A History and Analysis of Gospel Advancement on the Continent of Africa - Conrad Mbewe
00:00:00.000 | All right, brethren, I'll just allow for one more minute for those coming in to settle
00:00:15.720 | down.
00:00:20.880 | The way I intend to proceed as we go through this breakout session, which is really a learning
00:00:31.640 | from the history of the church in Africa, will be that I'll probably try to speak for
00:00:43.160 | about 30 to 45 minutes, but I really would like to get some questions from you, because
00:00:53.280 | I'll be trying to cram about 2,000 years into roughly 30 to 40 minutes.
00:01:04.520 | That's an impossible task.
00:01:07.680 | But really, as we learn from that piece of history, we will be as individuals having
00:01:17.360 | some thoughts that we may need clarity on, and therefore I would like that to be the
00:01:26.360 | opportunity for you to ask.
00:01:30.840 | I'm not sure whether they'll bring the microphone to you or whether you'll be able to speak
00:01:35.080 | loud enough for us to hear, and then I will answer.
00:01:41.920 | So that's the way that I'd like us to proceed, so that we may learn, because history is God's
00:01:51.080 | story.
00:01:52.080 | is what God has been doing in history, and He's a principled God, and therefore
00:02:04.620 | we can learn from Him.
00:02:07.480 | Well, let's pray then as we commence.
00:02:13.080 | Eternal and gracious God in heaven, thank you for this opportunity for us to learn together
00:02:21.960 | from history, from your story, especially around the continent of Africa.
00:02:33.360 | We pray that as we think about the work of missions, that we may especially learn from
00:02:42.400 | the missionary activities of the past, so that we may be enabled to do your work in
00:02:52.520 | an even better way as we draw near to the second coming of your Son.
00:03:00.760 | Be with us now we ask in Jesus' name, amen.
00:03:05.920 | Yeah, so now when we begin to consider God's work in the continent of Africa, we really
00:03:15.400 | need to realize that unlike America, we are dealing with a continent that is integrated
00:03:26.380 | to some extent with the history that is there in the Bible.
00:03:34.480 | An obvious example is Egypt, where I was last week.
00:03:40.120 | You know that the people of God collectively, Israel, would have spent time in Egypt.
00:03:47.920 | But also our own Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, you will recall that from His birth, His parents
00:03:57.000 | hid Him in Africa for a season, and then when Herod, who was seeking to take His life, died,
00:04:08.160 | He was able then to go back into the promised land.
00:04:13.840 | But even as you get into the book of Acts, again you will notice individuals like the
00:04:18.920 | Utopian eunuch who ended up going back into Ethiopia, and it is believed that quite a
00:04:29.320 | part of the Christian church in that part of the world comes from there.
00:04:35.920 | So there's a lot to be said for especially North Africa and its involvement with the
00:04:44.800 | New Testament church.
00:04:47.440 | One or two individuals that are mentioned even in the book of Acts, once you hear the
00:04:54.480 | word "Niger," you already know that it is related again to our part of the world.
00:05:03.160 | It is said of Apollos, a native of Alexandria, and as you know, Apollos again was an individual
00:05:12.240 | that was quite eloquent and played his role, not only in Ephesus but also in Corinth as
00:05:23.920 | well.
00:05:24.920 | So really, by the time the biblical literature is coming to a close, there is some way in
00:05:35.720 | which the continent of Africa is beginning to have a spillover of the Christian faith
00:05:45.040 | that was taking place in what we would refer to as the Middle East.
00:05:53.840 | Part of what caused this was really the persecution that was taking place in the Jewish area,
00:06:05.640 | and Christians were having to escape for their lives.
00:06:11.360 | Some would have gone in the direction where we have India and Asia in that sense.
00:06:18.880 | Others would have been making their way further into Europe, and some would have been making
00:06:23.840 | their way further south.
00:06:26.960 | But it wasn't long before Alexandria, and those of you who have studied church history
00:06:34.740 | will attest to this, in the Nile Delta pouring into the Mediterranean Sea, you have a city
00:06:49.200 | there called Alexandria that became by and large the center of Christianity in terms
00:06:59.640 | of dealing with quite a number of the major doctrinal clarity that has since come to be
00:07:12.140 | appreciated by the church universal.
00:07:16.160 | So you have names like Origen, you've got names like Clement of Alexandria, you've got
00:07:23.600 | names like Athanasius, and so on.
00:07:30.360 | Names that all of you here, if you've ever bothered to be in the church context, rather
00:07:37.080 | in a Bible college context, would have studied.
00:07:41.960 | So I can go on quite a bit because there are a number of names that keep coming up.
00:07:50.520 | So the Trinitarian controversy, for instance, is one that would have been settled there.
00:07:56.960 | The anthropological controversy in terms of the capacities that are there with respect
00:08:05.760 | to sin and salvation in us would have also been settled there.
00:08:11.880 | So the church universal in that sense owes a lot to that part of the world.
00:08:22.180 | In fact, as I said last week, I was preaching at a conference in Alexandria, and I remember
00:08:29.840 | saying to the 500 or so individuals who were listening that they just don't know how privileged
00:08:39.680 | they are to live in Alexandria because of the richness of that history.
00:08:50.100 | On one hand, if one was to say what do I learn from that context, it's the place of theological
00:09:00.960 | training and theological clarity in the health of the Christian church.
00:09:11.980 | The school that was established in Alexandria helped to provide that foundation.
00:09:20.320 | And therefore, we as churches need to be deliberate in ensuring that we are supporting educational
00:09:31.980 | institutions that are credible as far as theology is concerned, because on that foundation we
00:09:42.820 | build the future of the Christian faith.
00:09:47.620 | So when you think in terms of TMU, you think in terms of the Master's Seminary here, when
00:09:54.820 | you think in terms of TMAI, the Master's Academy International, and a number of you are coming
00:10:03.700 | from backgrounds where you are running seminaries, Bible colleges, perhaps even attached to your
00:10:09.700 | church, don't look down upon that.
00:10:14.500 | It's an all-important point.
00:10:17.620 | However, it's not long before in the 6th century that Islam came in from Saudi Arabia, flowed
00:10:32.860 | into Egypt itself, and cleared the Christian witness and the Christian churches in North
00:10:42.900 | Africa.
00:10:43.900 | I don't need to go into details about how that happened.
00:10:48.820 | I want to keep concentrating on what we learn from what happened.
00:10:55.500 | And basically, the reason why -- we may argue about it -- but the reason why the Christian
00:11:04.360 | faith suffered the way it did at the hands of the Arabs that came in the name of Islam,
00:11:18.260 | it is said that there would have been at least two or three causes.
00:11:23.620 | One of them was the fact that the church was largely disunited because of the doctrinal
00:11:30.540 | controversies that were taking place.
00:11:33.940 | And so instead of thinking in terms of what we have in common, the church was largely
00:11:39.440 | thinking in terms of what we don't have in common and concentrating on that.
00:11:46.460 | And therefore, when Islam came sweeping through, instead of working together, the Christian
00:11:54.460 | church was largely fragmented.
00:11:58.820 | The second is the fact that there were a number of what you'd call local tribes in North Africa
00:12:09.100 | that would have made up quite a bit of the majority.
00:12:13.100 | But because they were of the poorer section of society, like one of them is called the
00:12:20.720 | Babas, they were not reached out in terms of bringing the Christian faith to their level
00:12:27.940 | so that they would internalize it and the very culture would be developed along biblical
00:12:38.100 | lines.
00:12:40.860 | And so it's like the Christian faith was largely for an elite section of society and therefore
00:12:51.660 | when these warriors of Islam came through, North Africa was not ready to resist.
00:13:04.460 | Now, of course, they also came with negotiations.
00:13:10.460 | So if you don't fight back, you will be allowed to still remain as you please.
00:13:19.140 | But in the process, they were still overtaken by an Islamic culture.
00:13:28.700 | So generally speaking, that is what is said, so the Coptic church in North Africa was not
00:13:37.300 | able to withstand the attacks that were coming.
00:13:43.620 | And it is said that by the year 1050, the bishops of the Christian church went right
00:13:54.220 | down from about 30 to 40 to about 6 bishops.
00:14:00.180 | And by the year 1300, we were down to actually just one bishop of the Christian church in
00:14:07.220 | North Africa.
00:14:09.460 | Again, just a basic lesson.
00:14:14.420 | I think as churches, we do need to be clear about what we believe.
00:14:20.020 | So there is nothing wrong with that.
00:14:22.140 | We need to teach our people why we are Presbyterians or why we are Baptists or why we are Reformed.
00:14:29.940 | We need to teach them.
00:14:32.260 | But I think we need to also learn to draw the line in terms of we are brethren in the
00:14:40.140 | Lord where the Bible draws the line.
00:14:44.700 | I've written a small book, it should be in the bookshops there, it's under Crossway,
00:14:54.660 | and it's entitled "Unity" and it's "Striving Together for the Gospel."
00:15:02.380 | And I tried to argue in that book exactly what I'm saying here, that it's true we
00:15:08.660 | ought to have a clear doctrinal position because we are a church, we are churches.
00:15:15.660 | But at the same time, there are areas where we can work together.
00:15:20.340 | For instance, book publishing is a typical example.
00:15:24.580 | The Bible being published in various languages and so on, again, it's something that we
00:15:30.740 | can fairly easily do together.
00:15:33.860 | And some conferences can again bring Christians together in a wider area because when the
00:15:41.340 | world attacks, it rarely simply attacks one denomination.
00:15:47.540 | As far as I'm concerned, Christians, and if we are fragmented, we are weak at that level.
00:15:54.460 | So we need to be clear on that score.
00:15:57.800 | And then the second, again a lesson being learned from church history, is that the Christian
00:16:07.020 | faith, we must learn to break the boundaries, the social demographic boundaries around us
00:16:17.100 | to ensure that the gospel crosses into even the inner cities or the poorer sections of
00:16:27.420 | our wider society.
00:16:31.180 | In Africa, for instance, what you call here the prosperity gospel, it's metamorphosized
00:16:43.980 | into something that's beyond that in Africa.
00:16:48.100 | But it's in the poorer parts of our cities, the congested areas of our cities.
00:16:56.860 | And it's easy for us Reformed people, because Reformed you tend to be sort of professionals
00:17:03.980 | going upwards, it's easy for us to have a lot of light, doctrinal light among ourselves,
00:17:12.500 | and then when you cross into these densely populated areas, there's darkness there.
00:17:23.120 | And we need to realize that that's where trouble comes from.
00:17:30.300 | And therefore, we need to ensure that the Christian faith is reaching those areas, transforming
00:17:36.700 | people in those areas, so that biblical Christianity is also there.
00:17:43.780 | Otherwise, it remains an elitist club, and when political upheavals begin, we are completely
00:17:54.140 | powerless because normally those end up with the crowds, and the crowds don't have biblical
00:18:02.980 | Christianity.
00:18:03.980 | Okay, so that's the second aspect that we learn from this attack of Islam.
00:18:10.980 | Now, if I had a map of Africa here, so I need to imagine that I am on your side of the map,
00:18:19.740 | okay?
00:18:20.740 | So, West Africa is somewhere here, Egypt and Ethiopia are somewhere here, and then somewhere
00:18:30.500 | at the bottom here is where we have Zambia and South Africa and so on, okay?
00:18:36.620 | So the L-shape is a little bit like that.
00:18:40.020 | So if you can imagine, what happened was that Christianity was wiped out at the top.
00:18:45.900 | Well, they were still there, but completely weak.
00:18:49.660 | The Muslims, as they made their way into Spain, that's where they were stopped in their major
00:18:55.220 | campaign.
00:18:59.620 | There was another movement that brought the Christian faith back into Africa, but this
00:19:05.800 | time it is well after the Reformation and -- well, around the Reformation era, by the
00:19:12.740 | way.
00:19:13.740 | So it's around the 16th century that new efforts began.
00:19:19.880 | And again, we've got some lessons there, so that's why I want us to quickly rush there.
00:19:25.780 | And it was the fact that Europe was looking for materials, foodstuffs and so on that would
00:19:38.860 | be used for economic purposes, and they were looking for that from Asia.
00:19:46.220 | Previously, they would make their way through the Mediterranean, through the Red Sea, and
00:19:54.820 | then make their way to India, for instance, to get their merchandise, their commodities.
00:20:02.060 | But now that place was taken over by Islam, so it was completely dangerous.
00:20:07.740 | And so they began to look for ways to -- so here we have the map I was talking about.
00:20:13.940 | So you have Portugal and Spain on this side.
00:20:17.580 | So they began to look for ways to get to India, and the way to do it is to come down West
00:20:24.620 | Africa, come all the way to the Cape, at that time of good hope, and then make your way
00:20:34.220 | up until you get to India.
00:20:37.420 | So individuals like Vasco da Gama and others began to, on behalf of the Portuguese king,
00:20:45.780 | began to make efforts to survey those opportunities to go and get to India and other places in
00:20:57.860 | Asia, sell commodities, get others, bring them back, and so on.
00:21:02.820 | So what motivated the discovery of that route was not Christianity at that point.
00:21:10.820 | It's human greed.
00:21:12.860 | However, these ships also took with them chaplains and missionaries.
00:21:24.340 | As they were making their way around Africa, they would have places where they would stop
00:21:33.900 | to have meals, to rest, to offload some items and get others on and so forth, and in those
00:21:44.940 | places they began to establish mission stations.
00:21:51.220 | And normally these were chaplains that would be ministering to their own people in those
00:21:59.340 | areas.
00:22:01.540 | There were two slight weaknesses with that.
00:22:04.380 | One was it wasn't really missions, because missions is supposed to be you going to the
00:22:11.620 | people that live there in order to reach them with the gospel.
00:22:16.140 | You're not going there to your own people and then try to minister to them.
00:22:23.860 | That was the first weakness.
00:22:25.900 | The second is that this was almost exclusively Roman Catholic missionaries and chaplains.
00:22:34.380 | You know Spain, and you know Portugal.
00:22:37.780 | It was almost exclusively Roman Catholic, and it proved to have been a complete disaster,
00:22:46.420 | a complete disaster.
00:22:50.420 | The first reason is that they didn't have the gospel.
00:23:02.040 | It was a religion of works.
00:23:06.500 | So inevitably the religion of works does not change a person from inside out.
00:23:15.220 | So it gives people a form of religion, but it does not kill the "me" to establish Christ
00:23:24.820 | at the center of one's life.
00:23:27.860 | So it proved a complete failure for that reason.
00:23:32.140 | Another reason is that there was already something of the slave trade that was beginning to happen,
00:23:42.140 | and there was a lot of suspicion of people with a light skin.
00:23:50.660 | And so a number of these missionaries, or chaplains, a mixture of the two, number one
00:23:58.180 | were suspected by the local people to be part of these who are coming in in order to grab
00:24:08.620 | land and grab our people.
00:24:11.200 | And number two, a number of them were wrongly accused and therefore murdered.
00:24:20.380 | So you had quite a number of mission posts that would start and then they would be completely
00:24:28.700 | raided, and that would be the end.
00:24:32.220 | All the way, remember the map, around West Africa, all the way down to the Cape, East
00:24:41.260 | Africa as you are making your way to India.
00:24:48.400 | Just one or two comments about that.
00:24:51.720 | Remember we are trying to learn lessons.
00:24:54.960 | The first from that period is quite simple, and it's this, that there's no missions without
00:25:01.280 | the gospel.
00:25:05.600 | You can, in a sense, establish some kind of Christianity by providing health facilities
00:25:13.440 | and educational facilities, by providing clothing and food and so forth.
00:25:21.400 | You will get people together.
00:25:24.940 | But without the true gospel, you are simply preparing yourself for disappointment.
00:25:32.280 | It's a matter of time.
00:25:34.340 | So that's number one.
00:25:35.860 | Number two is that we need to be clear in our minds as we are engaged in missions, who
00:25:46.460 | are we being associated with?
00:25:53.460 | Who are we being associated with?
00:25:56.300 | As we shall go on to see when we come to what is called the scramble for Africa, one of
00:26:05.020 | the difficulties that the Christian church had in missions was this fear of the people
00:26:14.460 | that these are linked with these, and therefore we don't want them.
00:26:22.220 | Well, in actual fact, they were bringing the gospel.
00:26:28.100 | There's a saying in Africa, maybe I'm going ahead of myself here, there's a saying in
00:26:32.460 | Africa that the missionary came with the Bible in one hand and a gun in the other.
00:26:41.620 | It's a very famous saying, and they say that we had the land, they had the Bible.
00:26:55.100 | We closed our eyes because they said let's pray.
00:27:00.660 | And when we opened, we had the Bible, they had the land.
00:27:06.740 | Now obviously it's not true, but you can see it's this association that had its own serious
00:27:18.220 | implications.
00:27:19.980 | And I think there are times when riding on the back of secular, non-Christian institutions
00:27:36.500 | can apparently make our work lighter, apparently.
00:27:45.340 | But before long we can easily discover that in fact it has become our loss because of
00:27:53.980 | associations.
00:27:56.820 | So I will sort of jump into that in a moment.
00:28:00.700 | But somewhere in the 1800, rather 18th century, there was born what we call today the great
00:28:13.860 | missionary movement.
00:28:15.100 | You remember William Carey, he didn't come to Africa, he went to India.
00:28:19.660 | But it was round about that time that there was a huge movement among Protestants now,
00:28:27.380 | among Protestants, that began to also go into the same world where Roman Catholic missions
00:28:36.180 | had failed.
00:28:38.540 | The difference is that they came in with the true gospel.
00:28:46.260 | And as they came in with the true gospel, a lot of them were missionary societies that
00:28:59.620 | involved different denominations working together.
00:29:04.340 | But working together in order to see the churches established.
00:29:11.300 | So again, we've got our map.
00:29:13.960 | So the first area that really got covered was West Africa, just at the bottom there.
00:29:20.740 | You know, you have Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, and other countries there.
00:29:27.180 | So that's where you initially had a number of mission stations starting.
00:29:35.580 | And then you had the West Africa where you have the Congo, you've got Angola, and so
00:29:40.860 | on.
00:29:41.860 | Again there, along the shore, the coastal region, again you began having different mission
00:29:50.940 | stations being established.
00:29:55.380 | And then you had South Africa itself as well with the British and Dutch missionaries.
00:30:01.140 | And then as you begin to go up Mozambique, and so on, Tanzania, and Kenya, and so forth,
00:30:09.580 | you had other mission agencies that were establishing mission stations.
00:30:18.420 | The greatest challenge that was there then was the slave trade.
00:30:24.420 | Because what it did is it made the people to fail to be established in one place.
00:30:37.980 | One of my favorite missionaries is David Livingstone, and I've read his biography a few times and
00:30:46.140 | even taught on it.
00:30:47.940 | And one of his greatest frustrations when he left the Cape, there was Robert Moffat
00:30:54.260 | there, he married Robert's daughter, and they made their way.
00:31:00.600 | He wanted to bring the Gospel into the interior of Africa.
00:31:05.100 | And he found that he would settle in one place, begin to minister to the people there, and
00:31:11.420 | then in the middle of the night the place would be raided, the following day there's
00:31:16.020 | nobody.
00:31:17.600 | The people have been taken.
00:31:19.220 | Or, sometimes it's not even being raided, it's just rumor does its rounds that we will
00:31:28.340 | be raided, and then the people would disappear.
00:31:33.060 | It really frustrated him.
00:31:36.340 | And hence one of the things that David Livingstone did was to go back to Britain and he was pleading
00:31:47.100 | with Christians there to come into Africa.
00:31:54.140 | But he didn't just want them to come as missionaries, in other words to bring Christianity.
00:31:59.740 | He also wanted them to bring commerce into Africa.
00:32:06.500 | Because he felt that if commerce came in, then the governments that are benefiting from
00:32:14.100 | that commerce would deliberately also want to come in and protect those areas.
00:32:20.540 | And so they used to be called protectorates.
00:32:26.660 | And once they do so, then the social lives of the people would stabilize.
00:32:37.160 | So he would speak in terms of commerce and Christianity, commerce and Christianity, because
00:32:43.480 | of the fact that he realized that that was what was going to help bring about the social
00:32:53.920 | stability.
00:32:54.920 | Well, it began to happen, and the result of that is what was called the scramble for Africa.
00:33:04.960 | Because Britain, Germany, Spain, Portugal, I mean all these countries, just Belgium,
00:33:13.440 | they just rushed in.
00:33:16.920 | And on one hand, it helped to stabilize, because now people just couldn't come through as bandits
00:33:23.840 | with guns and ship slaves away.
00:33:29.160 | The places were now protected.
00:33:31.480 | The people that were there were now getting into employment at a very basic level and
00:33:40.840 | getting more and more established.
00:33:42.840 | Roads were being developed, railway lines were being developed, postal systems were
00:33:47.640 | being developed, schools and hospitals were being developed, and so on.
00:33:52.780 | Not really necessarily for the benefit of the people that they found there, but it was
00:33:59.300 | necessary even for their own people that would be living in those places.
00:34:06.020 | So that was a huge period that took place from about 1878 to the year 1900.
00:34:16.420 | Now inevitably, it had positive and negative effects on missions, and then I want to just
00:34:22.580 | quickly comment on that.
00:34:24.980 | One was that it became easier to do missions work, because you now had roads, you had railway
00:34:37.180 | lines, you had postal systems, you could ask for supplies from Europe, and the supplies
00:34:46.580 | would arrive through the supply chain.
00:34:49.420 | It's bringing other things, and it would also bring your Bibles, your medical equipment,
00:34:56.900 | and so on and so forth.
00:34:57.900 | So it made missions easier.
00:35:02.740 | The downside to it was the fact that, for instance, in the areas that were under Portuguese
00:35:11.220 | and Spanish control, for instance, Protestants were not welcome there.
00:35:17.760 | Because each country that had its area ensured that its state religion is the one that was
00:35:26.580 | being encouraged.
00:35:28.620 | And so even now, when you go into various parts of Africa, you can't miss the fact that
00:35:35.660 | you can see the development that took place is parallel with the kind of church that was
00:35:45.060 | established there through missions agencies.
00:35:49.200 | So on one hand, it meant that those areas that were Protestant were jealously guarded
00:35:59.240 | by the state that was over the place, and therefore the Christian church would grow
00:36:09.080 | and multiply under that particular banner.
00:36:13.420 | So there were positives and negatives, simply because the Christian church is in a new world.
00:36:21.400 | Those of you who've done church history will appreciate that we often say that God in His
00:36:26.540 | wisdom brought the Christian faith to its fruition under the Roman Empire, because the
00:36:36.080 | Roman Empire provided the network, provided the language, provided so much that then the
00:36:44.560 | Christian church just roared on top of it.
00:36:47.720 | The Apostle Paul and others benefited from that.
00:36:52.800 | Well, that's exactly what was happening in Africa as well.
00:36:58.360 | So there were positives and there were negatives.
00:37:03.000 | Another positive was that whereas previously the world wasn't interested when missionaries
00:37:10.880 | were dying like flies, they're not interested, but now that they were coming in to get the
00:37:18.680 | wealth in order to ship it to their countries, well when their own non-Christian employees
00:37:28.280 | were dying like flies, well they began to seriously try and find the answer to this
00:37:36.680 | fever that was killing their people.
00:37:40.560 | In due season it was found that it is malaria, it was found that it was caused by a mosquito,
00:37:47.920 | a particular kind of mosquito, and in the process they found the medicine for it and
00:37:57.520 | that helped missionaries to live longer on the continent.
00:38:04.960 | So there were some benefits that were coming out of the scientific revolution.
00:38:13.960 | I think the lessons from there must be pretty obvious.
00:38:18.200 | We cannot completely divorce ourselves from the world, from what's happening in the political
00:38:25.440 | economic sphere.
00:38:29.940 | We can benefit from it.
00:38:33.760 | I mean think of the internet.
00:38:36.760 | I don't think the guys behind the internet who were thinking about spreading the gospel
00:38:40.840 | were there.
00:38:42.480 | Maybe.
00:38:43.840 | But I doubt it.
00:38:46.160 | But look at the impact it has had in the world, and I'm speaking about Africa.
00:38:54.280 | Prior to the world of the internet, Africa was largely swept over by the prosperity gospel
00:39:06.520 | through cable TV.
00:39:10.240 | We didn't have the money, those of us who were reformed, we didn't have the money to
00:39:15.400 | compete.
00:39:17.680 | So it was junk that was being piped across the continent.
00:39:24.600 | Well, 10, 20 years ago, people began to download the MacArthur, Piper, Paw Washer, Samoans,
00:39:40.680 | and it's young people doing so through their cell phones, and the situation on the ground
00:39:50.000 | has changed.
00:39:53.040 | It's amazing.
00:39:55.960 | So there are these benefits that come from developmental scientific changes that are
00:40:07.640 | happening in the world where we are not wrong to connect with that and begin to benefit
00:40:19.960 | from that.
00:40:21.040 | So that's definitely one area that we need to be innovative.
00:40:29.200 | So sometimes I go to places where I find people have a very negative view of David Livingstone.
00:40:37.240 | They say, "Ah, he wasn't a missionary, he was just an explorer," they say.
00:40:43.480 | Well, let me tell you something, Zambia, which is the country I come from, became independent
00:40:51.880 | in 1964, and at that time all its major cities were named after individuals in Britain or
00:41:03.000 | cities in Britain.
00:41:07.480 | In 1964, the first indigenous Zambian government changed all those names to African names except
00:41:17.400 | one, just one, and that was 61 years ago when they decided this one we won't change to an
00:41:27.800 | African name, and it is the city called Livingstone.
00:41:33.240 | It's the only city in the whole country of Zambia with a foreign name.
00:41:40.520 | And this is now 60 years later, nobody ever says, "What are we still doing with this explorer?"
00:41:51.680 | The reason is because they appreciate what this person did when he opened up Central
00:41:58.440 | Africa to commerce and Christianity.
00:42:03.680 | It stabilised our lives.
00:42:06.940 | It helped us to live with one another as well because we recognised we are all made in the
00:42:13.440 | image of God.
00:42:15.000 | He's not the one who was preaching to us, but he brought in the missionaries and we
00:42:21.080 | are beneficiaries.
00:42:24.080 | Now I need to rush on to just one extra point and then I need to allow for at least 10,
00:42:30.680 | 15 minutes in case you've got some questions.
00:42:35.200 | We fast forward to the more recent past.
00:42:42.320 | When the foreign missionaries began to work all over Africa, one of the things that they
00:42:49.320 | were jealous about, or careful about, was to separate African traditional religions
00:42:57.640 | from Christianity.
00:42:59.760 | So anything that smelled like African traditional religions, they kept out.
00:43:08.160 | Even just the drums that were being beaten were kept out.
00:43:11.880 | In fact, there's somebody who drew a picture which was obviously a cartoon and it was of
00:43:19.780 | a missionary.
00:43:21.400 | He drew the map of Africa as if it's on the ground.
00:43:24.920 | And so it was a missionary dragging a piano from the coast and sort of taking it into
00:43:31.660 | Africa in order to kick out the African drum.
00:43:37.400 | Obviously it's comical.
00:43:40.520 | But to some extent, there was a loss and a gain.
00:43:46.640 | The gain was that it helped the African church or converts to clarify in their minds that
00:43:57.560 | this is something new.
00:44:00.820 | So there was being willing to throw away the baby with the bathwater so that we don't make
00:44:10.660 | this mistake.
00:44:13.420 | And therefore when the initial prophets on African soil were coming up, they were rejected
00:44:23.060 | and they were, listen to me, excommunicated.
00:44:28.300 | And so they began their own cults, and there were quite a number across Africa, I could
00:44:33.700 | give you their names.
00:44:35.580 | But the evangelical church was protected for at least 50 years, maybe even 100 years.
00:44:46.780 | But in the second part of the last century, so that's 1950 going onwards, because of the
00:44:53.580 | Pentecostal movement that had begun on this side, inside the evangelical world, well,
00:45:02.980 | the door got opened for prophets in the churches.
00:45:08.540 | In evangelical circles, and a floodgate has since opened, a major floodgate that has made
00:45:20.000 | it extremely difficult for the evangelical church – now I know in America that phrase
00:45:27.060 | can be anything, but I'm speaking in terms of gospel-centered churches – to be able
00:45:33.900 | to say that that undermines the sufficiency of Scripture.
00:45:43.060 | So if I was to speak in terms of a recent lesson that we need to learn, it is the wisdom
00:45:53.820 | of the pioneer Christian missionaries that came into that part of the world to protect
00:46:02.700 | Protestantism from being swallowed by African traditional religions.
00:46:10.860 | At the moment, one of the most popular views of a pastor is that he's a man of God.
00:46:21.720 | Now that's supposed to be innocent, isn't it?
00:46:23.700 | But the man of God, meaning he's the guy who is the equivalent to the village witch
00:46:28.660 | doctor, he exudes with strange powers so that he takes away all your problems, basically.
00:46:41.900 | If you're failing to get married, go to him, he'll do dabra kadabra and you'll get married.
00:46:46.340 | If your business is failing, go to him, he'll do the same dabra kadabra and your business
00:46:52.340 | will pick up.
00:46:53.340 | Just the same way in which you go to the witch doctor and he moves a few bones around and
00:46:58.140 | supposedly fixes your problems.
00:47:02.740 | So it's an area that today we desperately need to be biblical about.
00:47:11.900 | So let me explain what I mean by that.
00:47:14.100 | It's not enough if someone tells you that I've established 200 churches in my part of
00:47:23.700 | Africa.
00:47:25.700 | People go, "Wow!"
00:47:28.900 | Find out what is it that is believed there.
00:47:34.180 | What is it that's being taught?
00:47:41.580 | And sadly, if you were to go and listen to what's going on there, there's very little
00:47:52.420 | resemblance to the Christianity of the Bible.
00:47:58.780 | It's African traditional religion sprinkled with a little bit of Christianity.
00:48:06.580 | That's not missions.
00:48:08.820 | That's not missions.
00:48:11.060 | And especially the fact that as I'm speaking right now, there is a growth of the Christian
00:48:19.740 | faith on African soil.
00:48:23.660 | The numbers are staggering, by the way, and that Christian faith is now being exported
00:48:31.060 | back to the Western world.
00:48:33.900 | Sadly, we are exporting what is even more dangerous than what you exported to us in
00:48:40.380 | the recent past.
00:48:44.700 | And there's need for those of us who are of a Reformed conviction, not only to be shocked
00:48:51.580 | about this, but to say to ourselves, "Let's get into action.
00:48:56.900 | Let's do something about this.
00:49:00.100 | Let's help establish sound churches where the Spirit of God is clearly working.
00:49:07.540 | Let's establish training for pastors so that they are really grounded as the converts are
00:49:15.740 | multiplying."
00:49:16.740 | I mean literally, the Christian church is galloping while we are still tying our shoelaces.
00:49:24.620 | Let's do our part so that we have a healthier Christianity coming from Africa in the near
00:49:33.340 | future.
00:49:34.340 | Well, brethren, there are ten more minutes, and I would hate to make you lose those ten
00:49:41.060 | minutes with me just continuing to rumble along.
00:49:47.180 | If there's an area some of you are already ministering in various parts of Africa, you
00:49:52.020 | may want to ask a question or two.
00:49:53.980 | I'd like to answer those questions.
00:49:57.020 | There may be no microphone, but we are men.
00:50:01.140 | There is -- oh, there we are.
00:50:04.860 | So anybody, just walk or he gets to you or whatever.
00:50:09.260 | Ah, there we are.
00:50:11.060 | Question.
00:50:12.060 | Can you hear me?
00:50:14.740 | Yes.
00:50:15.740 | Zambia is a Christian nation in its Declaration of Independence similar to -- the Declaration
00:50:22.780 | of Independence is similar to ours.
00:50:26.300 | How do you find that nation being called Christian?
00:50:32.540 | Is it as unhealthy as the rest of the nations in Africa, or is it more healthy?
00:50:38.900 | All right.
00:50:40.220 | So the way Zambia ended up with the phrase, "Zambia is a Christian nation in its Constitution,"
00:50:46.860 | was largely a reaction.
00:50:49.140 | So what happened was towards the end of the 1980s, Eastern sort of Asian religions like
00:51:04.340 | Buddhism and Hinduism and so on, quite apart from Islam, were beginning to find inroads
00:51:11.500 | into Zambia, and it was largely through the political structures.
00:51:16.860 | You know, these religions, especially Islam, tends to be quite political.
00:51:21.820 | So when the new government came in in 1991, there was already -- well, part of the reason
00:51:31.380 | why the previous president lost was because people were already beginning to see these
00:51:38.140 | inroads and it was making them very uncomfortable.
00:51:42.100 | So part of the campaign by the opposition was the fact that when we come into power,
00:51:50.940 | we'll make sure that these guys are kicked back where they belong.
00:51:56.580 | And so as soon as that new president came in, who was Frederick Chiluva, he made the
00:52:02.220 | declaration literally within a month of him becoming president, and then parliament enacted
00:52:10.580 | in terms of putting it into our Constitution.
00:52:14.020 | So it was largely a reaction.
00:52:16.820 | And so a number of years later when he would be asked, "What do you really mean by this?"
00:52:21.820 | it was clear that he didn't quite know what to say except the fact that, "I'm just saying
00:52:27.980 | that 85% of Zambians claim to be Christian."
00:52:32.660 | That's the way he began to justify it.
00:52:37.040 | It has not changed anything in terms of the number of people getting converted, the number
00:52:42.300 | of churches being established, because Zambia already is a very open country to the Christian
00:52:51.060 | faith.
00:52:53.980 | The best schools in Zambia are run by churches by far; 60% of our health facilities are run
00:53:01.020 | by churches.
00:53:02.520 | The government recognizes that.
00:53:05.500 | And so there is a lot of goodwill in the Zambian context, I would say.
00:53:13.020 | So it's there in our Constitution, but it doesn't make anybody more Christian than they
00:53:19.740 | already were.
00:53:21.620 | In terms of swearing in court or in parliament, it was still being done on the Bible, which
00:53:29.460 | is still done even today, except, of course, if you are a Muslim, you can sort of do it
00:53:35.420 | in another book or not at all.
00:53:38.180 | So that's the way that I would put it, yeah.
00:53:42.440 | We do have an open door, however, in terms of reaching our politicians because of that,
00:53:53.380 | yeah.
00:53:54.380 | Thank you.
00:53:56.340 | Thank you, Pastor Mbiwe.
00:53:59.860 | My name is Alan, and I serve at a local church in here in Himosa Beach, and we have outreaches
00:54:05.640 | in different parts of the world.
00:54:08.140 | And I'm involved in our missions, and one of the things that I've noticed is a lot of
00:54:13.300 | people that want to associate with us for whatever reason.
00:54:18.760 | And what are the things that you would describe as ways to vet people that want to associate
00:54:27.060 | with you?
00:54:28.460 | And I know you have to, you know, you look at doctrinal things, you look at what is their
00:54:31.580 | teaching, but I'm interested to know because you've established a, you know, a seminary,
00:54:38.240 | and I know Voddie Blockham has been involved with you.
00:54:41.200 | But in Africa, does your seminary, do you provide resources for people wanting to, from
00:54:48.960 | the West, that want to get involved with people in Africa, pastors in Africa, training resources
00:54:53.720 | for them?
00:54:54.720 | Because we see one of the problems is training as well.
00:54:57.480 | A lot of the pastors are under-trained, and so they don't have the means and the scope
00:55:03.560 | to vet people even in their own situations, churches that they should be associated with.
00:55:09.280 | So I'm just asking, do you have resources for that, for people, for churches over here
00:55:12.920 | that want to do that?
00:55:14.860 | Because there's a lot of people that want to associate with us, but we kind of are very
00:55:19.600 | careful about that because we see a lot of abuse.
00:55:22.160 | Yeah.
00:55:23.160 | Yeah.
00:55:24.160 | Yeah, thank you.
00:55:25.160 | Let me try and just answer that in a minute or two.
00:55:26.880 | I think first of all, with respect to training in Africa itself, we tend to think in terms
00:55:32.120 | of a pyramid or a triangle.
00:55:35.440 | So first of all, there is grassroots training, seminars, symposiums, sort of block classes,
00:55:47.680 | and some of them are just about exegesis of texts and turning that text into a sermon
00:55:56.720 | and so forth.
00:55:57.720 | So there's a lot of that happening at the grassroots level because, as you rightly pointed
00:56:04.520 | out, there's so much happening that if we try to limit our training to seminary training,
00:56:12.400 | it will be a drop in the ocean.
00:56:15.520 | So there's a lot that's happening at grassroots level.
00:56:19.480 | And then, but we are mindful that we need to train the kind of leaders who will lead
00:56:27.080 | the leaders.
00:56:29.840 | And that's where this sort of, the tip of the pyramid comes in, where we are looking,
00:56:38.960 | which is what we do at the African Christian University, we are looking around the continent,
00:56:44.920 | seeing who are these guys who are sort of coming to the top so that we can train them
00:56:53.880 | and send them back.
00:56:55.940 | And that way, what the Lord will do with them, we don't know, but at least we are helping
00:57:02.600 | countries to then have the best trained pastors that we can.
00:57:10.600 | Now some of them are training out in the West and coming back, but others train here and
00:57:14.960 | they stay, so we have the guys that we are training on the ground.
00:57:21.920 | Now as to who do you associate with?
00:57:25.720 | My answer to that question is always, the way you do it even here in the West, it's
00:57:30.980 | who do you know who you can trust, who then knows someone else, who then knows that guy?
00:57:41.800 | Because that's safer than you simply getting an email from someone and they are claiming
00:57:48.760 | all kinds of things.
00:57:50.660 | Because yes, they tend to know who you are and what you want to hear, and that's what
00:57:54.720 | they give you.
00:57:56.040 | And a lot of Americans have ended up very disappointed when they finally got into the
00:58:01.800 | ground and found what they were supporting, they would not even want to be named next
00:58:09.000 | to that.
00:58:10.160 | So think in terms of, you probably know one or two brethren that are already doing something
00:58:16.340 | in Africa.
00:58:18.040 | Try and get a name from them that they already trust and know and then work your way to that.
00:58:26.400 | For instance, I met somebody here who is working in, trying to get work going in East Africa,
00:58:33.840 | at least three countries.
00:58:35.360 | And I said to him, send me, I gave him my business cards, shoot me an email, and what
00:58:39.320 | I'll do is I'll give you somebody in Uganda, somebody in Kenya, somebody in Tanzania, and
00:58:45.680 | you can, you know, continue working along those lines.
00:58:49.360 | So that's what I would advise all of you, and I'm sure you do it even in America with
00:58:53.600 | respect to, you know, ministries and churches here, you can do it with us as well.
00:59:01.040 | Good.
00:59:02.040 | I think you'll be the last one, brother.
00:59:06.620 | We've got two minutes.
00:59:07.620 | I'll make my question quick then.
00:59:10.320 | Okay.
00:59:11.320 | My question is, what can we do here in the West to partner with our brothers on the continent
00:59:19.080 | in terms of training, development, you know, what are some practical things we can do here
00:59:24.520 | with all the resources we've been blessed with so that we can be a blessing to you on
00:59:28.040 | the continent?
00:59:29.320 | Thank you.
00:59:30.520 | The first is this, among yourselves, we don't need to have all of you traveling to Africa,
00:59:38.400 | but in your little sort of circle of pastors, fraternals, and churches that relate, at least
00:59:44.480 | get one of you to actually come and visit because it's difficult to describe what the
00:59:52.440 | Lord is doing on the ground, what the opportunities are there, but when you come, you mingle,
01:00:00.240 | you lecture in our different levels of pastoral training, you come back, you are able to then
01:00:10.960 | speak to your friends in your fraternals and say, "Look, these are the needs that I saw
01:00:17.600 | on the ground.
01:00:18.600 | These are the kind of things that we can be able to do."
01:00:22.640 | And there's no shortage in terms of needs for -- especially those of you who are pastors
01:00:28.860 | and others who are lecturing in Bible colleges, to come and, you know, minister in our churches.
01:00:37.640 | Usually we have the wrong guys coming, and you guys are still on this side of the ocean.
01:00:46.280 | So to do block classes, for instance, in our various colleges and seminars and so forth,
01:00:57.280 | and I can assure you what has often happened is this, and Vaud is a typical example.
01:01:04.880 | He now sees the needs on the ground, and because one of his legs is on this side, he's able
01:01:14.840 | to see what this side can do on that other side, which we don't see.
01:01:22.440 | And so I'd like to encourage you to do that.
01:01:26.360 | And if any of you would like to attempt that, please get in touch with me.
01:01:35.760 | Let's talk about it, because you may think that there's hardly anything that you can
01:01:42.780 | add to the African context.
01:01:45.320 | Well, the extreme charismatics are not thinking like that.
01:01:49.520 | They're literally filling up aeroplanes and crossing over, and sending a lot of free junk
01:01:57.000 | to Africa.
01:01:59.280 | So I would like to encourage you to think like that.
01:02:03.640 | Come over, see for yourselves, then you can come back and you'll be the ones saying, "I
01:02:08.720 | saw those gaps.
01:02:10.360 | This is something that we can be able to do to strengthen the hands of the right guys
01:02:19.720 | on the African continent, so that as we are sending missionaries across Africa, even into
01:02:26.900 | North Africa, because for us it's the same continent.
01:02:31.880 | It's on land.
01:02:32.880 | Guys get there.
01:02:35.480 | That we are strengthened.
01:02:37.600 | The church is more biblically based."
01:02:41.320 | Well, brethren, I don't want this to turn into African time.
01:02:49.000 | I'm told here you stick to time, so let's pray together.
01:02:55.360 | Our Father in heaven, thank you that history is your story.
01:03:01.960 | You have worked around the world, you've worked in Africa, even in attempting to summarize
01:03:10.860 | two thousand years of African church history.
01:03:17.040 | We can still see a few lessons percolating to the top.
01:03:22.680 | We pray, Lord, that we may learn from both the positives and negatives in that history,
01:03:30.760 | and that today, with the baton in our hands, help us, O Lord, to be faithful, to catch
01:03:40.080 | in ourselves the wind that is blowing, so that we can make much of the opportunity for
01:03:50.080 | the good of the church and for the glory of God.
01:03:55.580 | We pray this for Jesus' sake, amen.
01:04:00.720 | Thank you.
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