What Challenges Face Church in Africa
Diocesan Press Service. June 6, 1966 [44-2]
What challenges face the church today in the new nations of Africa?
While on a speaking tour in the United States this Spring, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Huddleston, Bishop of Masasi, Tanzania, outlined the three challenges he feels must be met if the church is to survive: nation building, nationalism and independence.
Most of Africa, stated Bishop Huddleston, is similar to his Diocese in East Africa, predominately rural and agrarian. It is poor, but the poverty is that of underdevelopment, "a hopeful kind of poverty," he said, "for it can be cured by development."
In such an area the missionary task of the church is rapidly changing and it must find new forms if it is to move forward. "In my view," Bishop Huddleston stated, "the best way for the church to extend its influence, to win people, and to be the evangelistic force that it has got to be is by the process of identification." The Englishman's identification with the African Diocese that chose him as bishop was apparent in his easy use of the pronoun "we" as he talked of Africa and its problems.
He feels that the church must be a part of the process of nation building in the new nations of the world. When it becomes involved in the concerns of the people, as for example agriculture, it should do so as a part of the development program of the region, not by building another specifically "Christian" institution. "It would be the church's contribution to the development of the nation," he explained. He also stated that the church should encourage its young people to serve in a program such as the Peace Corps, which is contributing to the development of the new nations. He feels that a Christian in such a program can often make a more valuable witness than in working for a "Church" organization or institution.
The second area in which the church can help in such nations is in the conflict between East and West and its side effects. "Africa is now in the process of being torn apart by this ideological conflict," Bishop Huddleston said."And that is not too strong a statement." Africa must have aid if it's to develop, he explained: if it goes to the East, it is "Communistic"; if it goes to the West, it is "Capitalistic". "All we really want to be is African," he continued. The one way the church can help is by being the church and by not being thrown off balance by political events in these countries. "The function of the church," he concluded, "is not to be a bulwark against Communism."
Bishop Huddleston then talked of the need for the African Church to become increasingly independent, for this is the only way the church can become truly African. By this he does not mean an African racial church, but a church that is African for the right reasons, because being African it has gifts to give to the whole church. Among these gifts he included adoration, worship, the sense of community, simplicity and the nearness to the reality of God. How to export them is, however, a real problem. The Bishop, in conjunction with his companion diocese, Milwaukee, is hoping to send one of his experienced African priests to work on the Milwaukee diocesan staff where he would be used in such a way as to bring these qualities into the life of that Diocese.
In looking to the future, this ascetic looking member of the Community of the Resurrection, an Anglican religious order, stated that he hoped to work himself out of a job: to turn the Diocese of Masasi over to an African bishop. He does not, however, want to turn over a Diocese that is tied by heavy financial obligations to England or the United States. In order to accomplish this, he has set the Diocese the goal of complete support of African clergy and intends to ask for and accept outside aid only for those projects which will make the Diocese and its people more self-sufficient, both financially and psychologically. A project such as an agricultural school or a nurses training school will increase the power of the African to control his own destiny, increase his dignity, and increase his standard of living. It will also aid in the process of nation building, the necessity of which Bishop Huddleston continually stressed. (M. R. G.)