• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

HAGIOGRAP H Y ST. GUDINA TUM S A Samuel Yonas Deressa A Life in Outline other students on April 20, 1958, in the Nekemte congre- gation. After that, he served God as a full-time pastor.11 In he son of Obbo Tumsa Silga, Gudina Tumsa was born 1966 Gudina also obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree Tin 19291 at Boji in Karkaro, in the present administrative from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, after three region of Mirab Welega in Ethiopia. Although Christian- years of study. ity was introduced to the community three decades before In the thirteen years of his ministry that followed his Gudina Tumsa’s birth, his nuclear as well as his extended return to Ethiopia, Gudina served as a parish pastor; synod family did not accept Christ as their personal savior until organizer in Kambata, the southern part of Ethiopia; gen- Gudina went to school in 1938. There he was converted eral secretary of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane to Christianity and started to preach the good news to his Yesus (EECMY )12; and chair of the Council for Cooperation family as well as the surrounding community.2 of Churches in Ethiopia. It was a turbulent period for the Gudina’s first reaction to the traditional religion—the country. In 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie I was deposed and tradition that his parents had observed for many years— replaced by a Communist military junta known as the Derg was to cut down the ritual Hommi Tree, a tree considered and led by Mengistu Haile Mariam (b. 1937). Haile Selass- sacred by his parents and others who worshiped it.3 This ie’s death in 1975 is thought to have been ordered or car- action was widely criti- ried out personally by cized but Gudina faced Gudina was kidnapped outside the church Mengistu. The Derg, his critics fearlessly.4 which ruled Ethiopia When he had com- quarter together with his wife, Tsehai Tolesa, by until 1987, imprisoned pleted fourth grade, and executed thou- he was sent to Nejo to unidentified plainclothes gunmen. Tsehai was freed sands of Ethiopians the Swedish Mission’s without trial. school where pastors immediately on the outer edge of the city but her Gudina was one M. Lundgren and P. of the Derg’s many Stjärne were teaching. husband’s fate was not known for thirteen years. victims. On July 28, There he received an 1979,13 he was con- additional two years of elementary schooling through sixth ducting a Bible study at the church in Urael, one of the grade.5 Gudina then went to Nekemte in 1945,6 where he EECMY congregations in Addis Ababa. After the church completed eighth grade. service, Gudina was kidnapped outside the church quarter He could not, however, afford a high school education; together with his wife, Tsehai Tolesa, by unidentified plain- his only option was to look for a job, and he started to work clothes gunmen. Tsehai was freed immediately on the outer at Tafari Makonnen Hospital7 as a gardener.8 He was later edge of the city but her husband’s fate was not known for employed by the same hospital as a translator for foreign thirteen years. personnel who could not communicate with the local peo- Mengistu’s regime came to an end in 1987. After a ple in their native language.9 When the people of Nekemte period of civil war, a new government was established by recognized Gudina’s spiritual and leadership ability, how- the forces of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Demo- ever, they proposed that he go to Nejo for theological edu- cratic Front in 1991. In the beginning of 1992, the mass cation in order to serve the congregation as their pastor. media began to report the deaths of several religious lead- Gudina was twenty-six when he went to Nejo with his ers. Abuna Theophilos, the patriarch of the Ethiopian family. His training in the Bible School there took three Orthodox church, and Shaika Taye Meshesha, the leader years, from 1955 to 1958.10 He was ordained along with six of the Ethiopian Muslims, were identified as having been 36 SPRING 2012 murdered by the Derg in the late community. The church’s response called his theology “holistic” because 1970s, in addition to Gudina Tumsa. to the famine in Ethiopia—which the he thought that the Western churches At that time many people were look- North Ethiopia Synod presented to had lost the this-worldly dimension of ing for their lost friends or relatives the General Assembly on April 23, human existence. who had been victims of the Meng- 197315—and to the famine that struck In [Jesus’] ministry, we note that istu government. The transitional Kambata and Hadiya in 1974 made forgiveness of sins and healing government of Ethiopia publicly con- history, in the sense that the church of the body, feeding the hungry firmed that Gudina had been brutally took the initiative in working to meet and spiritual nurture, oppos- murdered by the Mengistu regime in the country’s social and economic ing dehumanizing structures 1979 and buried at a place called the crisis.16 and identifying himself with Ras Kassa compound, or Kassa Gibi. The EECMY also sent a letter to the the weak were never at any time The exact date of the execution is not government bodies in 1974 request- divided or departmentalized. known, only the year. Thirteen years ing “complete religious freedom” and He saw [the human being] as a after his abduction, Pastor Gudina equality among all religious groups whole and was always ready to Tumsa was officially declared dead in Ethiopia.17 The letter appears to give help where the need was on April 29, 1992, after his body had be a protest against the government’s most obvious.21 been exhumed from the place where suppression of other religious groups he had been secretly buried in 1979. by favoring the Ethiopian Orthodox At that time, Gudina consciously took church. At the same time, the resolu- up the theme of justice and demanded tion passed by the EECMY ’s executive a change in the church’s salary scale: Gudina and the EECMY committee on September 20, 1974, low salaries were to be raised and Øyvind Eide, a former missionary states that the position of the church higher ones reduced. “Sharing with of the Norwegian Missionary Soci- should be based on biblical theology our brothers and coworkers whatever ety and presently a retired profes- when it comes to concern for human is made available to our church in the sor in Stavanger, Norway, published equality, dignity, and standing for interests of the Kingdom of our God a significant book about the violent truth. The resolution reminds us that and Savior” was Gudina’s challenge persecution that ended Gudina’s life, this church places a high value on theo- to the institutional church.22 Revolution and Religion in Ethiopia: The logical reflection in regard to political Gudina regarded the role of the Growth and Persecution of the Mekane Yesus and economic issues.18 The fact that church as a paradigm or model in advo- Church, 1974–85. Eide dedicated the the church organized four seminars cating justice for the underprivileged. book to Gudina and the other Ethio- on Christianity and socialism, held in The church stands for the liberation pian martyrs: “In memory of Gud- February, April, and November 1975, of human beings from oppression, dinaa Tumsaa [sic] and all those who and October 1976 respectively19 tes- but with clear criteria: human rights, suffered during the persecution.” tifies to the same reality. These semi- justice, the rule of law, and grassroots Written sources from Gudina’s own nars were devoted to “the relationship democratic participation. The church hands, however, are scarce. Many of his between socialism and Christianity in regards “its continuing task to be the writings were casualties of war. Some areas such as social justice, equality, full liberation of the whole [person]. It of his books and personal papers were spirit and concern for the poor.”20 welcomes the opportunities which the lost when the ship carrying them was new situation provides for building a sunk during an Israeli air attack on the more just society.” It understands self- Gudina the Theologian harbor of Port Said in Egypt during reliance and land reform as decisive the 1967 Six-Day War. In addition, all Gudina was influenced by a series of because it has itself taken action about his sermons and other personal papers American and German theologians, them.23 were lost, destroyed, or stolen after his particularly Reinhold Niebuhr, Mar- Gudina emphasized the church’s murder when the EECMY office build- tin Luther King and the civil rights role as paradigm and advocate: “We ing was taken over by the Mengistu movement, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. welcome the prospect of participa- government in 1981. Gudina’s theology was not a vision tion by the people at all levels of deci- Gudina’s institutional leadership but a process of transformation, as sion making, where the power of the and theological thought began to with Bonhoeffer who called to repen- people is channelled from bottom to emerge after 1959, when the EECMY tance a church perverted by and com- top. We aspire for justice, respect for was recognized as a legitimate church promised under the Nazi regime after human rights and the rule of law. Ide- by the Ethiopian government.14 After 1933. Gudina’s ministry in Ethiopia, ologies cannot be considered as abso- its recognition, the church played however, led him to stress the “contrast lute.

Load more

  4

Copy Link