Communicating Faith

16. Communicating Faith in Africa: Yesterday and Today

248 16 Communicating Faith in Africa Yesterday and Today Victorine Mansanga, SND Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. Mark 16:15 Go therefore, make disciples to all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. Matthew 28:19–20 You shall be my witness . . . till the end of the earth. Acts 1:8 This is how Jesus passed on to his disciples the mission he has received from his Father: he asked them to carry forth the mission to the end of the world. From these verses it is clear that Jesus entrusts his disciples with a mission and that this mission is fourfold: to go all over the world, to make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them the good news. Guided by the Holy Spirit , the apostles accomplished faithfully their mission.1 They organized the 1. See Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], 1965, 4; and Gaudium et Spes [Pastoral Constitution on the Church], 1965, 10. Communicating Faith in Africa 249 church, and “by their oral preaching, by example, and by ordinances”2 they entrusted to the bishops the divine mission they received with two recommendations : to hold fast to the traditions that they had learned either by their preaching or by letters and to defend and keep the faith.3 Today Jesus continues to call disciples and send them all over the world for the same mission. His words echo in the hearts of his chosen disciples “to go and make disciples .” The church holds fast to her mission and in her turn she sends forth disciples to communicate the good news. It is a circular movement of evangelizing and being evangelized, of being on mission and being sent forth for mission. Many people have accepted Jesus’ mission and have gone out to the end of the world to bring the good news. Agentes (1965) recognizes the grandeur of the church’s mission and highlights the characteristics of her missionary activity. The document states that “the church is missionary by nature ”4 and that the main purpose of her missionary activity is evangelization and implantation of the church in new places for her expansion. Her main “means of implantation is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”5 The spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ is not implemented in the same way everywhere. It takes into account the local church, the people, the culture, the traditions, and the signs of the time. In other words, it is shaped according to its social, religious, cultural, economic, and political context. It follows therefore that the good news is more and more being communicated in a world in mutation and of great upheavals and that the “high tide” moves people from North to South and vice versa. Consequently, the cultural encounter between different peoples becomes a great challenge in many different parts of the world. Thus, the issues relating to Africa that are dealt with here apply in many other countries. This chapter sets the context in which faith is communicated in Africa. It attempts to demonstrate how the church has accomplished her mission of communicating faith and the effect this has had on African people and societies . It claims that to be effective in Africa, faith should evidently be communicated as “good news.” That is, it should follow the footsteps of Jesus the master and the Sender who proclaimed the good news of the kingdom 2. Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum [Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation], 1965, 7. 3. See Dei Verbum 8; Gaudium et Spes 11. 4. Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes [Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity], 1965, 5, 35. 5. Ad Gentes 6. 250 Victorine Mansanga in words and deeds. To be able to meet this objective, I shall do three things. First, I analyze the context in which faith is communicated in Africa. Second , I scrutinize inculturation, which is one of the main challenges of communicating faith. I assert that to be successful the message of the Gospel should be incarnated in African cultures. Third, I outline the way the good news is proclaimed in Africa. As elements within this outline, first I examine the nature of evangelization, before scrutinizing the proclamation of the good...