Introduction
The Importance of contextualization and its relevance to the demise or the survival of the Christian church may not be fully grasped without understanding history. The demise of the Church in North Africa and Nubia and its survival in Egypt and Ethiopia is an eye-opener to any person or theologian who wants to grasp the importance of contextualization in our contemporary times. In trying to respond to the article—The demise of the Church in North Africa and Nubia and its survival in Egypt and Ethiopia: A question of contextualization? By Calving E. Shenk. The writer will respond to each of the four churches separately and the lessons he has learned with regards to the merits or demerits will be outlined at the end of his response.
- North Africa
With the current Christian presence and the dominance of Islam in North Africa, it is so unbelievable to relate with what Calving E. Shenk says that, “The North Africa church was the church of the fathers Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine.” It is more unimaginable to relate with what Shenk said that, “At one point the north African church became a citadel of Christianity second only to Rome.” The question on the researchers mind is how a church that became the spiritual center of Christianity would disappear as a vapour so quickly and completely? Shenk pointed out the factors that caused the demise of this church saying, “The church struggled with persecution, heresies, and schisms, and finally encountered Islam.” With all these reasons as concrete as they may seem, one major reason Shenk pointed out for the demise of the North African church was the failure to contextualize.
The trends the researcher has seen by reading and understanding this article is informing him that what he is seen in our contemporary times, history might repeat itself in other parts of Africa. He is sorry to have noticed that many churches are majorly concern with plating churches and evangelizing for probably financial reasons. It has come to the researchers notice that just as it was in the church in North Africa, the church today emphasizes its efforts in the metropolis and gives little attention to the rural areas. The evangelism today is porous, the few attempt to evangelize the rural areas is what the researcher calls the hit-and-run method of evangelism—going for a one time weekend outreach without concerning itself with what happens to the converts after then.
Whereas churches like Evangelical Church Winning All—ECWA are making efforts reach the northern rural parts of Nigeria with Hausa the trade language. Many denominations including ECWA are not particularly concern with indigenizing Christianity. The NKST church is worthy of recommendation for the trust of indigenizing Christianity in Tiv land. The Church in North Africa failure to develop Christianity as an authentic national church should be a lesson to the contemporary church to avoid the area of failure as it did.
The suppression of the Dotanist attempt to contextualize, the identification of the Christian faith with the imperial power, and appeal of Islam to the indigenous population were the other reasons for this church’s failure. These reason still consist in our times. Contextualization is sometimes misunderstood as traditional religion and Islam is still appealing in many ways. Islam does not really mind a holy lifestyle, there is permeation to marry several wives, and promise for great wealth. The church in our days therefore need to learn is lessons from the failure to contextualize from the north African church to take a resolute stand to fasten its grips to biblical theological truth and contextualize.
- Nubia
It is almost unbelievable that a church will exist for over a thousand years and yet disappear so completely, but this was the demise of Christianity in Nubia. The researcher is glad that Shenk said there are no simple answers for the demise of this church. The story of this church made the writer appreciate the wisdom of God from the pregnancy of a woman, child birth, and parental care. In the womb a child takes its nutrition through the umbilical cord, after delivery through breast milk and other food, and the parents care for such until they are left to stand on their own. The demise of the church in Nubia to the researcher mind is mainly because the church over depended on Alexandria, and the church underdevelopment in theological formation, and indigenization of the church.
Islam is another factor that brought the demise of the church, but if it was properly weaned from Alexandria, and properly discipled, the persecution from Islam would have still made the church to survive as it was in the case of the churches in Ethiopia and Egypt.
It is becoming an issue of concern where the church is now depending on Christian in political offices for its financial sustenance. The writer was recently in a Christian Association of Nigerian—CAN state leaders meeting in a particular state in Nigeria, where the governor of the state was in attendance and to his greatest amazement, up to 80% of the budget was from expected income from the state government. Early missionaries in Nubia focused their effort on Nubian kings, and the kings accepted Christianity for political reasons. The demise of this church was partially the politicizing of Christianity. If the church of our time, particularly in Nigerian does not take its time to learn from Nubia, great sorrows may be its lot.
If you will ask the researcher to summarize the reason for the demise of this church; he will say that, the urbanization of the church and the underdevelopment of the indigenous populace construed that the theology and practice of the church was un-Nubian.
The church in Egypt started where a church that wants to survive will start. It started on the firm footing of sound biblical, and theological teaching—Catechism. The right theological foundation of this church moved it beyond the roman and Jewish circles to the Coptic rural populace. The persecution of the church was an added advantage to the survival of the church, expanding the church further southward, and rooting it to become a rugged indigenous church.
The tolerance of Islam to heavy persecution, oppression and martyrdom gave the church more reasons to stand. It earned it respect for its integrity, they had to pay heavy tax therefore giving up its material privileges in order to gain their spiritual heritage. Pressure of all sort still abound that may require us to give up our spiritual life for material privileges. The Copts should be a reminder to us when such temptations and pressure come forcing us to take a stand.
The church survived persecution because it did not concentrate its evangelism in the metropolis like the Nubian church. We ought to emulate this church if we care more for the kingdom of God rather than the mega churches in the cities concentrate our efforts on the rural populace.
We thank God for the translation of the Bibles in our Nigerian local languages through the instrumentality of the Bible Society of Nigeria—BSN. The Egyptian church survived because of the vernacular language and literature. The church of our time needs to also give more attention to translation into the local languages much more that it is doing for more results for the survival and expansion of the church.
The Coptic Church respect for leadership could be that the leaders also respected themselves. The challenge of leadership of our contemporary times is becoming grievous, there seem to be a growing rift between the clergy and the laity. It is sad that in many cases, the clergy do not earn respect but try to demand it instead. May the Lord help us to learn from the Coptic example of the laity/clergy relationship that made it survive for the contemporary church to also grow in lengths and bound for a sustainable revival and survival.
- Ethiopia
The researchers respect for the Ethiopian church stated after he watched a documentary of the church, and up till now it has never dwindled from Christianity. In the documentary, artifacts dating as old as King Solomon’s times were shown to still be in position of this church. The documentary alluded that the Ark of the Covenant is believed to be in one of the monasteries still in existence since the early time of the church.
The Ethiopian church as all the churches mentioned afore had their sting of persecutions. It however did not experience strong persecution in the early times of Islamic inversion until the rise of the Ottoman Empire where Muslims in the Ethiopian region became more aggressive. The state saw Christianity as its own and therefore valued its survival. Coupled with the strength of the church, the Portuguese by the invitation of the state came to the rescue of the Ethiopian church for it to survive.
With all the efforts the state and the church put in for the survival of the church, Shenk attributed the most important reason for the survival of the church to be its embeddedness in the Ethiopian culture. Whereas some people see culture in our time to be evil, culture has its good and bad side. The essence of contextualization is to see what is good about culture and imbibe it into the fabric of Christianity as regards to a particular peoples group for better communication of the gospel as such.
This church did not take for granted contextualization even though they did not know and called it as such. The church contextualize by evangelizing through trade. The researcher remembers his father in-law to have said, “If you go to a place and you cannot identify an Ibo person doing trade, run away from such, because is a dangerous place.” In Nigeria and probably the world over, the Ibo person is understood to be involved in trade. If Igbo Christians take more seriously evangelism into play, the expansion of the gospel through the instrumentality of trade through them will expand and establish the church much more as it were with the Ethiopian church as it spread the gospel along trade zones as Christian traders and their families migrated to such zones for the purpose of trade.
This church indigenized monasticism, localized its literature, music, art, and even its architecture. In the pastor’s induction course of ECWA, one of the ECWA vice president then strongly condemned the use of western music in the churches in northern Nigeria. He did not understand the vice presidents point so clearly then, until he fully understood when his lecturer Rev. Mipo E. Dadang PhD further explained the concept of contextualization in the contextualization class. Just like the Ethiopian church indigenized its church, it will be wise to plant church with the culture of a given peoples group in mind. For instance, a person plating a church in a predominant Muslim community in northern Nigeria, should consider using the architecture of the north, and use mats or carpets for worshipers instead of chairs.
The relationship with the church and the state helped the survival of this church. If the Christians in the contemporary church is involved in politics not for ulterior motives, their potential to encourage the growth of the church can be enormous. This church was unique for its ability to be involved with the state, yet stand firm with its theological beliefs. The church of our time also need to encourage Christians to get involved in politics so that it can take a strong grip on the polity. Democracy is a game of number, the more the church folds it hands, Muslims will dominate it and dictate what it should do.
Lessons learned with regards to merit or demerits for lack of or no contextualization in the North Africa, Nubia, Egypt and the Ethiopian Churches.
- The researcher has learned that lack of evangelism especially to indigenous peoples group in a given community has the ability to truncate or eradicate the existence of the church. The demise of the church in North Africa and Nubia are classic examples.
- The researcher on several occasions have heard ECWA members saying, “ECWA na mu ne” (ECWA is our own). Many of such persons say so because they understand ECWA to be an authentic national church. I have learned that people will respond to the gospel better when you reach the in their culture.
- It is very difficult to force people to become Christians. When you do, they will pretend but as soon as there is another option that appeals to them, they will go for it. The demise of the North African church was that, the peasants who evangelism them was not a priority to the church then saw Christianity as the imperial religion and this gave them the reason to naturally revolt against Christianity and the state. The researcher have learned to use love to reach people rather than might.
- The researcher have learned that even if something wrong or wrong teaching is work: like Islam, if the right thing or teaching is not tought, the wrong becomes appealing. The failure of the church to reach the indigenous North Africans properly and correctly, made Islam attractive.
- Rather than the Nubian Church to develop it indigenous theology, it depended on Alexandria to the detriment of the church. The researcher have learnt to look inwards for theological truths. The likes of the Kunhiyop and the Turaki’s are looking inwards for the development of an indigenous African theology, rather than always looking towards the west.
- The researcher have learnt that a people’s appeal to their language is even greater than the message a messenger carries. The Egyptian and the Ethiopian churches survived because of the language ties to their faith.
- The researcher have learned that contextualization does not limit in a people language or dressing. The Ethiopian church contextualized in the way of trading to further the course of the gospel in the trade zones, and for that reason, the church survived.
- The researcher have learned that to theologize deeply, indigenously, and culturally cannot be overemphasized. The North African and the Nubian churches failure was as a result of the lack of the above mentioned reasons, why the survival of the Egypt and the Ethiopian church was because they theologized deeply, indigenously, and culturally.
A response by TheShepherd Loho-u-Ter Shadrach
Bibliography
Shenk Calvi E. The demise of the church in North Africa and Nubia and its survival in Egypt and Ethiopia: a question of contextualization? Missiology: An international Review, Vol 2. (Walnut Avenue, Scottdale: American Society of Missiology, 1993)
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