Southern Africa: New Discovery Needed

This is the land of Livingstone. Here he fought lions and slavery, made discoveries, and brought the first Light to a darkened continent. Today his explorations would be stopped by rigid boundaries, and he would be a bewildered stranger. Nine countries divide the subcontinent, comparable in area and population with the western half of the United States. They are, with estimated populations: Northern Rhodesia, 2.55 million; Malawi (Nyasaland), 3.6; Southern Rhodesia, 3.9; Swaziland, 0.27; Basutoland, 0.71; Bechuanaland, 0.34 (all six with continuing links of varying kinds with Britain); the Republic of South Africa, 16.0 (which left the British Commonwealth in 1961); Mozambique, 6.6 (a Portuguese possession); and South-West Africa, 0.53 (a territory administered by the Republic of South Africa which denies the United Nations’ claim to trusteeship).

The Republic of South Africa is proposing to erect barbed-wire fences on its boundries, and traffic is checked at an immigration post at the site of Livingstone’s great discovery, the Victoria Falls. A Malawi (Nyasaland) government minister scorned Livingstone as “just a tourist.” Mozambique recently refused to grant a visa to the bishop who heads the American Methodist Conference in Rhodesia.

Geographically as diverse as the western United States, Southern Africa is also politically and socially divided, and fragmentation on racial lines continues. Governmental “color” ranges from all-black in the north of the area concerned (Malawi) to all-white in the south (Republic of South Africa).

Four Major Problems

Few mission fields have such a rich spiritual heritage. This is the land not only of Livingstone but of Robert Moffat, Francois Coillard, James Stewart, Robert Laws, Barnabas Shaw, and F. S. Arnot. Here Andrew Murray lived and wrote books that have blessed the whole Christian world. But despite the past success of missionary work, there are at least four frustrating problems today: racism, isolationism, paternalism, and rapid urbanization. Three are challenges to be met in the Church, the fourth by the Church.

Racism: What are evangelicals to say about the race problems? Most of them tend to dismiss such issues as merely political. A Nyasa Christian commented on “the glorious apathy of evangelicals to race issues,” A Christian convention in Southern Rhodesia uses as its motto, “All One in Christ Jesus,” but excludes Africans lest the whites be outnumbered. Race pervades church issues and has created deep spiritual problems. Many Africans view the church as simply a part of the colonial community. When a former Rhodesian prime minister proposed a convention of non-political bodies, he included churches. African reaction was summed up in a Salisbury daily newspaper in these terms: “They’re all dominated by whites, so we cannot expect anything except that which will safeguard white interests.” Even African ministers commonly regard themselves as in the service of whites, and church-mission relations are described in those terms.

Though South Africa is considered a citadel of racism, its Dutch Reformed Church has a growing evangelical group that is protesting racial division in the Body of Christ. Eleven leading professors and theologians of this denomination condemned the practice of racism by Christians in the dynamic book, Delayed Action. A former moderator of the church was forced to choose between his Dutch Reformed ministerial status and leadership of a Christian institute to further inter-racial cooperation. He chose the latter.

Such courageous action is causing improvement in the situation. A group of Nyasa pastors touring South Africa Dutch Reformed churches were well received. In the Afrikaans university town of Stellenbosch, interracial fellowship over tea is increasing—behavior that would have been unthinkable even five years ago. An all-white audience gave a ten-minute standing ovation to an African choir in Johannesburg after a stirring performance of Handel’s Messiah. Few were unmoved by either the performance or the ovation. Such breaches in the wall of racism do not come easily or quickly. But they are surely coming, though little change is yet evident in independent evangelical groups. Recent events have caused some Roman Catholic leaders to express publicly their dissatisfaction with the present civil policies.

Isolationism: For most evangelicals there is a sharp division between sacred and secular. The almost overwhelming problems of race, African poverty (in South Africa 67 per cent of Africans live below the breadline), immorality (nearly 60 per cent of all African babies are born out of wedlock), and drunkenness are deplored. But they are considered secular, political, and untouchable. This great divorce of secular and sacred is deeply disturbing to the African; traditionally for him there is no such distinction. With genuine perplexity a young Zulu said: “They told us of God and the Bible and how all men were equal and the same before God. But they do not treat us as equals. What can we believe, and what are we to do?”

Albert Luthuli, African Nobel Prize winner, is convinced that the Church must speak on so-called secular issues. “There is a seeming indifference to problems,” he comments, “a running shy of even meeting political leaders. The result is a schism between minister and political leader which harms them both.” Disillusioned by silence, Africans are increasingly indifferent to efforts of white missionaries. Materialism, Communism, nationalism, and traditional animism all seem more relevant. The basic religious desire of the people is met by a never-ending development of new sects. More than 3,000 different sects combining elements of Christianity, animism, and racism can be found in Southern Africa.

Paternalism: “At times we simply stand astonished at the motives causing us to cling to a position of power,” confessed a prominent minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. “Many missionaries in Africa today … would do the Kingdom of God a great service if they placed themselves at the disposal of the indigenous Church in an advisory capacity and accepted its leadership.” What is known as the “Indigenous Church Problem” is still warmly debated. Says the principal of a Bible institute in the republic: “The Church is regarded as a mission field, and one generation of missionaries succeeds another in the task of overseeing it and keeping the work going. It is true that all churches need supervision.… What is wrong is our insistence (by practice) that supervision must be white.” Virtually perpetual white supervision has resulted in a weakening of the Church. It is felt that the African church cannot develop as it should as long as there is an imposed missionary leadership. “The Church is paralyzed through being carried.”

In reaction to paternalism, independent movements are increasing rapidly. Missionaries, including evangelicals, are quietly being excluded in ever-widening circles. It is not our Gospel that Africans resent but our control. It may well be, remarks an American Methodist bishop, “that the best way for us whites to serve the African church is to get out of its way.” Nevertheless, Africans are quick to express their need for missionaries, if it means fellowship and not control. There is a wide conviction that missions without paternalism will be needed for a long time to come and that encouragement is also needed, but in a different way. What the non-whites wanted, said a Roman Catholic archbishop, was not white benevolence but white acceptance.

Urbanization: In 1939 less than 10 per cent of the people lived in cities. Today approximately 30 per cent live in cities, and over 70 per cent of the rural men have left for urban areas. Demographers predict that at least 75 per cent of the population will eventually be urbanized. Statistics do not show the moral and family breakdown that accompanies the shift. The urban masses are rootless; they cannot own land in most cities and are sheltered either in slums or in massive, impersonal housing projects. The African always found his purpose as part of a group, but he is now alone in the crowds. The evangelical is seldom there to help him. The Dutch Reformed Church leader quoted earlier says in this connection: “It would seem as though the churches are standing aloof from this great trek to the cities, not because they lack good will, but because the task seems overwhelming.”

Evangelical Strength

How strong are evangelicals in the face of such difficulties? At least twenty-five strongly evangelical societies work in Southern Africa, though most are numerically small in mission staff and church members. Initially they occupied the neglected, outlying areas. With diminishing evangelicalism in the older groups plus rapid urban growth, these missions needed to move into the mainstream of African life. Few societies have adjusted their work to do so.

But there are bright spots. Many thousands of lives have been transformed by the preaching of Jesus Christ. Evangelical churches are generally full in Swaziland, parts of Northern Rhodesia, and Malawi. Northern Mozambique is experiencing revival that has continued since the expulsion of missionaries. In the Republic of South Africa at least two groups report encouraging progress in urban evangelism, and one Bible college draws its nearly one hundred students both from evangelical bodies and from sects normally outside missionary influence. Underneath the problems it is abundantly evident that there is a general hunger for God.

Last century, when Stanley found him in the heart of Southern Africa, David Livingstone acknowledged: “You have brought me new life.” It is this same new life that is again needed, a view confirmed by the South African historian Edgar Brookes: “Quite literally and simply a personal devotion to God and an unswerving and prompt obedience to His leading is our greatest need.”

Malagasy: Africa’s Emerald Isle

The island Republic of Malagasy is often left off maps of Africa; yet its strategic relation to the continent is illustrated by the title of one of Africa’s power blocs—The Union of Africa and Malagasy.

Known as Madagascar until independence from sixty-five years of French rule came in 1960, Malagasy has a population of 5.6 million on a sub-tropical island of 228,000 square miles (about the size of Texas). Only 50 per cent of the population is of African origin; the remainder is from Indonesian and Arab stock. The people refer to themselves as Asiatics, not Africans. Their main occupation is coffee-growing, and the republic exports 60,000 tons per year.

The mission work of Protestants has been limited on this island where they are substantially outnumbered by Roman Catholics. Today, however, there is growing friendliness between the two, with some clergy meeting in joint study groups. A combined Bible translation committee has been formed.

Half of the population is still pagan, and hundreds of villages along the coast and in the forest belt remain unevangelized. There are also several nomadic tribes that have never been reached. The Norwegian Lutherans plan to open two new pioneer stations this year. The high rate of illiteracy on the island is a major drag on the forward movement of the Church.

While the island of Zanzibar, north along Africa’s eastern coast, has become Africa’s Cuba, Malagasy maintains strong ties with France and the West. She seems more concerned about Communist intrigues than most other members of the Organization for African Unity—a combination of the pro-West Monrovia Group and the pro-East or neutralist Casablanca Group.

In a recent press interview Malagasy’s president, M. Philibert Tsiranana, drew attention to Communist influence on his “doorstep”: “In Somalia, Russia is building a 60-million-dollar military base. Russians and Chinese have gone to Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar. There are 13,000 Chinese in Madagascar and more are arriving. They are agents of Chinese penetration. The French Army in Madagascar, as well as our own, must become more powerful.”

W. HAROLD FULLER

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