The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia: Resistance and Resilience

6. Keys to Postwar Growth

125 Keys to Postwar Growth 06This chapter offers a presentation of a significant component of the missionary enterprise in Ethiopia: the role of urban-based parachurch ministries, like the Youth Center and the Christian Youth Hostel established in the vicinity of the main campuses of the national university. The chapter also seeks to highlight the role and far-reaching consequences of subsidiary developments like the translation and dissemination of the Bible and other scriptural literature, the evangelistic crusade of Billy Graham, and the impact of the installation of Radio Voice of the Gospel by the Lutheran World Federation in 1963. The Translation of the Bible and Its Significance A factor that has received very little attention in relation to the expansion of the evangelical faith in Ethiopia is the role of the distribution of scriptural literature, especially the Bible. The Bible was first translated into Geez in the fifth century A.D., based on the Syriac translation in conjunction with the Greek text.1 Various missionaries have attempted to translate the Bible into Amharic since the days of Peter Heyling. Martin Flad, who initiated missionary activities among the Felashas, developed literature distribution in northern Ethiopia through the dissemination of portions of the Scripture and other books. Following in his steps, others made great efforts to provide the Bible to many Ethiopians through translation. Krapf, for instance, revised Abu Rumi’s Amharic Bible, but its circulation seemed to have been limited mostly to the Protestant missions and the churches that came into close association with them.2 126 The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia Yet the Bible remained virtually unknown to most of Ethiopian society, intriguingly so in the highland regions of Ethiopia, considered to be a bastion of Christianity. The first major attempt to translate the Bible into Amharic was made in the 1930s, when Emperor Haile Sellassie found it imperative that the people should have an informed basis for their faith. The emperor was wise enough to appreciate the fact that the Bible, or versions of it so far translated into Amharic, had not been accepted by the priests, who looked down on it as the product of foreigners.3 As early as 1907, Ethiopian scholars like Aleqa Taye Gebre Mariam had been insisting that the Bible be translated in vernacular languages so that the gospel could be preached in the language people understood.4 The emperor organized a team of scholars, composed of twelve Ethiopians and six expatriates with scholarly and technical expertise, to translate the Bible into Amharic. Among those selected to be part of the team were Belata Merse Hazen Wolde Kirkos, Araya Sellassie, Matthew of the Anglican Church, and Graham of the SIM. The work was interrupted by the Italian invasion but continued afterward. In 1955, a large-print edition of the New Testament was published in Addis Ababa. By 1962, the entire Bible in a smaller-sized edition was printed in London and became available in Addis Ababa.5 Since then the Bible has been printed in many revised editions and distributed to the people by various missionary societies and parachurch organizations. Both the Gideons and the Open Door exerted Herculean clandestine efforts to get the Bible into the hands of the people, especially during the period of the Derg. Moreover, the Bible was sold very cheaply or given away free so that many Ethiopians would have access to it.6 The availability of the Bible to the masses was considered crucial by the leaders and members of the modern evangelical movement. As Million Belete, a man from an Orthodox background and a leading participant of the evangelical movement since the 1950s, observed, “Notwithstanding its significance as a source of instruction to Christian life, the Bible had never been a familiar book for many Ethiopians professing the Christian faith.”7 Stuart Bergsma also notes, “It is an amazing and depressing thought that Ethiopia has had the Bible for almost 1500 years and has done little with it.”8 Bergsma’s point is that although the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had the Bible for centuries, it has done little to make use of it as a basis of its teachings and as an effective tool to transmit the gospel to the Ethiopian people at large.9 Keys to Postwar Growth 127 Informed observers from an Ethiopian Orthodox background acknowledge that the national Church has not encouraged the use of the Bible even for the folks...