One of the most pressing questions in the mission field today is the question of the relationship of Law and Gospel, or rather, Gospel versus Law. This is a real missionary problem in parts of Africa: we need to see it in historical perspective, because the problem has existed in the Christian Church since its inception.
The great battle which Paul fought against Judaic tendencies within early Christianity was part and parcel of a controversy which has continued through the Middle Ages to our own day. So violently did some early Christians react against those who expected pagans to become Jews, and to accept the laws of Judaism before they could be admitted into Christianity, that they discarded the Old Testament and everything that reminded them of Judaism or the Law. Marcion was but one among many. Groups within the church have always tended to convert the Gospel into a new law. This tendency may in some respects point to temperamental differences in individuals, but that does not explain the whole complex phenomenon of legalistic tendencies within the church in certain ages and in certain of its sections.
It is disquieting to read the Christian literature of the second and third centuries, because it soon evidences to what degree the liberty of the Gospel had been forsaken for legalism in all forms. In later centuries legalism at times reached such dimensions that the church shifted the Gospel far into the background. Man had to fulfill the detailed prescriptions of a new law in order to be saved.
The Apostle Paul was well aware of the danger of legalism and in some of his letters condemned it in strong language. On the other hand, he sternly censured those who would compromise with legalism and use the liberty of the Gospel to serve the flesh. The great apostle pointed to Christ. Everything belongs to us, but we belong to him. In him we are free. Our liberty is grounded in our loyalty to him.
The tendency towards compromise with legalism was also ever with the church. In every age and generation some have argued over Christian liberty to condone license in their own lives or that of fellow Christians, and this has resulted in an almost complete lack of discipline in many churches. The struggle between legalism, compromise, and the Gospel has gone on for 19 centuries. In ever new forms this age-old struggle has continued and is still being fought on many fronts in the church universal.
Some Problems in Africa
Any one conversant with the missionary activities in different countries is struck by this very struggle in our own day. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than among African Christians. How often the Gospel is overspread by a burden of new prescriptions and legalistic rules and regulations of so-called Christian “do’s and don’ts.”
I grew up in a section of Africa where Christian converts are taught to tithe. Sometimes they are expected to contribute one shilling per month to the funds of the church. Often one would see an African Christian, perhaps well-to-do, put a two-and-sixpenny piece in the plate and then re-collect one shilling and sixpence! He religiously honors the expectation that he give one shilling even if he is able to contribute much more. But to him it has become a law of the church. He has lost Christ in the act of giving. The Gospel has been superseded by a new law.
Churches sometimes even refuse Communion to people who do not contribute a fixed amount before partaking of Communion. And though the amount may be small, the African Christian somehow feels that he pays for the privilege of partaking of Communion. Missionaries sometimes try to defend this sort of thing on the ground that people have to be taught that they have financial responsibilities towards the church. They must be taught to give and not only to receive. No one disagrees that Christians have to be taught that we owe everything to Christ, but to do it in this way leads surely on the highway to legalism. It so easily becomes one more prescription of a new law one has to fulfill. If a man’s relationship to Christ is what it should be, he will contribute more to the church, but through the inward compulsion of love.
The question has often been asked: why are Africans so prone to convert Christianity into a new law? The answer is not easy to give. Missionary practices are to blame in at least some cases. But there is a deeper reason for this tendency.
Most African societies have been very static for many generations. Tribal customs have meticulously prescribed the whole life of the individual member of many tribes. The individual hardly makes any personal decisions. The tribe or community decides on all his matters by way of age-old traditions, and this system covers every aspect of his life from childhood to death. Even the choice of a life partner is not wholly a personal decision, but is governed by innumerable tribal customs and traditions.
Within this system the individual is rigidly bound even if he finds a great sense of security. By acting within or according to these prescribed customs and traditions he doubtless experiences a great sense of harmony and belonging. The moment he breaks away and makes decisions on his own or acts in an individualistic way, something snaps. He becomes an outcast or a stranger. Loneliness follows, and perhaps alongside this a sense of shame or guilt.
Now Christianity comes into the life of such a closely-knit traditional tribe. Individuals react to the Gospel. They have to act as individuals to accept Christ and in almost every instance those who do have to take a stand opposed by the tribe. It means a break with tradition, with most or all those “do’s and don’ts” under which they were reared since childhood. Traditional bonds are cut. Many tribal ties may linger on in the life and experience of such an individual but a great change has come—a loosening of old securities and of definite rules of behavior. The resultant loneliness in many cases involves also a vacuum of uncertainty.
Must we be surprised if such a convert seeks a new law, a new code of behavior with set rules and regulations whereby he may recover a sense of security and of belonging within his newfound faith and within the community of the church? At this very point legalism enters. If the church is not careful a pagan is soon converted into a Pharisee. I think this is the problem in many African fields. The supremacy and the wonder of grace are so easily lost!
Troublesome Marriage Practices
I want to illustrate this whole problem from another angle. The lobola or marriage practices, whereby a man may take more than one legal wife, are part and parcel of African tribal life in many parts of that continent. Every missionary is aware of the intricacies of the lobola problem when a polygamist accepts the Gospel. Different churches and missions follow many different policies, ranging from full acceptance in rare cases to exclusion from Communion, and so forth, until the convert sends his other wives away and clings only to his first wife.
I often ask myself whether this procedure is Law or Gospel. There can be no question that if a Christian, a member of the church, decides to take a second wife, he should be censured. But—and this is where the Gospel comes in—if a man as a pagan, without the knowledge of the Gospel or a Christian experience, as part of his tribal system takes more than one legal wife and builds a family, and subsequently comes to Christ, must we and may we refuse him admission to the full life of the church until such time as he has cast off all his wives save one? Does the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ not cover such a man with all the relationships he had contracted and the family he had built while without the Gospel? Without being dogmatic, it seems to me that if the Gospel is to prevail, such a man must be fully accepted.
BEN MARAIS
Professor of History of Christianity
University of Pretoria
South Africa
