, as North America becomes steadily diverse with the influx of immigrants from across the world, hearing the voices of people from other nations who increasingly comprise the bulk of the population here in the Western world would be a tremendous resource, as the Church tries to define its identity and minister to a diverse landscape. For another, the last century has witnessed an unprecedented shift in the tide of global Christianity from the West, southward to Africa and
Latin America, and eastward to Asia. As Paul Chung puts it, the new wave of Christianity is anchored in the global South and Eastern hemisphere.28
In other words, while “the Western Church has, for the most part, been floundering, insecure in its identity and unsure of its witness, the Christian movement in other parts of the world is characterized by growth and vitality.”29 And Allan Anderson, a leading analyst on intercultural theology and African Pentecostalism, points out that African Pentecostalism, which represents a significantly growing expression of the Christian faith on a global scale, has opened new ways for the study of intercultural theology30 - an observation echoed by missional theologians such as Lamin Sanneh, Andrew Walls, Joe Carpenter, Richard Burgess, and the late
Ogbu Kalu. Nigeria, as a key player in African Pentecostalism, presents us with a resource for vision, as the Western Church (as well as theologians) forges on toward defining the Christian role and mission in today’s cultural climate. And as Cartledge and Cheetham rightly note, intercultural theology aims to extend the conversation about the contemporary condition under which different theological accounts are given and does not necessarily prescribe transplanting the cultural expression of Christianity in one context to another. “That is, the inclusion of a wider
28 Paul S. Chung, Public Theology in an Age of World Christianity: God's Mission as Word-Event) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 17. 29 Wilbert R. Shenk, “Contextual Theology: The Last Frontier,” in The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, ed. Lamin O. Sanneh and Joel A. Carpenter (NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 208. 30 Allan Anderson, “Intercultural Theology, Walter J. Hollenweger and African Pentecostalism,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 129-30.
12 range of cultural information and contextual reflection does not necessarily have doctrinal alteration at heart.”31 Rather, intercultural theology serves as a “methodological rather than an ideological commitment.”32
Presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study for gospel-culture engagement would offer some insights (or inspiration), as we do Church and theology in the West. But let us first examine contextualization and the context from which we operate.
1.2 Contextualization
` A major development in Christian theology, in the last several decades (since the early
1970s approximately), is the notion that the gospel is intrinsically contextual: Craig Van Gelder suggests that “there is no gospel except that which is mediated in history and clothed in human culture”33 And a bit more recently than that Shenk notes that “the modern concept of theology as universal theological knowledge independent of ecclesial context has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”34 This development of contextualization in theology arises from different factors, most particularly “the coming to voice of so many Christian communities.”35
There is now an increasing recognition of the priority for theological expressions that better reflect changing realities and ideologies. This is the contextualization of theology.
Richard Bauckham, in his book Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern
World, touches upon the mandate of the Christian witness to reflect changing realities and ideologies (while being faithful to the Bible, he espouses). He describes how the gospel, which
31 Cartledge and Cheetham, “Introduction,” 3. 32 Ibid. 33 Craig Van Gelder, “Mission in the Emerging Postmodern Condition,” in The Church between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, ed. George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1996), 134. 34 Shenk, “Contextual Theology,” 208. 35 Robert J. Shreiter, “Forward to the Revised and Expanded Edition,” in Models of Contextual Theology, by Stephen B. Bevans, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), ix.
13 informs the Christian mission, is a narrative movement from the particular to universal – from
God’s work through particular individuals or people in human history to universal blessings; from a particular geographic nation or context to the ends of the earth.36 In this sense, I believe we can say that the nature of contextualization – and also intercultural theology if we think about it – encourages the biblical (or God-given, as Bauckham notes) mandate of the gospel being witnessed from the particular to the universal. This theme will be further explored in the second chapter of this paper, where I will attempt to propose a biblical mandate for proper culture- gospel engagement.
Contextualization in theology is thus the notion of understanding the Christian faith (or gospel) in terms of a particular cultural context.37 In essence, contextualization of theology offers a platform for understanding the intrinsic relationship between the gospel and culture – from a particular cultural context to hopefully a universal understanding. And for the purpose of this paper, contextualization will serve as a sub-methodology (under intercultural theology) in understanding the by-play between gospel and culture in the mission of God, which we as the
Church are called to partake in.
As previously outlined, the aim of the paper is to establish the feasibility of an intercultural dialogue between Nigerian Pentecostalism and the Western (mostly North
American) Church climate, with a view to examine what insights the Church in the West can glean from a particular Church context (Nigerian Pentecostalism in this case) on indigenizing the gospel, as the Western Church strives to redefine its identity in the face of an increasingly secular and post-Christian ideological landscape. In achieving this aim, we will first explore the
Western Church context to determine what the longings are.
36 Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003). 37 Bevans, Models, 3.
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In describing the Western Church context, the suggestion would be that a major root cause of the declining Christian climate in the context can be traced to a broken gospel-culture engagement. That is, rather than purifying the culture, the gospel is being overwhelmed by the culture. Thus, my mode of contextualizing the Western Church would be mostly shaped by the countercultural model of contextualization, as described by Stephen Bevans in his classic book
Models of Contextual Theology. Countercultural here does not mean anticultural (unlike Richard
Niebuhr’s depiction of “Christ against Culture”), Bevans emphasizes.38 In the countercultural model, the human context is not regarded as something to be replaced with a purer religious one
(as some fundamentalist expressions of religion demand). Rather, context is recognized, but it is shaped by the reality of the gospel and not vice versa.39 A good summation of the countercultural model of contextualization is that while “it recognizes that human beings and all theological expressions only exist in historically and culturally conditioned situations,” it also espouses that
“if the gospel is to truly take root within a people’s context, it needs to challenge and purify that context,”40 while remaining faithful to the revelational nature of the gospel. In other words, while the intention of the Church should be true to the Bible, it should also be shaped by local concerns. In this way, Burgess espouses, Nigerian Pentecostalism corresponds with the countercultural model of contextualization.41 I will expand more on this theme of biblically mandated gospel-culture engagement and Nigerian Pentecostalism in subsequent chapters. For now, I will endeavor to outline attributes of the Western Church context in relation to the gospel- culture encounter.
38 Bevans, Models, 118. 39 Ibid, 119. 40 Ibid, 117. 41 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 150.
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1.3 Attributes of the Context in Relation to Gospel and Culture
Random snapshots of the post-Christen culture:
In a school a teenager with no church connection hears the Christmas story for the first time. His teacher tells it well and he is fascinated by this amazing story. Risking his friends’ mockery, after the lesson he thanks her for the story. One thing had disturbed him so he asks: “why did they give the baby a swear word for his name?” Stuart Murray - 200442
Once, as a member of a neighbourhood Salvation Army Church, a new member, who was a young adult, walks into the Church on a Sunday morning service (new members are easily spotted in the now predominantly empty Church). He sits beside me and I give him a welcoming smile and ask him what brings him. He tells me he is interested in volunteering. He sleeps for most of the Church service and at the end he tells me that it wasn’t what he was really expecting as he thought the Salvation Army was just a social service organization and wasn’t expecting to come into a Church service (in a church building on a Sunday morning!). He never returns. Personal experience - 2011
Prayer before council meetings is banned Scripture verse is removed from local school Bradley Truman Noel - 201543
Bradley Truman Noel’s observations are still true. Many Christians, including theologians and ministers, question the authenticity of Scripture. Many Christians, including theologians and ministers, believe salvation is not found only through Christ. Many kids’ major sports games hold on Sunday mornings, which means Church kids who are into sports and their parents do not show up for Sunday school on several Sundays. It is an accepted part of entertainment to make jokes about Jesus. My observation in 2019
The last handful of decades have witnessed changes in cultural attitudes and practices towards Christianity in Western society – most notably from Christian to post-Christian – with a key characteristic being a secularized worldview. Murray Stuart describes the Western
42 Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World. Carlisle (England: Paternoster, 2004), xv. 43 Noel, Pentecostalism, xv.
16 landscape, which he recognises as post-Christendom, as “a culture in which the central features of the Christian story are unknown and churches are alien institutions whose rhythms do not normally impinge on most members of society.”44 This is an apt description of the situation of the context in relation to gospel and culture.
There has been a seismic shift in various philosophical premises that underpin much of
Western culture in the last few decades and this shift has greatly impacted the Church.45 As Noel puts it, the Church in North America now navigates a world where “Christians have gone from tremendous public influence, to being the only group it is still politically correct to mock and disdain”46 According to Noel and several other contemporary missiologists, many mainline denominations have tried to navigate the new ideological landscape and mitigate the ensuing ecclesial decline by “adjusting doctrine and practices to better suit prevailing attitudes in society.” While a lot of others, especially the more fundamental denominations “have retreated within the four walls of the Churches as they await the Lord’s return…”47
Of course we cannot overlook the reality that added to this mix is the presence of new immigrant-led Churches that are springing up in the Western context, adding flavour to the
Church climate and bringing in the ecclesial zeal and energy that characterize their home countries – mostly Asia, Africa and Latin America - where the Church is in an era of growth.
However, for the most part, these immigrant Churches currently remain subgroups of the
Western Church landscape. In examining the context from the view of the dominant culture, the general picture that unfolds is one of post-Christianity.
44 Murray, Post-Christendom, xv. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid, 51. 47 Ibid.
17
I will endeavour to examine some key characteristics of the prevailing ideologies and philosophical presuppositions that shape the world from which contemporary Western Church operates. I will show that the contemporary setting bears imprints of both modernity and postmodernity –two ideological paradigms that have strongly influenced the Church’s gospel- culture encounter. In the words of Richard Bauckham, as he analyses the contemporary Western landscape, “our culture is currently a fluid mixture of modernism and postmodernism.”48 This mixture is a result of the reality that “new paradigms do not emerge overnight; they take decades, sometimes even centuries to develop distinctive contours,”49 Bosch espouses in his book
Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. So while the contemporary
Western culture is moving decisively out of modernity to postmodernity, “for the most part, we are at the moment, thinking and working in terms of two paradigms.”50 Bosch might have written these words over two decades ago but it still holds true to date. Although the context is undergirded by postmodern suppositions, we are still being influenced by shades of modernism and its Enlightenment creed. As Grenz points out, modernism, in many ways, reached its full maturity and cultural influence in the twentieth century.51 However, despite its tenacious ideological grip on society, modernism has begun to collapse under the torrents of new modes of thinking,52 most especially the ethos of postmodernism. But modernism has left an ideological legacy that is still being felt in the Western world.
I will explore six major attributes of our society in broad strokes (as they have already been examined in great detail by thought-leaders of missiology). The attributes I will describe
48 Richard Bauckham, The Bible in the Contemporary World: Hermeneutical Ventures (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), xi. 49 David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 357. 50 Ibid. 51 Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 1996), 84. 52 Ibid.
18 are for the most part, birthed from a marriage of the legacy of modernism to the ethos of postmodernism, all of which are inter-related and exercise an influence on the thought and practice of the contemporary Western Church in its gospel-culture engagement.
1.3.1 Modernism and Postmodernism
It would make sense to first briefly outline what the philosophical movements of modernism and postmodernism mean before going on to describe other prevailing characteristics that shape the ideological culture of contemporary Western context because, as I have pointed out, many of the philosophical presuppositions of our society today are birthed from the legacy of modernism and its critiquing successor - postmodernism.
1.3.1.1 Modernism
The philosophical movement of modernism, with its Enlightenment project, heralded a profound transformation in Western culture and continues to shape the ideological climate to date. As Stanley Grenz puts it, “the Enlightenment permanently and radically disrupted the theological worldview created in the Middle Ages and honed by the reformation.” 53 Built on the intellectual foundation of thinkers like Descartes, Newton and Kant, the modern era is largely believed to be born in the late 1600s and to have flowered in the 1700s and 1800s, and then reached full maturity in the 1900s.54
The assumption at the heart of modernism is that knowledge is certain, objective and good: “it presupposes that the rational, dispassionate self can obtain such knowledge.”55 With the estimation of human capabilities elevated, “God is replaced with humanity on centre stage in
53 Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1996), 61. 54 Grenz, A Primer, 80. 55 Grenz, A Primer, 81.
19 history.”56 The Enlightenment era thus challenged traditional viewpoints and revolutionized thinking in every area of Western society, especially traditionally held religious belief.
Celebrated as The Age of Reason, the era “marked the end of the dominance of the Church in
Western culture,” with immense implications for Christian faith and theology.57 I will attempt to give an overview of what this implication entails, drawing upon Grenz’ analysis.
The novel scientific mentality of the Modern era established a metanarrative that changed the understanding of the nature of religion whereby scientists and theologians alike increasingly differentiated two types of religion – natural and revealed:58
Natural religion involved a set of foundational truths (typically believed to include the existence of God and a body of universally acknowledged moral laws) to which all human beings were presumed to have access through the exercise of reason. Revealed religion on the other hand, involved the set of specifically Christian doctrines that had been derived from the Bible and taught by the Church over time.59
Revealed religion was increasingly attacked and natural religion increasingly gained the status of “true religion” as the so-called Age of Reason continued to develop. “In the end, among
Enlightenment intellectuals, natural religion or the religion of reason replaced the focus on dogma and doctrine that had characterized the Middle Ages and the Reformation Period.”60
Over time natural religion gained ascendency over revealed religion. Many proponents of
Enlightenment natural religion grew critical of traditional Christianity, charging that it was a
“corruption of the religion of reason:”61 the central pillars of the Christian apologetics of the
56 Grenz, A Primer, 61. 57 Ibid. 58 Grenz, A Primer, 71. 59 Ibid, 71-72. 60 Ibid, 72. 61 Good Examples were Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation, and Thomas Chubb, The True Gospel of Jesus Christ Asserted, (1738) – Cited in Grenz, A Primer, 72-73.
20 day, “the appeal to fulfilled prophecy and to miracles” were highly criticized; and ecclesiastical authorities were characterized as “perpetuators of ignorance and superstition.”62
Proponents of traditional Christianity, as many in the Western world would continue to do, even strove to make a case for traditional Christianity: “Some sought to accommodate
Enlightenment thought by arguing that revealed religion is a necessary supplement to the religion of reason;” and more commonly, many simply connected the two belief systems: “they asserted that in its purest form, Christianity is merely a restatement of the truths of natural religion as known by reason.”63
In the end, however, Enlightenment thinkers virtually endowed the religion of reason with “canonical status” and emphasized “nature” and “nature’s God” at the expense of the God of the Bible.64 “In focusing on the God of nature, the Enlightenment outlook bound the deity closely to nature and human reason – so closely that the supernatural was submerged in the natural.”65 Ultimately, the elevation of nature and human reason made room for God to be ideologically discarded in late modernity.66 This discarding entails an overriding cultural denial of the sovereign power behind material events – a situation that has had profound and lasting influence and continues to colour the Western culture to this day (as I will further explore when I describe other characteristics of the context), even though a current reigning ideological response to the metanarrative of modernism has since emerged – postmodernism.
62 Grenz, A Primer, 73. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid.
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I.3.1.2 Postmodernism
Postmodernism began as a reaction to the modern worldview and its Enlightenment scheme.67 Jean-Francois Lyotard, a thought-leader on postmodern philosophy succinctly defined postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives.”68 At the core of postmodernism is its rejection of the Enlightenment claim to objective truth. Grenz sums up postmodernism as “an intellectual mood and an array of cultural expressions that call into question the ideals, principles, and values that lay at the heart of the modern mindset.”69
The postmodern mind celebrates the local, the contextual and the particular but affirms that these kinds of particular relativism are all there are to explaining life. There are no grand narratives that explain everything, there are only pluralities of narratives that are relative to context, and any claim to a unifying truth that embraces the totality of life is rejected as oppressive and imperialistic.70
The consciousness of postmodernism is a rejection of foundationalism; it condemns any claim to objective truth and denounces metanarratives as epitome of universalist cultures with projects of power and domination.71 Instead of metanarratives, postmodernism calls for particularity, community, diversity, localism, and relativism. Its relativist pluralism seeks to uphold the local nature of truth, and holds truth to be only relative to the local community that espouses them.72 Smaller stories within community are applauded. And while being opposed to the metanarratives of Western modernity and what has been dubbed the modern Western
67 Grenz, A Primer, 57. 68 Jean-François Lyotard, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, and Brian Massumi. The Postmodern Condition: a Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), iv. 69 Grenz, A Primer, 12. 70 Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006), 45. 71 Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 6. 72 Grenz, A Primer, 12.
22 relentless universalization of commercialized American culture, the postmodern ideology is also implicitly critical of older metanarratives such as Christianity.73
One can hardly fail to perceive that the twenty-first century North American culture is very much coloured by the relativism of postmodernism and its rejection of metanarratives and as such, the Church is implicated in this rejection. The Bible’s universal story of God and God's interaction with all of creation is traditionally proclaimed by Christians to be relevant to all of humanity, at all times, in all locations.74 The story is traditionally held by Christians to be the revelation of God himself. “For Christians, there is an objective reality above all others – God himself."75 And it is this biblical record of God’s metanarrative that informs the Christian morality, ethics and understanding of truth.76 Noel rightly points out that “for many postmodernists, however, no such metanarrative exists. Truths exist only to be found subjectively by individuals within community.”77 Thus, just as modernism, at the heart of the postmodern consciousness lies a denial of the sovereign power behind material events. The challenges presented by the consciousness of modernism and postmodernism are very significant for the Church, as I will further explore in describing the other characteristics of the Western
Church context in relation to the gospel-culture encounter.
1.3.2 Scientism
A major characteristic of the Western context today is scientism. Christians in the
Western world today find themselves living in a complex situation that owes a lot to the ongoing
73 Bauckham, Bible and Mission, 7. 74 Noel, Pentecostalism, 81. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid.
23 legacy of the historical path followed by the Western intellectual tradition.78 As I have previously outlined, we live in the postmodern era, an era that while critical of modernity and its grounding in reason, is still very much coloured by shades of the Enlightenment metanarrative of rationalism. Elevating reason, the Enlightenment epistemology has historically been suspicious of all belief that is not grounded in nature, is based on an external authority, and is grounded in revelation, including the claims of the Christian faith. This elevation of reason produced the twentieth century modern technological society and at the core of this society is “the desire to rationally manage life, on the assumption that scientific advancement and technology provide the means to improving the quality of human life.”79
As Ronald Sider describes, “The Enlightenment’s rejection of the supernatural and the stunning triumph of modern science and technology led many to abandon the transcendent and look for meaning in technological progress.”80 Science itself has become an ideology that has gained ascendency over orthodox religious beliefs, thereby shaking the foundations of Christian religious orthodoxy in the Western world: “Revelation, which used to be the matrix and fountain head of human existence, now has to prove its claim to truth and validity.”81
While the elevation of reason over revelation presented challenges to religious orthodoxy,
Christianity did not disappear with the Enlightenment; rather, it carved out a niche in the modern world.82 Modern evangelicals and theologians prevalently demonstrate that the Christian faith is not necessarily unreasonable – a state of affair that still holds true today, and could be seen in the
Apologetics movement. For the most part, the Western Christian’s response to the ascendency of
78 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 41. 79 Grenz, A Primer, 81. 80 Ronald J. Sider, Good News and Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 44. 81 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 274. 82 Grenz, A Primer, 169.
24 science has been to study and explain God scientifically and reasonably. I will endeavour to illuminate on this point.
The assumptions and ideologies espoused by many scientists in our contemporary setting can seem countercultural to the worldview of the Christian Scripture. For example, when we examine the creation account as narrated in the Old Testament Scripture, it is told from the viewpoint that creation is the “purposeful product of the one true and sovereign God”83 and spoken into being by God’s Word. But today, the discourse of how the world came to be is prevalently described in scientific terms where more attention is paid to the chemistry, physics and biology of how the universe functions.
It can rightly be pointed out that the difference between the biblical and scientific worldview is a question of who and how – who created the universe versus how the universe was created – and not necessarily a contradiction. As I stated, with modernism, the dominant reaction of Western Christians has been to explain God’s action reasonably. Indeed, there are Christian scientists – such as the notable Reasons to Believe Apologetic movement, founded by Canadian astronomer Hugh Ross, whose mandate is to show that rather than contradict, science proves the biblical worldview.
However, it would also be correct to observe that a majority of the proponents of science today do not believe that there is actually a “who” behind creation and find the idea of a sovereign creator behind material events preposterous. The prevailing ideology of science in contemporary Western context is that the universe came into existence without a creator, a thought that is taught from elementary in public schools (even though this might not always be done directly). The story of the Christian metanarrative continues to compete with the
83 Andrew Sloane, At Home in a Strange Land: Using the Old Testament in Christian Ethics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 20.
25 metanarrative of the Enlightenment. The prevalent cultural mindset is one that questions the viability (or need) for a creator when one can be creative and able to reason for oneself. The idea of needing a saviour (or salvation) is similarly abhorred by the dominant cultural view.
And nowadays the relativism of postmodernism, with its disdain for all grand narratives and claims to universal truth, adds an interesting twist to the mix. By rejecting the Enlightenment attempt to discover universal truth through appeal to reason alone, postmodern developments propose that science is not integrally inimical to the Christian faith.84 But the tension between faith and reason is still evident today; one need not go beyond asking an elementary school student to ascertain this point (I have served as a Sunday School teacher for the last four years, and for many of the children, God and Zeus are in the same category). The fundamentals of
Christianity, which were once traditionally accepted as valid are now culturally displaced in
Western society. This reality would be further explained in a second related attribute of the context.
1.3.3 Secularism
As have been previously noted in this paper, the foundations of Christendom, “the primary influence of Christians and Christian religion throughout the whole of the public and political sphere,” has basically ended in most Western countries.85 The situation can be attributed to another characteristic of the context today – secularization, a phenomenon that is also linked to scientism. Secularization, or as Bosch describes it, de-Christianisation,86 has been succinctly
84 Bosch, Transforming Mission and Grenz, A Primer, 164. 85 Bradley Truman Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015), 3. 86 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 3.
26 defined as the historical process in which religion loses social and cultural significance.87 The rise in science and technology, and the ensuing dethroning of religious orthodoxy has resulted in a situation where Christianity (and religion in general) no longer holds a primary role of public and cultural influence.
As I had similarly pointed out while examining the characteristics of scientism, the ideology of science and the increasingly secular world that elevates reason and human autonomy leaves little room for traditional beliefs of Christianity once held to be valid.88 Bosch defines the effects of secularization on the culture as follows: “The advance of science and technology and with them, the worldwide process of secularization seem to have made faith in God redundant; why turn to religion if we ourselves have means of dealing with the exigencies of modern life?”89
The postmodern rejection of metanarratives also promotes the secularization of the
Western context. As previously discussed, postmodernism rejects metanarratives because it views them as “attempts to universalize one’s own values or culture,” and as such are
“necessarily authoritarian or oppressive” and “projects of power and domination.”90 As postmodernism gains hold, more and more people are distancing themselves from any such
“oppressive” narratives, including the metanarratives of Western modernity as well as older metanarratives like the Christian faith.
The waning influence of religious orthodoxy and the ideological critique of its traditional narrative do not of course mean that Christianity has disappeared entirely from the scene, for apparently it has not. But relating to the response to modern rationalization, the Church has largely responded to secularization by adopting a secular worldview. As Noel describes in his
87 Frank J. Lechner, “Secularization,” in Encyclopedia of Protestantism, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, (London: Routledge, 2003). 88 Grenz, Theology, 41. 89 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 3 90 Bauckham, Bible and Mission, 8.
27 examination of the contemporary Church climate, the main threat of secularization to the North
American Church is more from within than without: “that is, while the churches have had their members whittled away by secularist forces; those still attending have established increasingly secular worldview and attitudes.” 91
The two main (though not exhaustive) characteristic ways the Western Church has responded to what is increasingly shaping up to be a post-Christian culture are 1) retreating into the four walls of the Church and 2) altering doctrines to suit secular mindset. Ronald Sider affirms the second point when he explains that the majority of Western Christianity today tend to fall into the “Secular Christian Model,” one of the dominant models of contemporary Christian missional expression, he describes in his book Good News and Good Works. In this model,
“evangelism is only politics and salvation is only social justice.” In other words, knowing God is nothing more than seeking justice for the oppressed.92 A major situation being played out in the
Western (especially mainline) Churches is a scenario whereby the challenging aspects of
Christian spirituality (including the supernatural/revelation element of Scripture, work of the
Holy Spirit, eternal life, resurrection) are downplayed in the Church’s rhetoric in order to appeal to the predominant secular mindset of society.
1.3.4 Individualism
A fourth aspect of the context of Christianity today is individualism, or what has been described as the autonomy of the individual; an autonomy that rejects biblical revelation as the source of ethics and grounds ethics instead in autonomous humanity. This attribute is another legacy of the Enlightenment and is built on the premise that the individual is rational and as such,
91 Noel, Pentecostalism, 67. 92 Sider, Good News, 44.
28 autonomous. According to Bosch, the Enlightenment creed espoused that since all humans are naturally reasonable, they could be expected to do reasonably well in life especially if they are free from constraints of religion and traditional ideas. The result of this creed is that:
Individuals are too self-confident to acknowledge or draw on their religious roots, too urbane to be duped by the lure of some irrational ideologies … Free to use their power any way they wish, modern humans have no reference outside of themselves, no guarantee that they will use their freedom responsibly and for the sake of the common good. The autonomy of the individual, so much flaunted in recent decades, has ended in heteronomy: the freedom to believe in whatever one chooses to believe has ended in no belief at all; the refusal to risk interdependence has ended in alienation also from oneself.93
In essence, persons rather than God become the centre of the universe.
Though postmodernism decentres this emphasis on self and seeks for community, there is an important thread of continuity between modernity and postmodernity that is centered on the autonomous self.94 As Van Gelder points out, postmodernity is “searching for individuality beyond the empty construct of Western individualism and for a community greater than the social forces that influence it.”95 The elevation of the reasonable autonomous individual that was a legacy of Western modernity has been so thorough that today even though the postmodern mind dethrones the human intellect as the arbiter of truth, the individual intuition, experience and emotion is celebrated as a valid path to knowledge within a community. So the postmodern worldview operates with a community-based understanding of truth96 but the individual is encouraged to contribute their feelings and experiences to the community. Smaller stories within
93 Bosch, Transforming Mission, 270. 94 Van Gelder, “Missional Context,” 42. 95 Ibid. 96 Grenz, A Primer, 8; Noel, Pentecostalism, 71.
29 a community are applauded. As Grenz puts it, “in the end the postmodern world is merely an arena of dueling texts,”97 or duelling individual viewpoints.
In a context with such consciousness, any claim to a universal truth that is purported to be applicable to the whole of humankind, such as the traditional Christian belief of a sovereign creator, tends to be prevalently received with suspicion, at the very best.
1.3.5 Pluralism
A fifth and major aspect of contemporary Western context that affects the gospel-culture encounter is theological pluralism. Bosch attributes the incidence of pluralism as due partly to the “de-Christianisation” and secularization of Western ideologies and partly to the multiple migrations of people of diverse religions and traditions. 98 Today, the Church in the Western world inhabits a society marked by religious pluralism, ethnic diversity and cultural relativism.99
The abundance of diverse cultures and religions in Western society has led to the tendency for Christians and the mainline Church culture to adjust doctrines to reflect a more secular-friendly worldview. This adaptation points towards the prevailing “Secular Christian
Model,” of doing mission today in the Western world, as described by Sider (and which I touched on earlier), whereby knowing God is little more than seeking justice for the oppressed.
This is a worthy stance and biblically mandated but incomplete as to what the Christian faith is all about.
A major result of the Church’s tendency towards doctrinal adaption is a predominant lack of belief in the uniqueness of Christ – thus we have a reigning scenario of theological pluralism,
97 Grenz, A Primer, 7. 98 Grenz, A Primer, 7. 99 Lesslie Newbigin, ‘Back Cover Description’ in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989).
30 which holds that all religions are valid. The postmodern critique of grand narratives with its underlying rejection of any claims to absolute truth have also fed this prevailing rejection of the biblical narrative and is precipitating a shift towards radical pluralism and its accompanying relativized philosophies, even amongst Christians. Newbigin accused the Church of being in a
“syncretic” relationship with the post-Enlightenment culture,100 a few decades ago – a state of affairs that could still be held to be true today, for the most part. More recently, Stuart Murray points out that “tolerance,” which has been the favoured approach for pluralist secular societies, is deficient in the sense that the philosophical basis for tolerance is not “mutual respect for deeply held but divergent convictions, but relativism that does not treat religious beliefs seriously and imposes uniformity (all religions are the same and equally valid).”101 As Murray explains, this tolerance requires those with religious convictions to restrict the significance of these convictions to their private lives, refrain from questioning the conviction of others and accept the denigration of all religious convictions as “dispensable folklore appendages.”102 “Its apparent neutrality masks secular imperialism, imposing its views as powerfully as any religious tradition and intolerant towards any who challenges its assumptions.”103 The Church’s gospel-culture encounter is of course implicated in all this.
1.3.6 Renewed Interest in Spirituality
This chapter cannot really be concluded without briefly mentioning the reality that while the Western cultural context is prevailingly undergirded by our secular worldview, there is now a
100 Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1986), 14-20. 101 Murray, Post-Christendom, 234-235. 102 Ibid, 235. 103 Ibid.
31 renewed interest in spirituality. Postmodern consciousness leaves room for spiritual reawakening.
Though spirituality waned under the influence of modern rationalism and to some extent postmodern relativism, a new spiritual yearning is awakening. Postmodern openness to perceiving life in a variety of ways “has contributed to the resurgence of spirituality as a viable and necessary part of the human struggle today.”104 But this openness to spirituality may not begin with what has been given by God but rather with the autonomy that has been given to self.105 People are seeking innovative means to try to be spiritual. As Van Gelder insightfully puts it, “people are very secular, but they are often spiritual secularists.”106 “Anti-religious but pro-spiritual,” is Noel’s summation of the situation.107 A lot of the younger generation have been taught mostly in the postmodern consciousness and when asked about their religion, are known to respond with “I am spiritual but not religious.”
Murray surmises that “secularization has continued apace; secular assumptions rule contemporary society and guide political, economic and social decision making;” however, the expectation that religious beliefs would fade has been proven false.108 He points out that a counter-process of “desecularisation challenging secular assumptions” can now be identified.109
Murray also agrees with the point that this new interest in spirituality is generally not related to
Christianity, “which is associated with oppressive dogmatism and seen as spiritually inhibiting.”110 Some notable examples of some of the Western expressions of spirituality today
104 Van Gelder, “Missional Context,” 44. 105 David F Wells, Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2005), 132. 106 Van Gelder, “Missional Context,” 44. 107 Noel, Pentecostalism, 175. 108 Murray, Post-Christendom, 11. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid, 12.
32 are the ‘new age’ movement, westernized oriental religions, Neopaganism, and the occult.111
Many of the new spiritual expressions are privatized and some may be “designer spirituality” that is “resistant to institutional expression and eschews truth claims.”112 The decades of secularism have done a thorough job of virtually undermining the validity of the Church and its foundations.
And as Murray and many other missiologists point out, the fervent hopes a lot of
Christian express that the resurgence in spirituality might mean new opportunities for the
Western Churches is yet to be realized.113 But the hope is there nevertheless.
1.4 Conclusion
This chapter describes the current Western (particularly North American) context in which the Church must learn to engage properly. Of course what I have outlined of the current trends in the context is only a broad framework, as the situation is beyond the scope of the chapter. However, it is indeed reasonable to deduce that the rise in secularism with the resulting move towards post-Christianity is a dominant reality of the Western world.114 There has been a decided shift in the last 50 or so years in the Western philosophical paradigm from a context that was prevalently Christian to one that is now significantly more secular in its ideological outlook.
These trends in the ideological predispositions that undergird much of the Western culture have directly impacted the Church115 – relegation of religion to the private sphere, declining ecclesial participation, watered-down doctrine and society’s questionings about the relevancy of the
Church, are some of the impacts.
111 Ibid, 11. 112 Ibid. 113 Murray, Post-Christendom, 12. 114 Noel, Pentecostalism, 51. 115 Ibid.
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I suggest that much of the weakness of the Western Church is rooted in gospel-culture disengagement. As I pointed out in the chapter, while ecclesial participation has waned under the onslaught of secularization, much of the challenges of secularization and other ideologies to the
North American Church are more from within than without. For example, the Church, for the most part, has historically reacted to the Age of Reason by trying to show that the gospel is reasonable, ultimately downplaying the aspect of revelation in the Christian faith. Many
Christians now subscribe to a secular worldview of Christianity. This has certainly not helped in reviving the vitality of the Church. Today, a number of denominations describe the totality of the gospel in terms of social justice, virtually leaving out other equally important aspects of the
Christian faith – the life-transforming message of repentance and salvation through Jesus Christ.
As some missiologists now recognize, new tools are called for in doing Church and theology today as the Church struggles to define its role, identity and mission against a secular- post-Christian backdrop. And as this paper suggests, intercultural theology serves as a useful tool and Nigerian Pentecostalism, a reflection of African Christian expression, offers insights on proper gospel-culture engagement. Before looking into what insights we can glean from an
African Christian expression on Church expression, we would first do well to explore a biblical mandate for gospel-culture engagement because the mission of the Church is first and foremost an action of the triune God, who is at work in all of creation.116 We the Church are His missionaries. As Lesslie Newbigin rightfully points out, “Before we speak of our role, the role of our words and deeds in mission, we need to have firmly, in the centre of our thinking, [the] action of God.”117
116 Newbigin, The Gospel, 135 – David Bosch and Christopher Wright also emphasize the Missio Dei. 117 Newbigin, The Gospel, 135.
Chapter Two:
Biblical Mandate for Proper Cultural Engagement
Introduction
“Did God really say…?” Genesis 3:1.
We can glean from the Bible (the revealed foundation of the Christian faith) that the
Word of God has been questioned (twisted might be a better description) since the beginning to accommodate our particular human context and situations. As I have suggested earlier on in this paper, much of the ecclesial crisis in the Western context is rooted in gospel-culture disengagement. A huge part of this disengagement is the reigning tendency of the Western
Church to adopt a watered-down, secularized and lopsided doctrine of the gospel. As Ronald
Sider relays in Doing Evangelism Jesus’ Way: How Christians Demonstrate the Good News,
“the greatest temptation of the Church over the ages has been slowly (and often unconsciously) to conform to surrounding culture rather than submit to the fullness of God’s revealed Word.
One aspect of biblical truth is affirmed while another is obscured and neglected.”118
While doing a commendable mission in advocating for social justice, much of the Church in the Western world has retreated from influencing the culture in any other way. Many Christian expressions have become rationalistic and syncretic; shying away from the more “problematic” aspects of Scripture that do not align with the ideological suppositions that undergird society – some examples include the sovereignty and divinity of Christ, miracles, eternity, divine judgement, repentance and salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc. If the gospel is to properly engage the context, it has to be biblically holistic (while speaking the language of the culture) or
118 Ronald J. Sider, Doing Evangelism Jesus’ Way: How Christians Demonstrate the Good News (Nappanee: Evangel, 2003), 50.
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35
it loses its vitality. The Church is called, from the very beginning, to engage and shape the culture in a biblically-faithful manner.
Intercultural theology offers insights for the Western Church as it struggles to define its mission. But before presenting any insights, it would make sense to first examine what the Bible says about engaging the culture, as the mission of the Christian faith is, first and foremost, God’s and we as the Church are called to partner with God in God’s mission. According to Bauckham,
“at stake is not only the human quest for narrative meaning, but also the claims of a God who is not radically unknowable.”119
This chapter will thus examine scriptural mandate for biblically-faithful cultural engagement. I will begin by proposing a biblical rationale for intercultural theology. Next, I will briefly describe the tenets of the countercultural model of contextualization that mandate gospel- culture engagement that is true to Scripture. And finally, I will highlight biblical rationale for faithfully engaging culture drawing on examples from the Bible.
2.1 Biblical Rationale for Intercultural Theology
Intercultural theology is the “awareness of and engagement with different expressions of theology as they exist between different cultures;”120 paying particular attention to “the identity of non-Western forms of Christianity in dialogue with Western forms.”121 Intercultural theology also entails Christian dialogues with other forms of religion. But this paper only addresses engagement of Christian theology from one context to another. As the twenty-first century global
North and West Church faces missional challenges and ecclesial decline in juxtaposition with the
119 Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 90. 120 Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham, eds. “Introduction,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 2 (Cartledge and Cheetham cited Wisjen 2003’s discussion on this subject). 121 Ibid, Back cover definition of Intercultural Theology.
36 growth and vitality of the Church in the global South, intercultural theology presents the Western
Church with opportunity to glean insights from other contexts for revival. As Cartledge and
Cheetham opine:
The universal applicability of the gospel message compels us to take seriously the contributions emerging out of places, wherever they are in which it has become incarnated. In addition, it is probable that the future of theology will no longer be steered by western theologians simply because the theological voices from the southern hemisphere represent regions where the growth of Christianity is more evident and may therefore enjoy greater influence as time passes.122
In other words, the Western Church should be open to being blessed by the faith practices of other particular contexts. Richard Bauckham did an illuminative job of describing how the
God of the Bible is both particular and universal. God’s gospel for humankind is a narrative witness from particular individuals, peoples or contexts to universal blessings. God has historically worked through particular individuals or people in human history to offer universal revelation of Himself and blessings; and from particular geographic nation and context to reach the ends of the earth. The mission of the Church involves the sending of the one human person
Jesus Christ into the entire world as his witnesses123 (a fruition of Abraham’s call to be a blessing to all of humanity, which was later fulfilled in the witness of the nation Israel and finally in the person of Christ and now His Church). This theme of the particular to the universal is emphasized throughout Scripture.
Through intercultural theology, the Church can thus continue to be edified and enriched by God’s practice of using particular contexts to offer universal revelation and blessings. For our current purpose, this paper proposes that the Western Church today could benefit from insights into the ecclesial expression of a Church in the global South where the mission thrives. Exactly what insights could Nigerian Pentecostalism offer? Hopefully, insights on striving to be
122 Cartledge and Cheetham, “Introduction,” 5. 123 Bauckham, Bible and Mission, 10.
37 biblically faithful to the primacy of the gospel, while engaging the culture. The potential insights will be further explored in a subsequent chapter. For now we will look to Scripture in this chapter. Before delving into Scripture however, I will examine what the countercultural model of contextualization says about biblically faithful gospel-cultural engagement.
2.2 Contextualization – The Countercultural Model of Gospel-Culture Engagement
Context has historically played an important role in the mission of God’s people. As described in the previous section of this chapter, God’s activity in Scripture follows a theme of using a particular context or particular people to achieve universal revelation and blessing.
Steven Bevans’s description of the countercultural model of contextualization supports this theme.
With the countercultural, “true contextualization accords the gospel its rightful primacy, its power to penetrate every culture and to speak within each culture, in [the culture’s] own speech and symbol, the Word [of God] which is both No and Yes, both judgement and grace.”124A second notable element of the countercultural model of contextualization that flows from this insistence on the primacy of the gospel is the revelation nature of gospel, which proclaims the gospel or “total fact of Christ” to be told and witnessed.125 Newbigin, who Bevans proposes as a practitioner of the countercultural form of contextualization espouses that the gospel be communicated with both faithfulness and relevance.126
According to Bevans, “countercultural model finds its most vigorous proponents among theologians who have recognized the deeply anti-Christian nature of all contemporary Western
124 Lesslie Newbigin, “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989), 152 –Cited in Bevans, Models, 120. 125 Bevans, Models, 121-122. 126 Bevans, Models, 120.
38 culture,” including missiologist Newbigin.127 But this method of doing theology is hardly confined to the West, Bevans notes128 – a point that Burgess reiterates by highlighting that the ecclesial expression of Nigerian Pentecostalism corresponds with the countercultural model of contextual theology.129
In sum, this form of contextualization requires that the gospel should not only be conditioned by the culture, but should challenge elements of the culture deemed incomparable with the Bible.130 As Newbigin espouses, if the gospel is truly revelation, “it will involve contradiction, and call for conversion, for a radical metanoia, a U-turn of the mind.”131 And when we look through Scripture, we find examples of such radical conversion. In all of the instances, particular contexts (or people) are used to achieve universal blessing and revelation; such as the acts of the early Church. The next section draws on examples from the Bible to illustrate the Church’s mandate to faithfully engage culture.
2.3 Insights from Biblical Gospel-Culture Engagement
The Church is called to engage the created world; to be Christ’s witnesses. However the contemporary Western Church struggles to determine its role against a pluralistic, secular and unwelcoming backdrop. This challenge is not unlike that which the early Church had to tackle.
Actually to take the biblical narrative further back historically, God’s people have often been called to witness faithfully from a position of marginality, opposing ideologies, hostility and/or pluralism.
127 Bevans, Models, 117. 128 Ibid, 118. 129 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 150. 130 Bevans, Models, 117; Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 150. 131 Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1986), 5-6.
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Paul and other early Church leaders cautioned the Church not to be influenced by the culture but to rather influence the culture, as they found themselves in contexts that were, for the most part, at odds with the gospel. In the same way, God called the Israelites to be a holy people, uncorrupted by the contrary practices of their surrounding culture in order to be His means of revealing Himself to and blessing all nations. In all of this, the people of God are to engage their culture while remaining faithful to the Word of God. I will briefly outline how Scripture illustrates this gospel-culture engagement, drawing on four particular contexts in Scripture –
Genesis, the Exile, the injunction of Christ and the exhortation of Paul to the Early Church. In these instances some major themes that can be seen are obedience to the Word of God/observing boundaries, engaging and seeking the welfare of the context, communal responsibility, openness to the power of the Holy Spirit, revealing the character of God, and thus being God’s agents of blessing and transformation. Bradley Truman Noel will serve as my theological partner.
2.3.1 Genesis
The very first command God gives humankind in Genesis 1:28 is often viewed to be the original mandate for God’s people to engage with creation:132 “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” As
Noel points out, God’s intentions were clear in this first command He gives human: “we shape culture as an exercise of faithful obedience to our creator.” 133 Derek Brown also explains the mandate from God:
132 Bradley Truman Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015), 14. 133 Noel, Pentecostalism, 15.
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Read again the extract from Genesis 1 above and the meaning is clear: culturally shaping or engagement (ruling over the animals, engaging in farming etc.) is not a secular exercise to be done in some God-ignoring manner. As we are reminded in Psalms 8, cultural shaping or engagement for the Christian means obeying God’s pattern for life in how we live day by day in everything. It means denying the false claims… which have restricted Christian activity to the spiritual realm, and it means celebrating the purpose and meaning of the Good News of the gospel in all that we do. Not only is cultural engagement inescapable; the calling for the Christian to engage and shape the culture in a biblically faithful manner also is inescapable.134
And we find this pattern of command to faithfully engage the context throughout the beginning of God’s Word; from Adam and Eve to Noah, Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs. God commands His people to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and be His source of blessing others around them. Any success they got in achieving God’s purpose came from being obedient to His
Word and the opposite scenario also held true. When Adam and Eve decided to overlook the boundary God had set, they failed their first mission –– Eden.
2.3.2 The Exile
God’s Word to His exiled people in Babylon, is a good illustration that God’s community of faith are called to engage and faithfully make transformative difference in the culture where they find themselves, even when that culture is hostile to the Word of God. As Scripture narrates, when the prophet Jeremiah writes a letter to the Israelites exiled in Babylon he relays God’s directive for engaging a context that is not immediately welcoming or shares an affinity in beliefs:135
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:
134 Derek Brown, “Is Cultural Engagement Biblical?” in Rediscovering the Kingdom of God, 2011 – viewed in Noel, Pentecostalism, 15. 135 Noel, Pentecostalism, 15.
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Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace (Jeremiah 29: 4-7).
God directs the exiled Israelites to seek the peace and prosperity of the city where they find themselves. The contours of peace-making were to include presence, prayer and public activity;136 while being His faithful witnesses.
Though it was hard for the Israelites to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land,” God urged them to seek the flourishing of the city where they were aliens. It was a rejection of the option of simply staying quiet and surviving. Rather, they were to bear witness to the true God of the Israelites.137 God’s instruction is not simply a survival strategy for a minority people but also a call “to healing the nations that stands in the line of faith-driven public intersessions such as those of Joseph, Esther and Daniel.”138 As Mark R. Gornik relays, regardless of Israel’s marginalized status, healing for the nation would come through “their distinctively faith-shaped presence.”139 In other words, while the Israelites were not to compromise their faith by worshiping the Emperor of the land of their exile and its idols, they were to exercise commitment to the flourishing of the city and its citizenry. This is a theme that can be found through much of
Scripture. As Noel points out, “we see in this letter to the exiles something of Jesus’ later description of God’s people as those who are in but not of this world.”140 (John 17: 14-15). We turn now to more of what Jesus had to say about God’s people engaging the world.
136 Mark R. Gornik, To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2002), 104. 137 Gornik, To Live in Peace, 105. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid. 140 Noel, Pentecostalism, 15.
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2.3.3 The Injunction of Christ
There is a clear mandate in the teachings of Christ to engage culture in a manner that enriches the culture while submitting to the fullness of God’s revealed Word. A good instance where this message really comes through is when Jesus describes believers as “salt of the earth” and “light of the world,” in Matthew 5,141 in the Sermon on the Mount. Noel rightly explains that for Jesus, it is inconceivable that salt would lose its saltiness or that light would be hidden or fail to shine.142 “Implicit in Jesus’ command to ‘let your light shine before others’ is the challenge to engage the darkness, wherever it may be found.”143 According to Donald Hagner, this mission of the disciples of Christ is accomplished both in word and in the deeds of their daily lives.144
Douglas Hare insightfully observes that the injunction also serves as a warning to those believers “who would contextualize to the point of assimilation.”145 According to Hare, “any
Church that adapts itself so completely to the secular world around it that its distinctive calling is forgotten has rendered itself useless. Its vaunted salt has become tasteless and uninteresting.”146
As Jesus puts it, “if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Matthew 5: 13).
2.3.4 The Exhortation of Paul to the Early Church
Paul reiterates the mandate of Christ that believers are to be in the world but not of the world; to be a contributing and transformative aspect of society but to observe God’s boundaries.
141 Noel, Pentecostalism, 16. 142 Ibid. 143 Ibid. 144 Donald A. Hagner, “Matthew 1-13,” in Word Biblical Commentary, ed. Bruce M. Metzger (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993),102 – Cited in Noel, Pentecostalism, 16. 145 Noel, Pentecostalism, 16. 146 Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 44.
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A lot of Paul’s message was centered on exhorting the Church to be Christ’s witness by influencing the theologically pluralistic culture they inhabited and not the other way round, while still participating as part of the culture. This message characterized the acts of the early Church.
A good instance where Paul drove in this message was in his first letter to the Corinthian Church, as recorded by Scripture. As some New Testament commentators observe, Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians provides us with a “more (relatively) clear window into an early Christian community than in any other New Testament writing.”147
The Corinthian Church, just as many other early Christians, was amidst the diverse religions of the Greco-Roman world. Thus, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was largely “to address problems in local Churches that arose from specific social and religious practices of the
Greco-Roman world.” 148 A major theme that can be gleaned from Paul’s letter to the Church was that as believers who were Christ’s representatives to the world, they were to observe boundaries that separated them from the world (both from within and without) while still being a part of the world.
In his letter to the Corinth Church, Paul stresses the need for the Church to maintain its distinctiveness within pagan society (5:1-11:1). The believers were evidently vulnerable to the encroachment of the value system of their Corinthian environment and “showed signs of succumbing to the behaviors encouraged by that environment.”149 Thus, Paul sets out to mark the proper boundaries between the Church and external influence. His response to a case of sexual immorality in Chapter 5 illustrates this point. In 5: 9-10 he writes: “I wrote to you in my epistle
147 Michael J. German, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 227. Robert Scott Nash also espouses this view in the commentary 1 Corinthians (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Pub, 2009), 1. 148 Luke Timothy Johnson, Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 164. 149 Nash, 1 Corinthians, 143.
44 not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.” As Paul indicates, such boundaries are not intended to isolate the Church from interactions with the outside world. Rather, they are intended to define the appropriate behaviour for this distinctive community.150
2.4 Conclusion
Then said Jesus… “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32).
A significant part of the vitality of the African Pentecostal Church can be ascribed to the reality that these Churches do not, for the most part, tip-toe around divine revelation through the
Word to suit the current prevailing cultural narrative. Neither do the Churches retreat into their four walls in timidity, fear and self-defence. Rather the Gospel speaks into the culture’s narrative and purifies it if needed, all in the language of the culture. It would be near impossible to touch upon everything Scripture says about faithful gospel-culture engagement, but I have endeavoured to creditably construct an overview.
God’s Word in Scripture offers a key to understanding God’s perspective on being His covenant community and how God wants His people to engage with their context. From
Scripture, I believe we can creditably establish that the Church’s responsibility as a covenant community is to reveal God’s loving and Holy character, as relayed from the Abrahamic covenant when God promised to bless all the peoples of the earth through Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 12:3); to Israel, fulfilled in Christ and handed over to the Church. Thus, rather than shirking from divine revelation, the covenant community is to reflect the very nature
150 Nash, 1 Corinthians, 144.
45 of God in engaging their culture to achieve transformative result; while maintaining a righteous monotheistic faithfulness to God. His covenant people are to be His moral witnesses to the world.
On an encouraging note, historically, every community of God’s people have not entirely been able to meet God’s holy standard as mandated in His Word – only God Himself, in the person of Jesus, did. But as Christ’s witnesses, the striving to harken to His Word and His lead in engaging culture, while speaking the language of the culture is what makes for a vitalized
Church. This striving involves engaging the culture while challenging elements of the culture deemed incompatible with the Bible – this would involve being a moral and loving community of presence, proclamation, and prayer while being open to the workings of the Holy Spirit. As
Jürgen Moltmann notes, “God’s spirit is felt as vitalizing energy… In the Holy Spirit the eternal
God participates in our transitory life, and we participate in the eternal life of God. This reciprocal community is an immense overflowing source of energy.”151
Scripture is candid about the fact that the disciples needed to be empowered by the Holy
Spirit to be salt and light. Hence under His instructions, Christ’s disciples had to wait for His
Holy Spirit before beginning their ministry after His ascension (Acts 1:4). Through the enabling of God’s Holy Spirit to work wonders in and through them, the early Church was able to take up the mantle of being a distinctive community that constantly stirred its culture towards repentance
(rather than being steered from repentance by its culture) even in the face of adversity. The extent to which Nigerian Pentecostalism puts these attributes into practice will be explored next.
151 Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 195-146.
Chapter Three:
Nigerian Pentecostalism as Case Study for Gospel-Cultural Engagement
Introduction:
I have virtually lived half of my life in the global South (in Nigeria) and the other half in the global North. My formative years were influenced by Nigerian ecclesial expression. In coming to North America, I am able to perceive aspects of the ideological consciousness that undergirds the way the Church engages with the gospel, a vantage point that might not really be naturally available to one who had been primarily shaped by the Western culture during their formative years. At first, it was something of a shock to perceive how the intellectual path taken by the Western culture has so impacted the Church’s mission to the point where the Church is seen as almost superfluous to the culture. But now, I can look objectively as the situation plays out and observe both the challenges and opportunities that the contemporary Western Church faces in its gospel-culture engagement. One of the main differences in ecclesial expression of the global North and South, which I have noticed from my “vantage point,” is the way in which both contexts engage with Scripture. I will offer a brief anecdote to illustrate my point:
Some months ago, members of an Anglican Community Church in Toronto Canada were invited to come together on a Saturday morning for a strategic direction meeting to define the identity of and way forward for the Church by identifying its strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities, as part of the response the decline in ecclesial participation. As a pastoral staff member of the Church, I was a part of this meeting. An outside agent (also a Christian) was invited to facilitate the gathering. To begin, the facilitator shared a sheet of paper each to all present – about 20 of us. The sheet contained this passage in Acts about the early Church practice
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And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2: 42-47).
The facilitator then asked for people to call out the aspects of the early Church practice from the passage that inspires/stands out to them. No right or wrong answers but unsurprising, not one person mentioned “wonders and signs.” Not even one. That was the aspect that stood out to me but I decided to keep silent and hear what others had to say. The majority response was
“breaking of bread.” Therein lies a key difference between Nigerian Christian expression and that of the Western Church.
While the Church in North America tends to shy away from the spiritual and supernatural
(or revelation) aspect of Scripture, the Church in Nigeria thrives in it. The Nigerian Christian expression is mainly vitalized by the unshakable belief that there is a sovereign God, who impacts all aspects of humanity and often times the works of His hands, through the Holy Spirit, can simply not be explained away by the natural. God’s mission, from which ours spring, cannot be put in a box or tidily rationalized. This belief colours the way the Nigerian Pentecostal Church engages culture.
Thus, this chapter represents an attempt to present Nigerian Pentecostalism, a viable representation of African Christian expression, as a case study on intercultural theology to determine the possible insights the spirituality and faith practices of a Church in the global South might offer to the contemporary Western (or global North) Church as the gravity of global
Christianity increasingly shifts from the global North to the global South. The study will
48 demonstrate that the vitality of Nigerian Pentecostalism (and African Christianity in general) and its appeal to its cultural context lies 1) in the fact that the Church is indigenized, addressing local concerns 2) in its culture transforming influence – challenging elements of the culture that are deemed incompatible with the gospel- hence countercultural contextualization. My goal is to propose that the study of Pentecostalism in Africa can lead to further understanding of the relationship between gospel and culture.
As I previously pointed out in the introductory section of this research, this paper in no way suggests that Nigerian Pentecostalism is an infallible representation of Christian mission.
The Church in Nigeria has certainly had its share of unscrupulous leaders and claimants to the faith. But in every faith context, wheat and tares must grow together. However, whether the wheat allows itself to be overwhelmed by the tares determines the outcome.
I will begin my aim by first presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as significant to the study of intercultural theology and contextualization. Next, I will briefly highlight
Nigerian Pentecostalism as a distinct form of Pentecostalism. Afterwards, I will outline the history of contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism from its pre-1980s inception till present day, highlighting its role as a main expression of African spirituality. Finally, I will examine popular attributes and theological themes of Nigerian Pentecostalism.
3.1 Nigerian Pentecostalism as Significant to Intercultural Theology and Contextualization
As Richard Burgess and several other missiologists have noted, studies in mission are usually birthed from the lived experience of Christians and Christian communities in mission.152
This is especially beginning to become the case for the fast growing Churches among the poor in
152 Richard Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution: The Civil War Revival and Its Pentecostal Progeny, 1967-2006 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), v.
49 the world – namely the global South and East. But these Churches have more to tell than stories of growth:153 “They are making significant and transformative impacts on their cultures in the cause for Christ. They are producing “cultural products” which express the reality of Christian faith, hope and love for their societies.”154 And as Burgess surmises, “the formation of Christian theology, missiology, and practice in the twenty-first century will depend to a great extent on the active participation of growing Churches contributing biblical and culturally appropriate expressions of Christian practice to inform World Christianity.”155
Burgess is correct. Pentecostalism has emerged as the fastest growing stream of
Christianity in the world, especially in Asia, Latin America and Africa, now the heartland of
Christianity.156 As of 2010, statistics of regional representation and growth of Pentecostals (or renewalists) showed that these three regions, particularly Africa, were topping the chart in
Church growth.157 Africa was estimated to have 175.8 million Pentecostals (with a projected estimate of 265 million for 2025).158 The Pentecostal Churches emerging from these contexts, particularly Africa, have really helped to energize World Christianity by giving it a fresh lease,
Asamoah-Gyadu opines:159 For one thing, in the global North and Western contexts where
Christianity may be declining, Pentecostals “are leading in the revival of a Christian presence by means, for example, of the ministries of immigrant Churches.”160 For another, in Africa today,
153 Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution, v. 154 Ibid. 155 Ibid. 156 Kwabena J. Asamoah-Gyadu,.Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context. Forwards by Allan Anderson and Nimi Wariboko (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013), 1. 157 See Michael Wilkinson, “Pentecostals and the World: Theoretical and Methodological Issues for Studying Global Pentecostalism,” Pneuma 38, no. 4 (2016): 383, for more info and for growth comparisons. 158 Ibid. 159 Asamoah-Gyadu,.Contemporary Pentecostal, 1. 160 Ibid.
50 for example, “even Churches that trace their roots to the work of German and English missions from London, Basel and Bremen, are all turning to Charismatic renewal.”161
Nimi Wariboko opines that a major cause of the vitality and success of African
Pentecostalism stems from the fact that it is “forged in the fire of the Holy Spirit and fashioned under the pressures and peculiarities of concrete human experiences in Africa,”162 a point that
Allen Anderson, Ogbu Kalu, and several other historians and theologians of African
Pentecostalism agree with. The liturgy is typically expressed in energetic worship, prayer, and free expression of emotions; and is concerned with communing with God as well as relieving poverty, diseases, and ancestral/generational curses and strongholds. All of which resonates with the African context.
Another related aspect that factors into the success of African Pentecostalism is one that
Nigerian theologian, Justin Ukpong suggests – the approach to biblical interpretation. According to Ukpong, Western Bible reading methodologies are intellectualist in nature and profess to employ a universal perspective.163 “A major concern is knowledge of the meaning of the biblical text through the use of methods of investigation established and acknowledged as critical by the academy.”164 By contrast, African scriptural hermeneutics are more existential and pragmatic in nature and contextual in approach.165 This means that the African scriptural interpretation is more concerned with contemporary existential questions: “they are concerned with the meaning
161 Asamoah-Gyadu,.Contemporary Pentecostal, 2. See also Richard Burgess, “Practical Christianity and Public Faith: Nigerian Pentecostal Contributions to Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 146. 162 Nimi Wariboko, “Forward,” in Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context, fwd. Allan Anderson and Nimi Wariboko (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013), xvii. 163 Justin Ukpong, “Inculturation Hermeneutics: An African Approach to Biblical Interpretation,” in The Bible in a World Context: An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, eds. Walter Dietrich & Ulrich Luz, 17-32 (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 17. 164 Ukpong, “Inculturation Hermeneutics,”17. 165 Ibid.
51 of the biblical text not in an intellectual but in an existential sense.”166 For example, in reading the creation account in Genesis, a Christian in Africa is more likely to be concerned with what humans were created for and not just humans in general, but they themselves in their own particular context, in this particular time in history - than with the scientific question of how was the world created. Because it is already accepted as a given that God created the world with His
Words, according to the Bible. (How the different approach to biblical hermeneutic contributes to the vitality of African Pentecostalism is a subject that is not yet fully explored).
And third, the strongest part of African Pentecostalism remains their “vibrant evangelization,”167 Ogbu Kalu surmises. According to Anderson, The primary purpose of this form of Church is to evangelize and spread their influence:168
These constant efforts to expand and proselytize are underpinned by a firm belief in the Bible as an independent source of authority, one that resonates with local customs and relates better to a spiritual and holistic worldview – and by theological convictions based on a common experience of the Spirit who empowers believers’ mission to the world.169
In addition to places of worship, the energetic evangelism is pursued through tertiary education, mission to the unreached people, mission to other African countries,170 and, more recently, immigrant Churches in the global North and West. The adoption of elaborate media representation in African Pentecostalism, especially in Nigeria, further valorized Pentecostalism in Africa.171 The personal conversion of individuals and the transformation of their contexts is the purported goal of these efforts.
166 Ukpong, “Inculturation Hermeneutics,”17. 167 Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xii. 168 Allan Anderson, “Forward,” in Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context, fwd. Allan Anderson and Nimi Wariboko (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013), xi. 169 Ibid. 170 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, xii. 171 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 105.
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Nimi Wariboko rightfully points out that many of the scholars who write on African
Pentecostalism have overemphasized the search for spiritual power; reducing the Africans faith to a quest of believers for power (sourced through the Holy Spirit) and prosperity gospel:172 “The result is a narrow, partial, distorted and hollowed-out representation of African
Pentecostalism.”173 However, African Pentecostalism is a “richly textured faith fabric responding to the existential questions and needs Africans have in the twenty-first century,”174 Wariboko notes – a definition echoed by several other scholars of Pentecostalism in Africa.175
Hopefully, for the purpose of this research, as we examine what the theology and practice
Nigerian Pentecostalism looks like, we will be able to glean some practical faith insights, which the Church offers to the dialogue table of intercultural theology, especially as it relates to gospel- culture engagement.
3.2 Nigerian Pentecostalism as a distinct Form of Pentecostalism
Before describing the insights that can gleaned from the history, theology and practice of
Nigerian Pentecostalism, it would indeed be noteworthy to first point out that Nigerian
Pentecostalism (and African Pentecostalism in general) differs from Western Pentecostalism and as Allan Anderson relays, “the passing of time has accentuated these differences.”176
I thus propose that Nigerian Pentecostalism is a distinctly African expression of
Christianity for two related reasons: 1) Pentecostalism is expressed contextually 2)
172 Nimi Wariboko, “Forward,” xviii. 173 Ibid. 174 Ibid. 175 Philomena Njeri Mwaura, “The Role of Charismatic Christianity in Reshaping the Religious Scene in Africa: The Case of Kenya,” in Christianity in Africa and the African Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage, eds. Afeosemime U. Adogame, Roswith I. H. Gerloff, and Klaus Hock (London: Continuum, 2008), 180-181. 176 Allan Anderson, “Intercultural Theology, Walter J. Hollenweger and African Pentecostalism,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 135.
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Pentecostalism is a complex ecclesial expression that is neither static nor homogenous. I will endeavour to elaborate on both points.
Anderson states that one of the main reasons for the growth of Pentecostalism “has been its ability to adapt itself to different cultures and societies and give contextual expression to
Christianity.”177 And of all Christian expressions, Pentecostalism has the ability to transport itself into local African cultures and religions effortlessly because of the emphasis on the experience of the Spirit. 178 Even with the influence of colonialism and its birthing of Western education systems and ideologies into the African continent, Africans, for the most part, have never shaken off the deep rooted indigenous belief that there is more to life than the natural (or what is seen).
Michael Wilkinson asserts that with the prevalence of globalization, Pentecostals across the world are coming in contact with one another. “One implication of increased contact is the awareness of sameness and difference.”179 In his study on the methodology of global
Pentecostalism, Wilkinson notes that even though Pentecostal scholars like Frank Macchia point to Spirit baptism to be the “central global metaphor that unites Pentecostals across space and time,” there are local variations to Pentecostalism globally.180
Notwithstanding the various interpretations, variations and definitions of Pentecostalism and its pneumatic orientation, what is significant to African Pentecostalism is that all the pneumatic experiences are a response of Africans to their encounter with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.181 “The responses form a continuation within African Christian history and are all a response to the existential needs of Africans within their different contexts.”182 In
177 Anderson, “Forward,” xiii. 178 Ibid. 179 Michael Wilkinson, “Pentecostals and the World: Theoretical and Methodological Issues for Studying Global Pentecostalism,” Pneuma 38, no. 4 (2016): 381. 180 Wilkinson, “Pentecostals,” 382. 181 Mwaura, “The Role,” 180-181. 182 Ibid, 181.
54 defining the contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism, I am following Ogbu Kalu’s approach of identifying the character of African Pentecostalism, which he describes as a “charismatic and revivalist ferment,” stamped with an African identity and resonating with the contextual needs and experiences of the people.183
However, one important feature that distinguishes contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism from other African expressions is that for the most part, the Nigerian Pentecostals strive to avoid syncretic interpretations of the Christian faith that do not resonate with the Bible. “Rather than consciously try to adapt Christianity to African culture by incorporating elements of traditional religion, as many African theologians have tried to do, Nigerian Pentecostals find other avenues for building local identities,”184 Burgess asserts. One example of how Nigerian Pentecostals build these local identities is by emphasizing African contributions to Christian history and the role that Christianity has played (and continues to play) in challenging some of the traditional evils including witchcraft, killing of twins in some regions and idolatry. “Significantly, while they are critical of Western imperialism and its effects on African societies, Nigeria’s new
Pentecostals are generally grateful to the Western missionaries for introducing the gospel.”185And in subsequent sections of this paper, I will endeavour to illustrate some major attributes of the Nigerian Pentecostal Church.
I will turn now to outlining pertinent moments in the history of Nigerian Pentecostalism, with the aim of highlighting its role as a significant expression of African spirituality.
183 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 23. 184 Richard Burgess, “Practical Christianity and Public Faith: Nigerian Pentecostal Contributions to Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 155. 185 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 155.
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3.3 Key Points in the History of Nigerian Pentecostalism
Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, is arguably the contemporary heartland of
Pentecostalism in the world.186 As Allan Anderson describes:
It has a long history of independent African Churches [AICs] emphasizing spiritual gifts dating back to the great influenza epidemic of 1908. Then those who left the mission churches and sought God in prayer for healing became known as ‘Aladura,’ a Yoruba word meaning ‘possession of prayer.’ The white- robed, often bare-footed Aladura are still found in thriving churches, but in Lagos, one cannot fail to notice hundreds of churches with signboards on every street corner…. Pentecostals are everywhere: they preach in buses, at market places and in massive campgrounds, tents, stadiums, churches and auditorium. 187
Pentecostalism has immensely affected all forms of Christian expression in Nigeria. The mainline Churches like Anglicans, Methodists and Roman Catholics have now adopted charismatic form in their liturgies. But what has now become a successful representation of the contemporary Nigerian Pentecostal denomination, presided over by religious entrepreneurs, has only just sprung up in recent decades:188
In the south-west, on the road between Lagos and Ibadan, is the sprawling headquarters of the Redeemed Christian Church of God called Redemption City, where vast crowds, estimated at over a million attend the monthly ‘Holy Ghost Service presided over by their leader, Enoch A. Adeboye ... in an open-walled and constantly expanding auditorium. One of the largest enclosed church buildings in the world, seating 50,000 persons is found at another impressive campus outside Lagos called ‘Grace Land’, headquarters of the Living World Outreach (Better Known as ‘Winners Chapel’).189
And in November 2018, The Dunamis’ Glory Dome, a 100,000-seater capacity auditorium, purported to be the largest Church auditorium in the world, was unveiled in the country’s capital,
186 Allan Anderson, “Sub-Saharan Africa: Defining African Pentecostalism,” in An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014, Second edition), 112. 187 Mwaura, “The Role,” 180. 188 Allan Anderson, “Intercultural Theology, Walter J. Hollenwegner and African Pentecostalism,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 128-129. 189 Ibid, 129.
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Abuja. The dedication of the auditorium witnessed the gathering of some of the country’s leading political and religious dignitaries including vice president Yemi Osinbajo, speaker
Yakubu Dogara, former president, Goodluck Jonathan, senator Dino Melaye, governors
Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom , and Samuel Ortom of Benue , bishop David Oyedepo, pastors
E.A Adeboye, Matthew Ashimolowo, and David Ibiyeomie, to name a few.
The contemporary scene in Nigerian Pentecostalism is vibrant, modern and encompasses dominant aspects of the country’s identity as a nation. The Churches employ widespread use of mass media and sophisticated technological system; have sprawling university campuses across the nation; hold hugely packed emotional, loud and energetic Sunday and weekday services across the nation; are involved in personal, social, economic and political transformation and emphasize pietistic deliverance theology - representing the key expression of Christianity in the country and depicting a young and modernizing society.
How did it all begin? The last decades of the twentieth century witnessed significant development in African Christianity – it signalled the reconstruction of Christian experience in
Africa – mainly a shift in emphasis from the missionary founded liturgies to a more charismatic movement. The history of what is now modern Pentecostalism in Africa is a complex one with varying views as to its origins. It is acknowledged among African Pentecostal historians that many new Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria (and Africa in general) had their roots in the older
African Independent – or Initiated Churches (AIC). 190 Ogbu Kalu points out that the contemporary Pentecostalism is:
the third response by Africans to the gospel message propagated by missionaries following the initial response by black cultural nationalists of the nineteenth century [Ethiopianism] and the pneumatic response at the turn of the twentieth
190 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 66.
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century by the so called “Bantu Prophets” or “Praying People,” what the Yoruba call “Aladura.” Pentecostalism became another kind of pneumatic response characterizing the modern period in African Church history.191
In essence, Kalu holds that the first two African responses to Western religious cultural dominance are ‘Ethiopianism’ and ‘Aladura,’ respectively. Allan Anderson espouses that the
African Pentecostal Christianity we see today “is not fundamentally different from the ‘Holy
Spirit movements and the so called ‘prophetic –healing’ and ‘spiritual churches’ that preceded it in the African Initiated Churches” (AIC).192 Matthew Ojo examines the contemporary Nigerian
Pentecostal origins from the university students’ evangelical Scripture Union (SU) movement in southwestern Nigeria.193 Burgess argues that an evangelical revival, also associated with
Scripture Union and university students occurred in the southeastern Nigeria, birthed during the civil war period of 1967-1970, playing a significant role in heralding the contemporary
Pentecostal scene in the country.194 Kalu and several other Nigerian Pentecostal historians have supported Burgess’s point; tracing the war-time Scripture Union movement of southeastern university students as a major source of the stream of charismatic revival that would herald the contemporary Pentecostal Church in Nigeria.195
Despite complexities of viewpoints, Wariboko surmises that a pertinent aspect of the history of modern Nigerian Pentecostalism is that “it emerged through multiple pathways that were mediated through culture, history, religious nationalism, and the economic and political
191 Ogbu Kalu, ‘Preserving a Worldview: Pentecostalism in the African Maps of the Universe,’ Pneuma 24, no. 2 (January 2002): 110. 192 Cited in Mwaura, “The Role,” 180. 193 Matthew Ojo, The End-time Army, Charismatic Movements in Modern Nigeria (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press), 2006. 194 Burgess made a case for this in his book: Nigeria's Christian Revolution: The Civil War Revival and Its Pentecostal Progeny, 1967-2006 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008). 195 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 90.
58 dynamics of the country.”196 Before delving into key points in the history, I believe it would make sense to first paint a brief picture of the context during the period of what has been called the Nigerian neo-Pentecostal origins.
3.3.1 The Context of Modern Nigerian Pentecostal Origins
Nigeria as a nation can arguably be described as the amalgamation of a northern and southern protectorate – with the majority Muslims inhabiting the north and Christian majority in the south. The country’s capital Abuja, strategically located in the middle belt, is demographically a fusion of the Muslim and Christian religions. The country, which gained independence from British colonialism in 1960, broke into a civil war, seven short years after her independence. The war, which in essence started out as a political tussle for power between the north and the south, ended up becoming a war between the entire Nigeria and the southeastern people – the Igbos, who decided to form their own nation – Biafra.
During the decade of the war, a revival hit Igboland. The revival meetings were called
The Hour of Freedom.197 “The Hour of Freedom members itinerated all over the eastern region with a vibrant evangelical fervor. They built a support network of prayer groups, as many young people from school flocked to the outreach programs. Many were members of the SU.”198 As
Burgess and Kalu have suggested, many were drawn to this evangelical revival movement because the emotional (emphasis was on freedom and deliverance), pneumatic and charismatic aspect of the movement appealed more to the indigenous spiritual needs of the people, especially during this desperate war-time period.
196 Mwaura, “The Role,” 18. 197 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 90. 198 Ibid.
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By the time the war ended in 1970 with the Biafran surrender, the nation was at the brink of major social, political and economic changes. There was an economic boom (from the recent discovery of crude oil), and charismatic revival swept through the nation, led majorly by
Scripture Union movements in schools, encompassing youths and denting the hegemony of the missionary founded mainline Churches. "The decolonization and the disorder caused by the civil war contributed to the origins of the [modern Nigerian Pentecostal] movement," Kalu surmises.199
It is noteworthy to mention that there were charismatic movements happening in other parts of Nigeria during this period, but as Pentecostal historians such as Kalu and Burgess have mentioned, the revival that started among the Igbo school youths as a response to their desperate war-ravaged situations played a key role in stirring up charismatic evangelical leaders that would go on to spread their reach. As Ward surmises, the Scripture Union movement among the Igbo school students was a “seed-bed” for the revival, “given poignancy for many of the participants by the experience of suffering during the Biafran civil war and the energies released in the subsequent reconstruction of Igbo society as part of a reunited Nigeria.”200 Burgess asserts that the evangelical revival associated with the Scripture Union and the university campuses at the end of the Nigerian civil war birthed a proliferation of new Pentecostal denominations, “which together represent the dominant expression of Nigerian Christianity. Churches bearing such names as Deeper Life Bible Church, Grace of God Missions, and Mountain of Fire and Miracles
[to name a few], now litter the Nigerian religious landscape, especially in urban cities.”201
199 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 90. 200 Book cover note by Kevin Ward in Burgess’s Nigeria's Christian Revolution: The Civil War Revival and Its Pentecostal Progeny, 1967-2006 (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008). 201 Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution, 2.
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3.3.2 Key Points in the Growth of Modern Nigerian Pentecostalism
As Nigerian Pentecostal historians such as Ogbu Kalu and Nimi Wariboko point out, the complex history of modern Nigerian Pentecostalism can be grasped in a process of periodization: the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s to present.202 Since the history of Nigerian Pentecostalism has been detailed by the likes of Kalu, Ojo, Burgess and Wariboko,203 I will endeavour to broadly summarize pertinent aspects within these periods with a view to illustrate how the
Church’s movements through the eras reflect the experiences of the context, bringing us to what is now the thriving contemporary Pentecostal scene in Nigeria.
The 1970s has been called the neo-Pentecostal Church origins in Nigeria,204 and represent the years when the movement began to separate itself from the African Independent – or Initiated Churches (AIC) and missionary Churches.205 It is characterized as a period of charismatic revival and youthful charismatic involvement.206 As previously pointed out, this was the period when the Nigerian Biafra civil war ended and the charismatic movements that had their roots amongst the suffering and dispossessed Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria during the war, thrived.207 Many of the young people from 17 to 20 years of age, who had boldly evangelized rural villages.in the southeast, took their mission afar.208 “For instance, Mike
Okonkwo [one of the young Biafran SU leaders] formed a Pentecostal Church, the True
202 Nimi. Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 2014), 1; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 87-123. 203 See, Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 2008; Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution, 2008; Ojo, The End-time Army, 2006; Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 2014. 204 Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution, 166. 205 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 1. 206 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 87-90. 207 Burgess, Nigeria's Christian Revolution; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 87. 208 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 91.
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Redeemed Evangelical Mission. He later became the president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of
Nigeria.”209
Vibrant Scripture Union branches spread in secondary schools across the country; “while the university students formed Christian Union branches as formidable interdenominational evangelistic groups.”210 House fellowships, popularly called home cells, also played a key role in the formative years of what would become the modern Nigerian Pentecostalism. Many of what later grew to become established Pentecostal denominations, such as Deeper Life Bible Church
(Now called Deeper Life Christian Ministry), started by meeting weekly in groups of 20 to 25 at homes.211
Thus, modern Pentecostalism in Nigeria built its foundations mainly on interdenominational fellowships at homes and Scripture Unions in universities and secondary schools during this period, drawing in many youths from across the country who felt disconnected from the liturgical expressions of the missionary founded mainline Churches.212
“The emphasis on their preaching was on holiness, sanctification as necessary and urgent preparation for the “end time,” and the second coming of Jesus Christ.”213 According to
Wariboko, this period also coincided with rapid economic growth in Nigeria and production of wealth fueled by a boon in crude oil revenue.214
209 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 91. 210 Ibid. 211 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 29-30. 212 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 1. 213 Ibid. 214 Ibid.
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The second period, the 1980s, represents the institutionalization of the Nigerian
Pentecostal (neo-Pentecostal, charismatic, born-again) ministries as their leaders strove to increase membership.215 I will endeavor to outline three notable aspects of this institutionalization process that reflected changes in popular culture during this period.
First, as media increasingly became a part of the nation’s popular culture, the use of media technology became a prominent way Pentecostal leaders attracted new members, from this period onwards. ”Television penetrated lightly into most of Africa in the decade of 1960-1970, and more deeply only into the 1980s.”216 While missionary founded churches concentrated on oral communication, education and charitable institutions, the Pentecostal evangelicals made use of magazines, tracts, radio and television.217 As Kalu points out, the Pentecostal mission in this period was in contrast with the “direct, puritan, oral and revivalist model” that characterized the
1970s.218
Second, the striving for ecclesial participation growth coincided with national economic breakdown. “During this period, the fabric of the nation’s economy came under severe strain as prices of crude oil collapsed in the market place amid rising corruption by the nation’s military and political leaders.”219 It was at this time that the message of the leaders dominantly shifted from emphasis on sanctification to prosperity, healing and deliverance from satanic powers.220
Kalu points that by the end of the decade however, “criticisms against the excesses of the prosperity preachers emerged and holiness ethics flowed again.” The collapse of economies also increased the use of books written by local pastors over imported ones: “in the decade of 1970-
215 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 91; Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 104. 216 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 106. 217 Ibid. 218 Ibid, 104. 219 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 1. 220 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 2, 98.
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1980, many [pastors] used imported books until these became expensive with the collapse of the economies and poor exchange rates.”221 By the end of the 1980s, indigenous authors became prolific. “It became the mark of a successful pastor to publish books.”222 This further established the national identity of the Pentecostal movement.
Another aspect of this period that historically played a key role in institutionalizing the
Pentecostal movement nationally is that “unlike leaders of the youthful movements of the 1970s, many of the leaders were now highly educated and professional people.”223 Kalu points that Dr.
Daniel Olukoya, the founding leader of Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries, became a born- again Christian when he was a secondary-school student in the 1970s; graduated with first-class honours in microbiology at the University of Lagos and completed doctorate in microbiology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.224 He began a house fellowship in 1989 (as a response to God’s call, he says), which blossomed into a megachurch within a decade.225 Today the Church has three hundred branches worldwide. According to Kalu, “Olukoya represents the trend at the end of the 1980s in many ways, including the emergence of highly educated young ministers who quickly established megachurches.” The emphasis on Church growth, the megachurches aided by media and technology, and the preaching on healing and deliverance
(from poverty and satanic powers) “consolidated into an enviable pattern.”226
221 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 114. 222 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 104. 223 Ibid. 224 Ibid. 225 Ibid. 226 Ibid.
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The third period, from the 1990s to present, shows Pentecostal churches in Nigeria
“emerging as the most important source of religious and cultural creativity in the country.”227 As
Wariboko rightfully surmises, the Pentecostal Churches have become national channels for harnessing spiritual and social resources for their members. “The Pentecostal churches now count members of the upper class, the military, and political and business leaders among their fold.”228
Some scholars have pointed that the entry of educated men into the movement – many of whom “were disappointed by the failure of national development projects owing to corruption and poor leadership” – fed a substantial shift in nationalism from politics to religion.229 Today
Nigerian urban cities teem with sprawling Pentecostal Church campuses. Some of the leading ones are the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG); Living Faith Church worldwide
(Winners’ Chapel); Deeper Life Christian Ministry, House on the Rock; and Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries (MFM). These Churches have multiple branches across the country as well as internationally, in what are now functioning as immigrant-led churches in the Western world. Their leaders have also become national celebrities.
One of such leaders is Enoch Adeboye, a university lecturer in mathematics, who later became the leader of the RCCG, and part of whose message is on state development. As
Wariboko narrates, under Adeboye’s leadership, “the RCCG has developed a camp (Redemption
Camp) near Lagos that operates as a town with modern facilities, schools, and a university.”230
The RCCG provides the basic infrastructure, electricity, water drainage and garbage disposal, to its Camp. “It is as if it is saying to the state: this is the way to carry out the nationalist project of
227 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 2. 228 Ibid. 229 Ibid. 230 Ibid.
65 development.”231 Adeboye’s RCCG represents the significant role that the contemporary
Pentecostal Church in Nigeria plays as a vital agent of spiritual, social and political agency of transformation in the context.
The history of Nigerian Pentecostalism thus outlined, is by no means exhaustive, because it is indeed a complex story of spiritual revival and growth, whose historical theologians like
Kalu and Burgess have examined in admirable detail. One key factor both historians have highlighted is the Church’s role in transforming the religious landscape of the context. I have endeavored to draw out some major points, periods and source areas in the origin and growth of the Church into what it is today, to illustrate how Pentecostalism has historically influenced the
Nigerian culture as a major expression of the country’s spirituality, while addressing indigenous concerns. I will turn now to examine some practical attributes and theological themes of
Nigerian Pentecostalism, with the aim of further highlighting the gospel-culture encounter of the
Church in its context.
3.4 Nigerian Pentecostalism in Relation to Gospel-Culture Engagement
Snapshots of the Cultural Climate of Nigeria:
Public programs begin with prayer. Public and private schools have Christian Religious Studies as a core subject. Every institution, including shops, closes on Sundays. It is normal for even a white-collar employee to say “God bless you” to a boss or colleague. The numerous Churches are fully active, bursting to capacity on Sundays and at least one week day evening.
231 Wariboko, Nigerian Pentecostalism, 2.
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The Church is a significant part of the culture of Nigeria and Pentecostalism has played a major role in associating Christianity and spirituality with the national identity of the country. As
I have proposed throughout this paper, key to the vitality and success of Nigerian Pentecostalism is its gospel-culture encounter. As Kalu surmises, “African Pentecostalism is the ‘setting work’ of the pneumatic seed of the gospel in Africa, at once showing how Africans appropriated the gospel message, how they responded to the presence of the kingdom in their midst, and how its power transformed their worldview.”232
Nigerian Pentecostalism, a major expression of African Pentecostalism corresponds to the countercultural model of contextualization as described by Bevans, which recognizes the primacy of the revelation nature of the gospel and insists that for the gospel to take root in a particular context, “its liberating and healing power must challenge and purify that context.”233
And as Burgess has rightfully pointed out, “Nigerian Pentecostalism is not only conditioned by culture, it also challenges elements of culture deemed incompatible with the Bible.”234 This section will examine some of the practical aspects and theological themes of Nigerian
Pentecostalism with an aim of illustrating how the Church engages the culture.
3.4.1 The Primacy of the Bible
Nigerian Pentecostalism, like virtually most expressions of African Christianity, takes the
Bible seriously as divine revelation – this is a defining aspect of the Pentecostal Church in
Africa. Asamoah-Gyadu, like a host of other African Pentecostal historians like Justin Ukpong,
232 Ogbu Kalu, “Pentecostalism and African Cultural Heritage,” in The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts. Edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2009). 136. 233 Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 117 – 118. 234 Richard Burgess, “Practical Christianity and Public Faith: Nigerian Pentecostal Contributions to Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 150.
67 espouses that the emergence of the Pentecostal Christianity in Africa, including its ascendency over the missionary founded Churches, had a lot to do with interpretations and understandings of the Bible among local Christians.235 “The more the Bible was read as devotional material, the more indigenous Christians felt that historic mission Christianity was not biblical enough.”236 A popular explanation offered by young people who left the missionary founded Churches in the
1970s for the newly emerging charismatic movement was that “there was emphasis on the
Word” in the charismatic communities.237
As Asamoah-Gyadu argues, the reservations that indigenous Christians had about the biblical interpretation of the missionary founded Churches were particularly centered around two areas: “the lack of emphasis on the experiences of the Holy Spirit in the application of the biblical promises and the practical appropriation of biblical truths.”238 To fill in this gap, local
Christians belonging to the emerging Charismatic and pneumatic movements allowed the Bible to inform their religious practices.”239 According to Asamoah-Gyadu, this was equally true of the older AIC’s as well as the modern Pentecostal movements that sprung up in the last three decades of the twentieth century. Thus, in the early years of their existence, contemporary
Nigerian Pentecostals (and Africans Pentecostalism in general) prevalently referred to their communities as “Bible-believing,” or “Full-Gospel Churches,” to “emphasize the centrality of the Bible in the definition of their faith.”240
235 Kwabena J. Asamoah-Gyadu,.Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context. Forwards by Allan Anderson and Nimi Wariboko (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013), 161. See also Justin Ukpong, “Inculturation Hermeneutics: An African Approach to Biblical Interpretation,” in The Bible in a World Context: An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics, eds. Walter Dietrich & Ulrich Luz, 17-32 (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 17. 236 Asamoah-Gyadu,.Contemporary Pentecostal, 161. 237 Ibid, 162. 238 Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal, 161. 239 Ibid. 240 Ibid.
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Part of the appeal of the Bible to the Nigerian Pentecostal Church (and African expression of Christianity) is that it resonates with the African indigenous worldview. Touching upon life experiences like land conflicts, sacrifices, polygamy, hospitality, natural calamities, oppression, injustice, wife inheritance, good versus evil, as well as fear and dangers from satanic influences, Christians in Africa readily accept the Bible as a divine revelation that can be used to address human concerns. Philip Jenkins succinctly explains the way African Pentecostals allow the Bible to speak to their existential situations:
For one thing, the Bible has found a congenial home among communities who identify with the social and economic realities it portrays, no less than the political environment in which Christians find themselves. For the growing Church of the global South, the Bible speaks to everyday real world issues of poverty and debt, famine and urban crises, racial and gender oppression, state brutality and persecution. The omnipresence of poverty promotes awareness of the transience of life, the dependence of individuals and nations on God, and the distrust of the secular order.241
Nigerian Pentecostal discourse uses the biblical teachings to address social ills in their context. Pentecostals have historically used the gospel to confront aspects of the cultural makeup that are contrary to the biblical worldview including witchcraft, idolatry, sacrifices. “The Bible, for instance, prescribes both obedience and active maintenance of covenant with God; it therefore contains a diatribe against the competing covenant with other gods.”242This viewpoint resonates with the indigenous Nigerian worldview whereby it was historically believed that for example a land deity would withhold rain if the deity is displeased in some way and not appeased. With Christianity, the various deities are replaced with the one sovereign God.
241 Jenkins, Philip. The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5. 242 Ogbu Kalu, “Pentecostalism and African Cultural Heritage,” in The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts. Edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2009). 145.
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The Nigerian Pentecostal discourse typically points out that personal or corporate rejection of Christ manifests itself in the form of social ills and national failures.243 One prescription for national success prescribed by Pentecostals lies in being biblically faithful while celebrating cultural heritage. In his book What is Wrong with Being Black? Celebrating Our
Cultural Heritage, Confronting Our Challenges (2007), Matthew Ashimolow, prominent
Nigerian Pentecostal pastor, adopts such a discourse.244 While he emphasizes the role of Africans and African societies in the history of Christianity and condemns European imperialism, he also insists that “many of Africa’s social ills are cultural in origin and includes persistence in idolatry, witchcraft, superstition, distorted family values, tribalism, poor governance and an inferiority complex.”245 Ashimolow’s solution to confronting the African dilemma and alleviating poverty is by “the transformation of African minds and hearts through studying the Bible and recognizing the rich contributions that Africans have made to civilization.”246 Burgess rightfully points out that pastor Ashimolow’s approach is similar to that of many Nigerian Pentecostal pastors. Enoch
Adeboye, the general overseer of the RCCG and Ghanaian Pentecostal pastor Mensa Otabil are examples of pastors who adopt a similar approach in their discourse by highlighting specific ways in which the Bible can be used as Scripture in confronting social ills and building national identity. By exploring swaths of resonance between the Bible and the indigenous worldview, and using the Bible as a means of confronting evils and failures, the Nigerian Pentecostal Church has been able to reinvent a theology that reclaims God’s rule over the whole earth.247 I will examine
243 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 155. 244 Cited in Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 155-156. 245 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 156. 246 Ibid. 247 Ogbu Kalu, “Pentecostalism and African Cultural Heritage,” in The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts. Edited by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2009). 144.
70 other examples of the practical theologies and themes that shape Nigerian Pentecostal discourse to further illustrate how the Gospel is used to address indigenous concerns.
3.4.2 The Work of the Holy Spirit
Nigerian Pentecostalism takes the spiritual worldview very seriously. Several intercultural theologians such as Ogbu Kalu, Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu and Allan Anderson have pointed out that the pneumatic orientation of the Church in Nigeria (and African in general) accounts to a significant measure of the growth and vitality of the faith in the context. According to Asamoah-Gyadu, “the growth of the Church in Africa, as elsewhere in the non-Western world, draws attention to the theological truth that the presence of Jesus Christ in the life of the Church continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.”248 Both the indigenous African tradition and
Nigerian Pentecostalism acknowledge “that things which are seen were not made by things which are visible,” (Hebrews 11:3). Rather there is an invisible realm from which the sovereign
God controls the universe and empowers His Church. From this affirmation comes the understanding that there is also evil present in the invisible, along with God’s goodness. In other words, most of what takes place in the visible are manifestations of things that are unseen. As such, it is through the empowerment of God’s Holy Spirit that the “spiritual battles” can be won.
As Kalu points out, “contrary to the early missionary attitude that urged rejection,
Pentecostals take the African map of the universe seriously, acknowledging that culture is both a redemptive gift and capable of being hijacked.”249 Salvation is affirmed to be a conflict scenario whereby Satan and his agents are defeated through the power of Christ. “From this power and authority structure, there are human beings who are given false powers by evil forces to exercise
248 Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal, 4. 249 Kalu, “Pentecostalism,” 144.
71 control over individuals, families and communities.”250 Even Satan promised Jesus some of these powers if he complied and it follows that Pentecostals for example, perceive dictatorial and corrupt rulers to be “possessed” agents of higher spiritual forces.251 The belief is that these spirits exercise power over individuals through witchcraft and sorcery “that constitute soul-to-soul attack.”252
Thus, spiritual warfare is a significant part of Nigerian Pentecostalism. Exorcism, or deliverance as it is commonly called, is a general part of the Sunday liturgy. Dr. Daniel
Olukoya’s Mountain of Fire Miracle Ministries (MFM), is a typical example of the pneumatic orientation of Nigerian Pentecostalism. His brochure affirms that “the ministry is a full gospel ministry devoted to the revival of apostolic signs, Holy Ghost fireworks and the unlimited demonstration of the power of God to deliver to the uttermost. Absolute holiness, within and without, serves as the greatest spiritual insecticide and a pre-requisite for heaven.”253 In addition to the spiritual warfare and the emphasis on holiness, other spiritual practices used by the
Nigerian Pentecostal church to express the activity of the Holy Spirit are through visions and dreams, charismatic evangelism and deliverance.
3.4.3 Prayer, Healing, and Deliverance
Healing and deliverance by prayer is a very significant aspect of Pentecostalism in
Africa. This aspect is related to the pneumatic orientation of the Church, as previously described.
As Anderson espouses, “healing and deliverance from evil are essential parts of the life of
250 Kalu, “Pentecostalism,” 145. 251 Ibid. 252 Ibid. 253 Cited in Kalu, “Pentecostalism,” 104.
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African Pentecostals because these problems affect the whole church community.”254 Two significant ways in which the healing and deliverance aspect of Nigerian Pentecostalism are expressed are through 1) the born-again experience; 2) deliverance from set-backs including illness, poverty and demonic oppression. I will endeavour to examine what each entails in general.
The born-again experience focuses on a radical break from the past (especially the pagan past and demonic oppressions), to begin a newness of life in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. It is the evangelistic expression of Nigerian Pentecostalism and attracts young people who are
“disenchanted with the ways of their parents.”255 The Pentecostal Churches generally have an organized system of evangelism, healing, deliverance and follow-ups that reach the unchurched and ensure ecclesial growth,256 especially among the younger generation, which has previously felt disconnected and spiritually unsatisfied from the older missionary founded denominations where they typically began their Church experience from infancy. As Essien Offiong explains, the historic Churches believe in the existence of demons and other forces of evil “but do not have the solutions to the nefarious activities of demons, evil spirits, witchcraft, sorcery and ‘mami- water’ [marine spirit].”257 The existence of these so called evil forces “loom largely in the belief system of Nigeria but the historic Churches have generally been impotent to deal effectively with their dangerous power and influence.”258
254 Allan Anderson, “Intercultural Theology, Walter J. Hollenwegner and African Pentecostalism,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 143. 255 Allan Anderson, “Forward,” in Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context, fwd. Allan Anderson and Nimi Wariboko (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013), xv. 256 Anderson, “Forward,” xv. 257 Essien A. Offiong, “Youths and Pentecostalism,” in Creativity and Change in Nigerian Christianity, eds. Ogungbile, David O., and Akintunde E. Akinade (Lagos: Malthouse Press, 2010), 135. 258 Ibid.
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The message of the Pentecostal Church usually starts with personal salvation, which means being born-again.259 The desire for this born-again experience has drawn many people seeking spiritual growth, deliverance and self-discovery. For most Africans, salvation is more than just a spiritual experience that touches the inner being of a person; it is also affirmed to include the bodily human existence.260 Cephas M. Omenyo does an insightful job of describing the appeal of the Pentecostal salvation (or born-again experience) to Africans: “Salvation is achieved by reinforcing life-affirming aspects of experience in the here and now. Salvation must ensure the preservation, protection and enhancement of life, including the physical, psychological, spiritual, and social, which are intrinsically linked together as a whole.”261 Thus, salvation encompasses healing and good health, the ability to ward off evil, protection against evil spirits and witches, financial and material prosperity, peace of mind, as well as peace with
God, fellow human beings, the whole of creation and ancestors.262 For the Nigerian context, salvation also involves deliverance from any ungodly ancestral covenant and curses that are perceived to be hindrances to one’s salvation and newness of life in Christ.
As Anderson affirms, many Africans see healing, deliverance and financial success as blessing from God and the reward of sanctification, faith and perseverance in difficult financial situations.263 Many households in Nigeria, associated with Pentecostalism can boast about seeing the wonderful work of God through healing or deliverance. This viewpoint aligns with the previously mentioned African indigenous orientation which holds that what is seen is usually the manifestation of the unseen realm. Thus, healing, deliverance and financial prosperity equals
259 Offiong, “Youths and Pentecostalism,” 135. 260 Cephas N. Omenyo, “New Wine in an Old Wine Bottle? Charismatic Healing in the Mainline Churches in Ghana,” in Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, ed. Candy Gunther Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 235. 261 Omenyo, “New Wine,” 235. 262 Ibid. 263 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”143.
74 spiritual victory and blessing from the hands of God. “However, the ‘prosperity’ is also seen as the means of advancing the work of God and for the ability to give generously to the needy.”264
Hence, members are encouraged to “sow seeds” of faith to the needy as well as to the Church, as they are able. It is worth noting that the prosperity espoused in the African context is not necessarily about becoming inexplicably prosperous overnight or getting rich through some magical means. Rather it is typically a message of hope - of perseverance and deliverance from the strongholds of abject poverty. Tragically, however, as many have pointed out, it is also through the area of financial giving that “Pentecostal members are most open to manipulation by unscrupulous leaders.265
3.4.4 Welcoming and Participatory Community
A major appeal of the Pentecostal Church in Nigeria is the sense of community and celebration that is typically an innate part of the Churches. A popular Nigerian maxim is that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Many social organizations and communities operate according to this maxim, including the Church. For the Pentecostal Church, this is taken even further with the recognition that the Church is not just a family but a family of God’s people, called to be set aside to live according to the Word of God. As Anderson narrates, Pentecostals in Africa see themselves as people of God, called out from the world around them with a distinct mission:
“they have a sense of identity whose primary purpose is to promote their cause to those outside.”266 And the experience of the power of the Holy Spirit is a key unifying factor.267All
Church members are accepted as family and refer to each other as brother this (name) or sister that and the leaders are usually revered like parents.
264 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”143. 265 Ibid. 266 Ibid, 141-142. 267 Ibid, 143.
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About 80 per cent of members of the Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria are between the ages of 18 and 45.268 About 15 percent are children and about 3 percent are older adults between the ages of 45 and 60.269 As Offiong explains, the prevalence of the younger generation, (actually the fastest growing demographic in the country) in the Nigerian Pentecostal Churches, stems from young people seeking a sense of identity and community when they leave home for school or work:
Many find themselves in growing urban cities which are not economically and socially prepared to absorb them. Many of the young men and women who visit the urban cities as traders, artists, unskilled labour, secondary school and university graduate job seekers are frustrated by the economic trends in the city. Some of them find the historic churches to be too formal and conservative, while they find the [older] African Independent Churches to be too legalistic and ritualistic. Many of them withdraw from these churches and turn to Pentecostalism, which provides an informal and relaxed environment attuned to their isolated and bewildering situation.270
Anderson rightly points that one of the appeals of the Pentecostal Church in Africa is its acceptance and empowerment of “all people who embrace its way of life, without regards to gender, social status, or education.”271 Everyone is made to feel at home and be a fully contributing member. “The Church serves as one place where maximum participation is encouraged, but this is extended into the involvement of people in Church activities throughout the week.”272 New members are celebrated at the end of each service and made to feel welcome, with their contact information collected and a brother or sister is assigned to follow up with them. A good example of the welcome and celebration that members are received with is well illustrated by the Community of Zion Assembly (COZA), one of the contemporary Pentecostal
268 Offiong, “Youths and Pentecostalism,” 139. 269 Ibid. 270 Ibid. 271 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”141. 272 Ibid, 143.
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Churches in Nigeria, with branches in Abuja, Lagos and Ilorin, three main urban centres. Every service day – either weekday or Sunday – as members walk into the entrance, there are elegantly dressed young men and women greeters to receive them (dressed in uniform attire). These greeters stand in two neat lines of about eight people each, on either side of the Church building entrance, facing each other. As congregants walk in, between the two lines of greeters, the greeters enthusiastically receive each and every person with the phrase, “we celebrate you.” This greeting has become so much a part of the Church community that whenever a COZA member sees a fellow Church member anywhere in town or abroad, they recognize each other with the greeting “I celebrate you.” COZA’s celebration of their members is an illustrative example of the culture of welcome, celebration and brethren-hood that is typical of the Nigerian Pentecostal
Church.
3.4.5 Worship and Witness
Another key aspect of every Nigerian Pentecostal community is the charismatic liturgical style and emphasis on joyful praise and worship, all of which resonates with the African affinity for celebration. “Africans are well known for their rhythmic music and dance that is usually accompanied by strong and vibrant percussion,” Anderson notes. 273 The praise and worship is informal and comprises of upbeat songs, modern instruments, drums and enthusiastic singing and dancing.
Africans, especially the young people find this mode appealing because it is in accordance with the indigenous penchant for celebratory music and dance. And praise and worship in the Nigerian Pentecostal Churches is generally a time of celebration. “Usually
273 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”143.
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African Pentecostal dance is not choreographed… and it expresses the desire of participants to celebrate their freedom in Christ.”274 Thus the African Pentecostal Christian expression denotes that worship is a joyful experience to be entered into with the whole of one’s being. Anderson rightfully points out that “this free exuberant Christianity is not merely because it is a cultural trait of Africans to be enthusiastic, rhythmic and noisy – a European football match will demonstrate that Europeans can have the same enthusiasm.” Rather the emphasis on the role of the Spirit in the worship, work and witness of the Church, plays a major role in the enthusiasm.275 The praise and worship is not just about praising and thanking God, it is also about being spiritually victorious, through the power of God. The biblical story of Paul and Silas breaking their prison chains just by praising God while in prison, is one that very much resonates with African Pentecostals. There is actually a popular Nigerian worship chorus which goes:
“Paul and Silas, they praised, they sang and the Holy Ghost came down.”
This enthusiasm for worship is greatly illustrated by the Halleluiah Challenge, a recent nation-wide praise and worship movement that was started in 2017 (and continues to be led) by
Nathaniel Bassey, the young director of music at a local Redeemed Christian Church of God
(RCCG) Lagos branch. In July 2017 Bassey decided to hold a month-long live intercessory praise and worship session on Facebook and Instagram for an hour every midnight. He announced his intention about a month in advance, proclaiming that he was led by God to do so in order that the mighty arm of God be seen throughout the nation. By the time the worship session commenced, he had gained hundreds of thousands of social media followers from across the country, who tuned in live every midnight from the comfort of their homes to join in the praise and worship session. The worship involved mostly praising God for an hour, with some
274 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”143. 275 Ibid, 141.
78 preaching and thematic Scripture verses shared at intervals. The theme of the worship was “Arm of God.” By the end of the month, Bassey had gained over a million followers, shared hundreds of testimonies that arose from the month of praise – including stories of fertilities after long periods of infertility, job promotions, job gains, financial break-through, healings, to name a few. A lot of the testimonies were shared in the form of comments by his social media followers.
The movement made national headlines and have become a recognized Christian movement in
Nigeria, with Bassey holding such hour-long midnight intercessory worship sessions at intervals through the year, with themes like Way Maker, Strong Tower and Praying for Nigeria. The success of the Halleluiah Challenge illustrates the significant role of praise and worship as a
Christian expression in Nigeria.
The preaching aspect of the Pentecostal liturgy is also important and is comparatively much more charismatic than that of the more historic missionary founded Churches. The formal and traditional liturgical expression of the more conservative Churches does not attract Africans in the same way as the charismatic: “theology as it is prayed, sung, danced and narrated in the
Pentecostal congregation is more preferable in African societies.”276 Unlike the missionary founded Churches, “the Pentecostal Church is not dependent on foreign specialists, trained clergy and the transmission of Western Christian liturgy.”277 Rather the Church is very much indigenous in its expression and orientation. The most successful preachers are those who can tell resonating stories with illustrative narratives and humour.278 The preaching typically links everyday experience with biblical texts and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit. “The
Spirit’s presence is seen as a normal part of everyday life, seen by Pentecostal believers as divine
276 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,”141. 277 Ibid, 143. 278 Ibid.
79 revelations that assure them that ‘God is there’ to help in every area of human need.”279A significant part of the liturgy is usually dedicated to the testimony of members. The testimonies involve persons coming forward and testifying about divine interventions in their lives. The divine intervention can range from simple provisions and blessings to miraculous healing, fertility and deliverance from satanic oppression of some sort. This theology of testimonial witness is also encouraged to be shared outside of the Churches so members can be witnesses to others about the greatness of God.
3.4.6 Civic Engagement
It would indeed make sense to end this section by pointing out the influential role the
Pentecostal Churches play in Nigeria as social and political agents of transformation. As discussed in a previous section of this chapter, the Biafran civil war played a key role in the origin of the contemporary Pentecostal scene in Nigeria. The role of the Church at the time was not so much one of state intervention or critic but of revival and encouragement to a people during a period of despair and suffering. As historians such as Kalu and Burgess narrate, the
Hour of Freedom in Igboland, a session organized by Scripture Union members during the war years, preached about the hope and deliverance that can be gained through Christ both now
(through radical holiness) and in the Second Coming. The message of radical holiness and eschatological salvation became the formative message of the Pentecostal movement during its earlier years.
More recently there has been more of a shift towards the theology of political and social engagement. As Burgess explains, “the rapid growth of the movement, the emergence of a
279 Anderson, “Intercultural Theology,” 141.
80 middle-class constituency, and the onset of democratization and liberation in the late 1990s have opened up space for civil society structures and allowed Pentecostals to become significant players in the political arena.”280 The socio-political engagement by the Pentecostal Churches has predominantly been expressed in the form of intercessory prayers, media commentary and civil society organizations.
Spiritual warfare prayer is a key means by which the Nigerian Pentecostal Church engages the socio-political arena.281 There is an innate belief that the battle between good and evil in the human world is the battle between God and Satan and it is thus important that
Christians intervene through prayers, especially during political upheavals. “In Nigerian
Pentecostal discourse, politics is presented in terms of a spiritual causality: as a religious contest between good and evil, reflecting the dominance of supernatural ideas in African political culture.”282 In 1994, Nigerian Pentecostal pastor Emeka Nwapka declared that holiness and reconciliation are necessary conditions for effective intercession.283 In the same vein as many other Nigerian Pentecostal pastors to date, he proclaimed that ordinary Christians could change the destinies of nations through prophetic prayer. “When you pray prophetically, you are in the place of governmental authority… Prophetic praying is very powerful. It can change laws, it can cancel what politicians have said,” Nwankpa’s writes.284 Nwamkpa’s rhetoric is similar to that employed by many other Nigerian Pentecostal leaders, who prevalently cite the infamous predictive prophecy of 1998 that was said to have wrought a huge political turnaround for the nation on the brink of another civil war: What happened then was that a prophecy was proclaimed during a prayer meeting, in 1998, predicting the removal of two prominent political
280 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 161. 281 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 2008, 199. 282 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 163. 283 Cited in Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 163. 284 Ibid.
81 leaders. And in the space of two months, the two men at the centre of the upheaval (which many feared was headed towards war) died – the incumbent president General Sani Abacha died suddenly in his sleep three weeks after the prayer meeting; and a month later, Chief Abiola, winner of the last annulled presidential election died in prison (he had been imprisoned by
General Abacha’s government) – making way for the country to have a fresh start at a democratic election. To date, Nigerian Pentecostals cite that sad event as an example, in proclaiming that societies can be changed for the better through the spiritual intervention of a praying community.
Another major way in which the Pentecostal Church engages the public is through education. As I suggested earlier (while outlining key points in the history of Nigerian
Pentecostalism), with the increasing collapse of civic morality in the country, nationalism in
Nigeria has substantially shifted from state and politics to religion and religious leaders. Kalu rightfully enumerates that “the collapse of morality in state institutions has coincided with the
Christian responsibility to regain a voice in a fundamental area of national life” – education.285
Education is a cornerstone in Nigeria and majority of the county’s younger population are university graduates. Private elementary and secondary education, mostly Christian in outlook, came on the rise since the seventies. And in the last two decades, private post-secondary institutions, majority founded by prominent Pentecostal Churches, are now leading universities in Nigeria, proffering degrees in a wide range of professions including medical, engineering, accounting, economics, business, sciences, technology, education, theology, media, etc.
One of such faith-based universities is the acclaimed Covenant University, located in
Ogun State Nigeria, near Lagos, and founded by Winners Chapel, a leading Pentecostal
285 Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 128.
82 denomination in Nigeria. According to Bishop David Oyedipo, the founding leader of Winners, the vision of Covenant University is centered on the concept of Total Man: “This concept centres on developing the man who will develop his world. It is designed to produce students who are intelligently conscious of their environment and who know how to maximize their potentials in life. The programs of the University are first directed at the person before addressing his profession.”286 Founded on a Christian mission ethos, part of the university’s driving vision is to raise “a new generation of leaders for the African Continent… who will go out to develop their world.”287 As Kalu narrates, the university graduated its first set of students in July 28, 2006 -
800 of them - tagging the event as the “release of eagles,” who are “sent into the labour market and into the national institutions to provide solutions to its many problems, from Christian moral values.”288
Today, Covenant University along with various other faith-based universities in the country such as Benson Idahosa University and Madonna University, are among the most sought after post-secondary institutions in the country and have become a key avenue by which the
Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria engage the society.
286 Cited in Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 129. 287 “Our Vision,” Covenant University, accessed March 38, 2019, https://covenantuniversity.edu.ng/About- Us/About-CU#.XKTx-tQrL4a. 288 Cited in Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 129.
CONCLUSION
This paper has been an application of intercultural theology. The aim is to determine what insights the Church in the West (or global North) can glean from the Church in the global
South where the Christian mission currently thrives. Nigerian Pentecostalism, one of the fast growing Church contexts, is thus presented as an appropriate case study on proper engagement between gospel and culture. The paper attempts to illustrate that insights from the faith practices of Nigerian Pentecostalism can lead to further understanding of the relationship between gospel and culture.
Before highlighting the contributions that can be drawn from the Nigerian Pentecostal theology and practices that have been examined in the case study, I will first review the conclusions of each Chapter of the paper.
Summary of Chapter One:
Chapter One of this paper analyzes some major attributes of our North American society arising out of changing social values regarding faith and religion, which exercise an influence in the thought and practice of the Church’s theology and mission. The final summation is that the
Western Church has lost a lot of its influence due to improper gospel-culture engagement - generally expressed in two ways: 1) withdrawal to the Church building and 2) secularized doctrine; both constituting a decline in the Church’s vitality and cultural influence.
With the intellectual path followed by the Western world, we have lost our biblically mandated childlike acceptance and application of divine revelation of Scripture (Matthew 18: 1-
5). And instead, the Church has tried to fit God into its narrative rather than the other way round.
Aspects of the gospel, such as the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles, repentance and salvation
83
84 through Christ, to name a few, that do not fit into the dominant Western cultural ideologies are becoming increasingly diminished. Thus the Western Church is losing vitality and the ability to impact culture. Instead of striving to be a distinctive community of God’s people, called to make transformative impact, it strives to look like an extension of culture. This situation is certainly not the case for all Churches and Christians residing in North America, but it’s a broad description of the general condition of the dominant Church culture in the West, as recognized by missiologists such as Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, Stanley Grenz and Bradley Truman
Noel.
The Chapter suggests that the countercultural model of contextualization, as described by
Bevans, presents a clue to understanding the gap in the Western Church’s gospel-culture relation.
And what can be gleaned from the counterculture model of contextualization? This model of contextualization focuses on the primacy of the revelation nature of gospel, which holds that the intention of the Church should be true to the Bible and to challenge aspects of the culture that contradict Scripture, while also being shaped by local concerns. The Chapter concludes by calling for insights on fresh ways of being Church and engaging in mission in the Western context and presenting intercultural theology (with Nigeria Pentecostalism as a case study) as a potential way forward.
Summary of Chapter Two:
This Chapter begins with suggesting a biblical rationale for intercultural theology by pointing out that the universal applicability of the gospel combined with God’s repeated propensity for working through particular individuals or contexts in human history (to offer universal revelation of Himself and blessings) positions intercultural theology as a likely tool for
85 such a time as this. As the Church of the global North faces missional challenges and ecclesial decline in juxtaposition with the growth and vitality of the Church in the global South, intercultural theology presents the Western Church with opportunity to glean insights from other contexts for revival.
The Chapter further suggests that the countercultural model of contextualization, which calls for cultural engagement through faithfulness to the Word of God for the transformation of the culture, supports the biblical mandate of God’s call to the Church, drawing on significant scenarios in the Bible to support this claim. Some of the biblical examples include God’s mandate to humankind at the beginning in Genesis to multiply and fill the earth, while observing the boundary He has set; the injunction to the Babylonian exiles to seek for the peace and prosperity of their city of captivity, in Jeremiah; the sermon of Christ that His people are called to be salt and light in a fallen world of decay and darkness, in Matthew; and the exhortation of
Paul to the early Church in Corinthians that they be in the world but not of the world by observing boundaries and setting a Scriptural faithful standard. The Chapter ends with the concluding proposal that Nigerian Pentecostalism strives to express the countercultural model of contextualization in its ecclesial mission.
Summary of Chapter Three
The third Chapter presents Nigerian Pentecostalism, a good representation of African
Church mission, as a case study for intercultural Theology. It also suggests that Nigerian
Pentecostalism is illustrative of the countercultural model of contextualization because it engages the culture with the gospel and in the language of the culture while striving to remain faithful to
86 the gospel – in other words, the Church strives to influence the culture and challenges aspects of the culture that are incompatible with Scripture, while remaining relevant to the culture.
In outlining key points in the formative history of the contemporary Pentecostal scene in
Nigeria and describing key attributes and theological aspects of Nigerian Pentecostalism, I attempted to illustrate the indigenous relevancy, cultural transformation mandate, spiritual vitality and striving for biblical faithfulness that characterize the Nigerian main ecclesial expression in its gospel-culture encounter.
However, it is noteworthy to mention (as I have done elsewhere in this paper) that in presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study, this paper does not suggest that Nigerian
Pentecostalism is a perfect and infallible representation of Christian mission. Nigerian
Pentecostalism has had its share of undesirable history and practice perpetuated by unscrupulous claimants to the faith. Some of the criticisms that have been made about the Nigerian Church are over-emphasis on prosperity gospel and superstition. But as I have also noted earlier in the paper, the wheat and the tares must grow together. Thus far, the Nigerian Pentecostal Church has been able to remain vital despite the existence of ‘tares.’
Thus, going back to the original research question, what might be some of the implications for the contemporary Western Church in its gospel-culture encounter?
Implications for the Western Church Today
In presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study, this thesis does not prescribe that the particular practices of the Nigerian Church be adopted or transplanted into the Western context. The thesis is an exercise in intercultural theology to show the possible insights a global
South Church might bring to the table of intercultural dialogue. As Burgess describes, “one of
87 the values of intercultural theology is the space it allows for mutual enrichment and critical interrogation.”289
In the first chapter, I described contemporary cultural movements in Western culture, which scholars like Newbigin, Grenz, Bosch, and Noel have identified and some of which are embodied in the life of the Western Church – including modernism, postmodernism, scientism, secularism, individualism and pluralism. 290 Subsequently presenting Nigerian Pentecostalism as a case study, I identified major characteristics of the ecclesial expression of a Church in the global South, the characteristics of which have helped the Nigerian Pentecostal Church to thrive.
I now suggest that these aspects of Nigerian Pentecostalism actually provide counterpoints to the six cultural attributes that are of challenge to the Western Church:
First, the Nigerian Pentecostal emphasis on the primacy of Word of God is one that could challenge the theological pluralism and secularized worldview that is increasingly becoming a dominant attribute of the Western Church. As described in the paper, the ideological path followed by the Western world has resulted in a culture that prevailingly rejects the divine revelation of Scripture and accepts relativized and rationalized hermeneutics, increasingly leading to a lopsided application of the Word of God in many mainline Churches. Perhaps the
Nigerian Pentecostal affirmation of the sacredness of Scripture and its ability to speak to every area of human existence is one that can encourage the Western Church to trace its roots back to the early days of Christianity when the Word of God was not rationalized (or dimmed-down) but taken as sacred and used as a standpoint from which the people of God (who are called to be
289 Richard Burgess, “Practical Christianity and Public Faith: Nigerian Pentecostal Contributions to Intercultural Theology,” in Intercultural Theology: Approaches and Themes, ed. Mark J. Cartledge and David Cheetham (London, UK: SCM Press, 2011), 166. 290 See Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, 1986, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 1989; Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, 1996; Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, 2011; and Noel, Pentecostalism, Secularism, and Post Christendom, 2015.
88 holy, set aside and agents of transformation) engage the culture and challenge aspects of the culture that are contrary to the Word of God, even when the Church is in the margins or when the culture is not welcoming to the Word.
Second, the pneumatic orientation of the Nigerian Pentecostal Church and acceptance of the supernatural is one which could really inform the dominant secular model and the rationalized, watered-down doctrines that the Western Church has increasingly adopted. As I suggested in the paper, the growth of the Pentecostal Church in Nigeria and Africa in general,
“draws attention to the theological truth that the presence of Jesus Christ in the life of the Church continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.”291 The Nigerian Pentecostal acceptance that there is more to life than that which can be seen and/or rationalized, allows for the Church to be empowered and energized by the Holy Spirit, just as the early Christians. Insights on how
Nigerian Pentecostalism boldly proclaims the spiritual authority of God over all aspects of human existence could serve as a motivation for the Western Church to be countercultural to the wisdom of a world in rebellion against the Creator of the universe. In a cultural context that leans towards rationalism (increasingly denies the involvement of the divine in material event), the
Western Church could glean from African Pentecostalism to be more affirming of the supernatural, especially as there is now a growing sense of renewed interest in spirituality in the
Western context that is currently not rooted in what has been given by God.
As I described in the first chapter, there is now a sense of spiritual reawakening in the
Western world that the Church has not really taken substantial advantage of. This renewed interest in spirituality is generally not related to Christianity and the Church. By reclaiming its supernatural heritage, the Western Church would be better positioned to feed the reawakened
291 Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal, 4.
89 spiritual hunger and also engage in spiritual warfare against spiritual, social, economic and political forces of evil, as the community of God’s people. For, as Paul writes to the early
Church, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12).
Third, related to the pneumatic orientation, Nigerian Pentecostals with their “practical orientation, their sensitivity to local culture and context and their openness to the power of the
Spirit,” present a challenge to the rationalistic theologies of the Western Church.292 Though they remain open to unscrupulous abuse, the Nigerian Church’s affirmation of the power of the Holy
Spirit in healing, deliverance, and success oriented theologies provide a means (as the Church is called to do) for individuals to leave behind the influence of their past and build new identities in
Christ, Burgess asserts.293 “Nigerian Pentecostals believe that Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection liberates humanity from sin and all its material and social consequences, whether sickness, social alienation, poverty or political oppression.”294 In this sense, the Church stands out as a community of God that offers “hope to those struggling with sin, sickness and adverse economic circumstances.”295
Fourth, the readiness of the contemporary Nigerian Pentecostal Church to engage with the socio-political realities of its culture is a challenge to the “dominant secular model of late modernity, which separates Church and state and opposes the involvement of religion in the public sphere.”296 In other words, rather than total withdrawal from the public sphere (as has been the reaction of many Western Church denominations to the forces of secularization), the
292 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 167. 293 Ibid. 294 Ibid. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid.
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Church can find avenues for civic engagement. As Burgess correctly describes, the “emphasis of
Nigerian Pentecostals on the role of prayer as a legitimate means of political engagement is an important corrective to the tendency of Liberation theologians and advocates of Western liberal theology to deny the ontological reality of the powers behind material events.” 297 Also, functioning as “alternate forms of socio-political and economic solidarity for those on the margins of society," while also addressing “social problems in the wider community left untouched by government institutions,”298 the Nigerian Pentecostal Churches illustrate that the community of God’s people can be agents of cultural transformation rather than completely withdrawing into the walls of the Church.
Fifth, similar to the previous point, the Nigerian Pentecostal emphasis on community and togetherness can serve as an inspiration for building a community of love that can speak to postmodernity’s search for “a community beyond the empty construct of Western individualism.”299 The Nigerian Church’s celebration of community is a counterpoint to the
Western autonomous individual, whereby the individual feels too rational and sovereign to be dependent on a religious institution or community. The Nigerian Church’s celebration of familial togetherness is one that strives to resemble that of the early Church, as recorded in the book of
Acts where the community of believers had things in common (Acts 4: 32).
On a commendable note however, the Western Church does an admirable job when it comes to social action. Nigerian Pentecostals believe in the biblical injunctions to help the poor and would go as far as “sowing seeds” and “paying tithes.” These givings are mostly carried out as individual acts of kindness rather than as actual Church program. Interestingly enough, the
297 Burgess, “Practical Christianity,” 167. 298 Ibid, 168. 299 Darrell L. Guder, ed. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 1998), 42.
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European founded denominations in Nigeria, such as the Anglican and especially the Catholic
Church, have historically been at the forefront of social service in Nigeria – with orphanages and community development programs. As previously suggested, the Nigerian Pentecostals currently contribute to social welfare endeavours to fight systemic poverty and oppression but this part of the Church’s mandate could be better developed and institutionalized. In this area, the Church in the global South could certainly learn from that of the global North.
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