wfn.org | Does Healing in African Spirituality Challenge Lutheran

["Frank Imhoff" <Frank_Imhoff@elca.org>]

Does Healing in African Spirituality Challenge Lutheran Churches in
Africa?
LWF Seminar Explores Interfaith Dialogue Objectives for African
Traditional Practitioners and Christians

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa/GENEVA, 14 October 2004 (LWI) -
Representatives from African Traditional Religion (ATR) and Lutheran
churches in Africa entered into dialogue at a Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) study seminar focusing on "Ancestors and Healing in African
Spirituality: Challenge to the Lutheran Churches in Africa." 

In his opening address to participants in the September 27-30 gathering
in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rev. Dr Ingo Wulfhorst, study secretary
for the Church and People of Other Faiths in the LWF Department for
Theology and Studies (DTS), explained the seminar's objectives. The
different perspectives at the meeting were aimed at promoting study,
research, reflection and interfaith dialogue on ancestors and healing in
the ATR, and probe the implications for interfaith dialogue, and also
for African Lutheran identity today.

The ten study papers sent beforehand to the participants and discussed
during the seminar included topics such as the concept of ancestors and
healing from the African religious perspective. They also focused on the
early missionary encounter with the ATR, the question of ancestors' role
and relevance in the healing ministry, and the implications for African
Lutherans today. 

In his paper "The Early Missionary Encounter with African Religion,"
Rev. John Kenan, a lecturer at the Bronnum Lutheran Seminary in Nigeria,
pointed out that the early missionaries tended to underestimate the
magnitude of their task. As such, he said, Christianity in Africa was
grafted on to a person as an alien faith and exercised only on the
surface, while deeper convictions and reactions remained rooted in the
ATR. 

Other participants argued that this was still true in some cases today.
They felt one of the biggest challenges facing any African Christian,
was the fact that almost all of African cultures were defined and
regulated by traditional religion. Some of the participants observed
that this synchronization approach to religion resulted in an identity
crisis.

Concern was voiced that the Christian churches did not officially ask
non-Christian ATR practitioners for forgiveness for their condemnation
of and attempts to eliminate the traditional religion "as a product of
the devil." Consequently, believers in traditional religion were still
suspicious of interfaith dialogue, perceiving it as a new attempt by
Western Christians to get data that would enable the church to start a
new colonization of Africa.

Following these concerns, the DTS study secretary opened up a
discussion on the aims of interfaith dialogue between ATR practitioners
and Christians.. 

Dr Nokuzola Mndende, a diviner and healer (sangoma) who presented
herself as non-Christian but not anti-Christian, said one of the biggest
errors made was the relegation of ancestors to only a cultural and not
religious value. The professor of religion and theology at the
University of Fort Hare, South Africa, argued that the ancestors'
influence on the entire social and religious life of the African has not
been fully grasped. As a result, she noted, many unanswered questions
and misunderstandings have limited the true growth of African
Christians. "If a person gets healed," she asked, "does it really matter
who did the healing, the Christian God, a sangoma or the ancestors?"

In her paper, Ms Gomang Seratwa Ntloedibe-Kuswani, teaching at the
University of Botswana, focused on the dimension of a healer as a sacred
power medium. She considered all healing as divine, and saw a healer as
one who plays an important role in society. 

In his presentation titled "Christ and the Ancestors in African
Christian Theology," Dr Sylvester B. Kahakwa, lecturing in systematic
theology at the Tumaini Makumira-University College, Tanzania, spoke of
the need to seek an African christological model that could reflect on
the meaning and significance of Jesus in an African cultural context,
including the ancestors. "It involves an interpretation and
understanding of Christ according to the African frame of reference,
without betraying the biblical witness of him," he said. (651 words)

(By Johannesburg-based journalist, Elaine Dodge.)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 138
member churches in 77 countries all over the world, with a membership of
nearly 65 million Lutherans. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the
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