FEATURES OF CHRISTIANITY IN WORLD REACH1: PART 1

I thank the Association for the invitation to present a paper on features of Christianity in world reach. For thirty-five years, my ministry was related to the ecumenical mission of the church. The theme conforms to the course called "Mission in a Global Context," which I taught as a visiting lecturer at Phillips, Lexington, and Christian Theological Seminary upon retirement in 1994, and as Affiliate Professor of Mission at CTS since then. The connection of this topic to theological education and to local congregations in the U.S. and Canada is essential today, in my view. The faithful church will welcome signs of Christian unity worldwide, cross-cultural awareness of the conditions of life on other parts of the planet, a degree of political realism about globalization and peace, and responsibility to witness everywhere to the love and justice of God. Barth said that there is "an irrevocable sense of mission even though it sweeps men and women into the catastrophe of all humankind."2

Walter Brueggemann edited a book in 2001 called Hope for the World: Mission in a Global Context, based on an eight-week international seminar at Columbia Theological Seminary, which produced a consensus paper called "The Mission of the Christian Movement in the Twenty-first Century is to Confess Hope in Action."3 In a concluding chapter, he writes that among other pastoral tasks:

The mission is to educate the church about the true situation of U.S. citizenship in an empire of enormous power and huge ambitions, to disabuse the citizenry of any "innocence" on the part of U.S. hegemony. This would include a sustained critical analysis of the ideology, propaganda, and euphemisms that give a human face to empire. . . . The mission of the church in the United States includes strong, intentional connections with the ecumenical church in other parts of the world, especially in those societies that are target for abuse and exploitation by U.S. imperialism - to the end that church solidarity will provide a context for alternative political-economic policies by empire.4

This is reminiscent of the article by Gary Dorrien, also a Union grad, in the March 8 issue of Christian Century called "Axis of One: The 'Unipolarist' Agenda."5 It is in this spirit that I propose we begin to think of Christian faith across the world.6

The Peters Projection map will help us locate places indicated in "world reach." Orality and Text have a place here, because in 1569, Gerardus Mercator gave us the maps we are familiar with in our geography books, if anyone can remember when geography was taught in public school, or that we collected through the years from the National Geographic magazine. Orality, unwritten communication, is transmitted by visibility; namely, the superiority complex of Europeans. The Northern Hemisphere dominates the map and therefore our thinking about the world. By placing the equator two-thirds of the way down the map, Mercator made it possible to see better his little homeland of Flanders. The further you go north, the bigger the countries get. The Congo, formerly Zaire, is nearly five times as big as France and seventy-five times as big as Belgium, but you can't tell that from Mercator's map. India is one and a half times bigger than Greenland, but the old maps show Greenland far bigger, about as big as all of Africa. The Middle East looks insignificant. Brazil, as big as the United States, looks much smaller.

Simon Winchester wrote in the New York Times: "Mercator's influence in creating a whole raft of political attitudes in the centuries since is little short of astonishing."7 This has been a characteristic of the way we have looked at things around the world, not least in the modern missionary movement, and we have to beware of it in looking at features of Christianity today, as if the norm of Christian life and faith is located in the North. Like the Peters Projection Map, the Christian map has changed in recent years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, 80 percent of Christians lived in the North. By the end of the century, half of the world's Christians were Africans, while Christian faith is in recession in Europe and Britain. You can judge for yourselves about the U.S. It is certainly true of Canada, where a poll on whether "religion has an important place in your life" showed only 30 percent who answered in the affirmative. The poll shows a still significant 56 percent in the United States.

CHURCHES OF CONSEQUENCE

I begin by a feature of Christianity I find fundamental: "Where and in what way is it consequential?" This is a more familiar question in Spanish: "¿Donde es la iglesia consecuente? " Where does it matter? How is it consistent with its confession of faith? For this, we have to try to consider the spiritual consequences, the preaching and pastoral ministries, as well as service or witness in the larger community. Where does it appear to an observer that it is relevant to its context? Where does the church identify with the social Utopia of the poor? Does it connect with people's movements resisting globalization, or seeking to make it more equitable? How does it relate to human rights? Is it expressing Christian unity? Does it go beyond interreligious dialogue as a problem to be solved, and see it as cooperation for the common good to interreligious living as "the people of God in the midst of all God's peoples"?8 Does it practice the justice which religious communities deserve of each other? Maybe Christian faith is consequential in some way wherever it is found, and I make that caveat to avoid being misunderstood. Theologically, I understand how that case could be made. But in my experience, these representative churches stand out. I am not making a judgment, only selecting some good examples.

Eglise Evangélique de Polynésie Française

The first church I would raise is Christian faith in the South Pacific. I am more familiar with the Evangelical Church of French Polynesia, particularly Tahiti, and the Evangelical Church of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands than I am with the Methodist Church of Fiji or the Congregational Church of Samoa or some others of the nine churches of the Pacific Conference of Churches. Because of my connection with French Protestantism, it has been possible to participate in the life of these two churches and observe a vitality which I am sure is typical of other South Pacific churches.

The gospel came to Tahiti in 1797 through the London Missionary Society, shortly after the first voyages of Captain James Cook.9 By 1815, nearly the whole population was at least nominally Christian, with the pastor taking on the role of the chief, or vice versa, continuing the traditional authority of the word, the symbolic staff, and the charisma. The parish was the village, and the church was the tribe. In 1842, the French took possession of the Society Islands, imposed Catholicism, and created a de facto identity between Tahitian patriotism and evangelical Christianity. The Paris Missionary Society was given the relationship by the LMS in 1863, and the church of Tahiti and four other island chains became autonomous in 1963. French Polynesia is the only former French colony that has a majority Protestant population, now 54 percent.

Today, l'Eglise Evangélique de Polynésie Française has two hundred thousand members, eighty-one congregations (which are really whole communities), over eighty preaching points in the islands, sixty-five ordained ministers, and three theological schools. It is a member of the Pacific Conference of Churches, where most of the member bodies are English-speaking. It sends its students for graduate study to the ecumenical Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, and then to faculties in Montpellier, Paris, and Strasbourg in France. Many of the women pastors are teachers and top administrators of the church in Papeete.

I admire this church because of its theological integrity, its colorful and celebrative worship and festive community life, as well as its social ministries, which includes political protest. It is frequently involved in consultations dealing with Pacific issues and relations between North and South. It takes the lead in Cevaa, the successor to the Paris Missionary Society since 1971, called "Community of Churches in Mission." Cevaa consists of forty-seven churches, mostly African, but Polynesians have been prominent in the presidency and in hosting meetings. Their leaders are present in the World Council of Churches and the Pacific Conference of Churches. An example of the theological conséquence of this church is its response to a Japanese travel agency that proposed bringing honeymooners to the romantic islands for a Western-style marriage in a Tahitian church. (This practice resulted in as many as two hundred weddings per year at the American Church on Quai d'Orsay in Paris!) The Tahitian church agreed to perform the service (and take the money) on the condition that one of the partners was Christian, a pastor in Japan requested it in writing, the couple intended to participate in a congregation upon their return home, and that they have the French service translated into Japanese.

Of more importance was the formation of a human rights research project for workers in the French nuclear experimentation in the atolls, which went on for many years until 1996. They pressured the French military to release health records to get compensation for illnesses and death caused by radioactivity, in cooperation with the French Protestant Federation in Paris. Leadership for political activism for Tahitian independence comes from the church, as well as education for citizenship relative to the Pacific and to Europe. They mobilize for the right of Polynesians to use their own language in the courts, and they speak out against political corruption. Ministries deal with youth unemployment, drug addiction, and the psychological and spiritual depression to be found in a beautiful land dependent on the tourist industry and, in effect, exclusion from the benefits of globalization. Traditions of the people are kept alive, including the hula danced by the parish women's groups and the men's comic dance to welcome visitors.

Eglise Evangélique en Nouvelle Calédonie et aux Iles Loyautés

Over three thousand miles from Polynesia, in the direction of Australia, lay the Melanesian islands of New Caledonia, named by Captain Cook in 1774. It was taken by the French in 1853 and used for forty years as a colony for convicts, including survivors of the Paris Commune in 1871. The revolutionary socialist Louise Michel was sent there for life, serving six and a half years until freed by a general amnesty. She became such an advocate for the rights and independence of the indigenous Kanaks that there is a museum in her honor in Noumea.

The gospel came first to the island of Mare in 1840 by Samoan evangelists and spread to the main island. This is true all throughout the South Pacific. In the chapel at the Pacific Theological College in Fiji, there is a registry with the names of one thousand missionaries who spread Christianity among the islands in seafaring canoes and longboats, traveling great distances, all of whom were Pacific islanders. An estimated 60 percent of the people of New Caledonia are Roman Catholic; 30 percent are Protestant. Since the Melanesians are only 42 percent of the population, with 37 percent European (mostly from France), it is likely that the majority of Kanaks are Protestant. Maré is still a Protestant tribal territory, refusing its magnificent beaches to the seductions of Club Med. The Earth is a symbolic source of life and peace, the yam is used in traditional gift exchanges of respect and hospitality, and the sea is the origin of much lore in contextual theology.

New Caledonia figured prominently in World War II as a staging area for U.S. troops and a haven for hospital ships. Henry Pitney Van Dusen wrote a book after the war called They Found the Church There, telling stories of Allied pilots shot down over the islands and protected by the Christian population. The land is very rich in minerals, with 25 percent of the world's resource in nickel, plus cobalt, manganese, and so on, and therefore prized by France for economic reasons. It is called an "overseas territory" with minimal self-government. The church has taken an active role in the anti-colonial struggle, most recently armed revolt in 1980 through the Socialist National Liberation Front. The uprising was ferociously repressed, making a national martyr of a church leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, for whom a cultural center has been named by the French government.

The Accords of Matignon in 1988 resulted in an inconclusive referendum in 1998 and the projection of another for 2014. Not only did the church take an active part in this and other justice issues, but the Protestant Federation of France was called upon as a partner to meet with the government authorities in Paris to negotiate a viable and responsible process. In August 2003, President Jacques Chirac visited the territory, and French TV news showed Kanak demonstrators calling for independence. The church ministers with sixty-five pastors in critical situations of racism, unemployment, and the problems of a traditional culture faced with the process of modernization. With other island churches, it is concerned about global wanning and its effect on Pacific habitat. It deplores the injustice of nuclear testing since Bikini on the health and well-being of remote populations. It is active in Cevaa, the WCC, and the PCC, in which a number of Roman Catholic dioceses are founding members.

Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea

Protestantism in South Korea is another setting which I believe is consequent in world Christianity. For one thing, Pentecostalism is the largest Protestant movement in the world, and I read in Géopolitique du christianisme10 that the largest Pentecostal church is in South Korea. But I focus on the churches with an ecumenical connection, like the two major Presbyterian churches and the Methodist Church. They give leadership to the Student Christian Movement (Asian WSCF), the Christian Literature and Broadcasting Association, the National Council of Churches of Korea (NCCK), prominent seminaries and universities like Ewha Women's University, ecumenical lay training academies, Korean Church World Service, and so on.

A layman active in the human rights struggle, Mr. Oh Jae Shik is executive for World Vision, which provides sixty thousand children in North Korea with a daily meal. Former president Kim Dae lung's wife, Lee Hee Ho, was general secretary of the national YWCA. Dr. Park Kyung Seo, after eighteen years as Asia secretary for the World Council of Churches in Geneva, became Ambassador for Human Rights and director of the North-East Asia Peace Institute founded by the Nobel Peace Prize money awarded President Kim. Dr. Park Sang Jung, after retirement from heading the Christian Conference of Asia, is president of an activist group of lawyers and sociologists called People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), overseeing human rights and civil liberties. In 2003, PSPD created a Center for Peace and Disarmament, writing, "We have to talk seriously about the ethical destruction caused by the 'national interests' theory." His wife, Lee Sun Ai, ordained as he was by the Indiana Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), initiated feminist theology in South Korea and elsewhere in Asia through her participation in the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). Ahn Jae Woong, once imprisoned with a life sentence, is general secretary of the Asian office of the World Student Christian Federation in Hong Kong. Former YMCA executive and chair of the Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development, Kang Moon Kyu is one of the eight presidents of the World Council of Churches, between the Eighth General Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998, and the next assembly in February 2006 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) symbolizes this dynamic Christian presence in the Korean peninsula, leading in the resistance to dictators Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Rho Tae Woo throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Many went to prison, including Dr. Kim Kwan Suk, general secretary of the NCCK, and Miss Lee Oo Chung, who protested Japanese sex tourism in South Korea and was sentenced for interfering with the nation's economic development. The so-called "sunshine policy" of diplomatic rapprochement with North Korea has a strong history in the ecumenical wing of the Protestant churches. Pyongyang was the center of Protestant missionary activity under the Japanese a century ago, and many Protestant leaders were refugee members of families divided by the thirty-eighth parallel.

The PROK separated over advocacy questions in 1953 from the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK), which has over two million members in about fifty-six hundred congregations, served by pastors which include two hundred women. The PCK is equally committed to reunification of the Korean Peninsula, peace in the region, the Christian Conference of Asia and the ecumenical movement in all its forms. I am reluctant to pass over the Methodist Church of Korea, which shares in these ministries, except to say that their progressive social action executive Kim Choon Young was a World Council of Churches scholar at Lexington. The World Methodist Council will be hosted by this church of 1.5 million members in 2006.

In the worldwide trend of liberation theology thirty years ago, Minjung theology represented contextualization in the culture and political struggle of South Korea.11 The word literally means "the people en masse" and was based on the laboring people as "the subjects of history." Art, dance, music, legend, and history were interpreted theologically out of a rich heritage. Although the American Christianity brought by missionaries from 1876 onward was conservative and pietistic (the usual date given is 1884), it appealed to the poor and was a form of protest as early as 1898, calling for Korean economic independence and just government. The Japanese rule from 1905 resulted in depolitization and a turning inward, until a "reawakening" in the 1960s. Subsequently, much of Christian social ministry related to trade unions and the rights of workers, primarily young women employed in South Korea's industrial and technological expansion. Minjung is a presupposition today in Korean theology, albeit in new forms, as evidenced in Dr. Kyung Chung Hyun, Associate Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She wrote Struggle to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women 's Theology, as well as publications in Korean. A friend writes: "It is still an uphill struggle against the prevailing culture of mega church in this country."12

About 25 percent of the forty-eight million population of South Korea is Christian, with three million Roman Catholics and twelve million Protestants, according to our colleague Timothy Lee. The great majority are not as described above. Divisiveness has marked the history of the church. Half of all the Presbyterians in the world are Korean, in a hundred different denominations, four of which are members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), and only two of them members of the WCC. Some charismatic preachers have enormous congregations; one has more than half a million members. Faith healing, exorcism, personal morality, and the theology of prosperity predominate. Evangelical missionaries are sent all around the world, notably in the former Soviet Union. Relations in North America are largely in the Billy Graham or Pentecostal tradition. However, from their communities come many pastors and lay persons who become part of the mainstream churches upon immigrating to North America, as Dr. Lee indicated at our last meeting. Of course, I defer to him for corrections or further elaboration of what I have said about the consequent Christian faith of South Korea.

China Christian Council

The People's Republic of China has seen a burgeoning of congregations related to the China Christian Council and the National Three Self Patriotic Movement since 1979. (It must be remembered that there was almost no communication at all with the virtually moribund Christian communities for thirty years!) It is a post-denominational church, building on the almost forgotten heritage of the mainline missions and the early unity of the Church of Christ in China. Even the Seventh Day Adventist descendants participate, because, since Sunday is a workday like any other, church attendance on Saturday is not an issue. There are fifteen thousand organized Three Self churches registered with the government, and thirty to forty thousand house churches related to them. It is common to count twelve hundred persons packed into one of the old church buildings from missionary days, with a large crowd outside listening to the service through open doors and windows.

We are told that an average of six new churches are registered every day, and Sam Pearson writes from Nanjing, "the church in China is growing by leaps and bounds and moving into an ideological vacuum created by Communism and the cultural revolution's weakening of a sense of continuity and culture, which left many people bereft of both the gods of Communism and those of traditional Chinese culture."13 He adds that it does not currently have an adequate leadership to replace the eighty and ninety-year-olds who were educated before the Revolution. It is said that there is an average of one pastor for every ten thousand members. In one region, there is no ordained minister or appointed elder for ninety-eight registered congregations with forty thousand believers. The lack of trained pastors and elders for vast areas of the country presents the danger of fanatical cults and marginally Christian sects, and leaves the churches without evangelization and pastoral care.

Of course, the famous fundamentalist movements like that of Watchman Nee (1902-1972), founder of the Little Flower Church, urged on by conservative Christians abroad, meet in resistance not only to the ruling Communist Party, but also to the structures of government and the ecumenical leadership. No one knows how many independent house churches there are. The churches associated with Bishop K. H. Ting and with our own Disciples of Christ roots cooperate with the Department of Religious Affairs of the United Front and the National People's Congress. In fact, some of the government representatives are new secret Christians who are spiritually supported by the ones they oversee administratively.

This church in China is consequent, not only because of the great number of congregations springing up daily and the number of students in Bible schools and seminaries (twelve hundred in twenty-three institutions), but because of its potential contribution to the life of China.14 There is an intellectual and spiritual interest on the part of university professors and researchers that was called not long ago a "Christian fever" to see philosophy, history and literature in a new light, although few Chinese Christians are prepared for this dialogue. There is a gracious openness to conversation with outsiders. In my opinion, and as Sam indicates, a now-lifeless Marxism prepared the way for not only a metaphysical but also a biblical interest in theology. Some of these intellectuals are called "culture Christians," for whom church membership and the preaching level of the pastors are incompatible. To my knowledge, a trend in theology reflecting the Chinese reality, past and present, is not appearing yet, although every seminary student must study the religious importance of art. What I have heard and read is the offer to seek answers to the problems of the twenty-first century together.

In 1985, the Amity Foundation was organized by the China Christian Council, grouping cooperative church leaders, and the National Three Self Patriotic Movement, with roots in the YMCA and the Student Christian Movement. It is through the Common Global Ministries Board that Sam and Mary Pearson are teaching at the seminary in Nanjing, as did Carolyn Higginbotham, dean of CTS, and her husband Jim until last year. But Amity provides a hundred and seventy English teachers to state universities, most of them from partner churches. A state of the art printing press was provided by the ecumenical community, and over thirty-five million Bibles have been produced to be sold cheaply in churches, along with millions of hymnals and Bible study materials. Amity Foundation is the means of Chinese Christians to serve the people (a slogan of Mao that has lost its meaning for most people), and it is a channel for cooperation in ministry by churches around the world. Amity has sections for blindness prevention, congregational medical clinics, kindergartens or services to the aged, emergency relief work, rural development, teaching resources, social welfare, legal aid, and so on.15 The professional staff numbers fifty-four, with scores of local workers and churchrelated volunteers. The budget supported by churches around the world is eight and half million dollars. A board meeting 5 August 2003 saw the first turn-over of the general secretary's office since Amity was organized in the time of Deng Xiao Ping, but the elderly leadership is still in decision making positions of all aspects of the church's work.

Lesotho Evangelical Church

One of the churches in Africa which I observe to be conséquente is the Lesotho Evangelical Church, in a landlocked country about the size of Maryland or Belgium, completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, which is forty times its size. Its first missionaries were French in 1833, including François Coillard, whom I call the French David Livingstone.16 The London Missionary Society came later, when Basutoland became a British protectorate in 1868. About 80 percent of the population is Christian. The LEC has over three hundred and forty thousand members, with seventy-four pastors, 10 percent of which are women. The church became autonomous in 1964, two years before the country did. It is a major pillar of the national educational system with six hundred and fifty schools from primary to high school, technical college and seminary. Mackenzie Tiheli of the LEC is Minister of Education alongside a Roman Catholic educator.

In 2001, it was estimated that 31 percent of the population is afflicted with the AIDS/HIV pandemic. The church seeks to minister to those living with AEDS in pastoral, informational, and medical ways, and by training for social service. Saturdays are reserved exclusively for funerals. The LEC has two hospitals and five dispensaries in a land where many congregations must be visited on horseback. Lesotho was governed by the military for twenty-three years. Ben Masilo and other LEC leaders suffered torture, exile, and assassination in courageous resistance to dictatorship. The church called for international observers at the latest election and continues to denounce political abuses. It is represented unofficially in parliament by the Basuto Congress Party. In a country where 49 percent are identified as living in poverty, the LEC is on the side of the poor. It is related to Cevaa, with headquarters in Montpellier, France, and to the Council for World Mission (CWM) in London, and to the All Africa Conference of Churches in Nairobi, which has 142 member churches across the continent.

United Congregational Church of Southern Africa

Another African church of consequence is the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, organized in 1967, whose origins date from LMS missionaries in 1799. The UCCSA is spread over five countries, each with a different percentage of: Christians in the respective populations: Botswana (50 percent), Mozambique (30 percent), Namibia (virtually 100 percent), South Africa (80 percent), and Zimbabwe (75 percent). Nineteen languages are used among its 390 congregations, and many rural "outstations," averaging over a thousand members each, for a total of four hundred thousand. Resistance to racism and apartheid marked the history of the church. Chief Albert Luthuli (1898-1967), a lay preacher, was president of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1952 until his death under mysterious circumstances in 1967. He was the first African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1962. He spoke for his church under the apartheid regime, which lasted from 1948 to 1990, when he said, "I have joined my people in the new spirit that moves them today, the spirit that revolts openly and broadly against injustice."17

The priorities of the church's ministries in South Africa, for example, includes serving people living with AIDS/HIV, estimated at 20 percent, combating economic injustice with 37 percent unemployment and 50 percent below the poverty line, calling for cancellation of the external debt, dealing with the growth of cities due to abandonment of villages, confronting violence, widespread crime and the abuse of women and children. There have been women ministers since early in the last century, and training of women for leadership in church and society is at the center of the church's mission. The theological faculty at the University of South Africa in Pretoria is the largest in the world. Their mission: "As a faculty researching, teaching and practicing theology, in dialogue with other religions, we see ourselves becoming the leading institution in distance teaching in South Africa, Africa and the world."18

In Mozambique, the UCCSA responded to the devastating floods of the last couple of years, drought and famine in other places, and in Zimbabwe the reign of Robert Mugabe has caused much suffering and privation. Partners around the world share in this church's ministries, and the general secretary served until last year on the Common Global Ministries Board of the Disciples/UCC, one of six representatives of overseas partner churches. Dr. Desmond van der Water of the UCCSA became General secretary in 2002 of the Council for World Mission (CWM), successor in 1977 to the London Missionary Society, with thirty-one member bodies around the world.

Eglise de Jésus-Christ à Madagascar

In that same part of the world, in the Indian Ocean, the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM), with between four and five million members, makes a significant political and cultural impact on its society. In December 2001, the vice president of the church Marc Ravalomanana was elected president of the Republic, bringing to an end twenty-three years of dictatorial power. Of course, it remains to be seen how democratic his administration will be, but the church has been outspoken against corruption and poverty in the past. The FJKM was formed in 1968 by churches of Reformed and Quaker background and relates to world confessional bodies of both traditions. Earliest implantation of Christianity was by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. The London Missionary Society, representing in a way the beginnings of British exploration and empire, arrived in 1818. The Bible was translated into Malagasy in 1835. As in many places about this time, Protestant missions were welcomed and protected by regional kings and local chiefs, sometimes for political reasons, always with the establishing of schools and clinics. The French took possession in 1886; national independence was achieved in 1960. The Paris Missionary Society educated pastors in France, as Cevaa continues doing to the present time. Of one thousand ministers, 10 percent are women, serving four thousand congregations, as well as Malgache communities in Africa and Europe, and being sent as exchange personnel to partner churches through Cevaa or CWM.

Concerns of the church, in addition to unity of the country after threats of secession in 2001, include violence and exploitation, deforestation of the island, which is about the size of France, canceling the external debt which prevents alleviation of poverty estimated at 71 percent. Over half of the population practices indigenous religions and 7 percent Islam, making community building an important part of evangelization. Recent pastoral emphases call for a renewal of prayer life among the congregations and conciliar cooperation with Roman Catholics and the large Lutheran Church related to German and North American partner churches.

Eglise du Christ au Congo

The Church of Christ in Congo (ECC) groups sixty-two denominations and former mission bodies in a single Protestant church structure of seventeen million members. Humanitarian assistance has been significant since the civil wars of the 1990s and influx of Rwandan refugees and rebel or foreign armies. Viewed by the World Council of Churches as a model of Christian unity when it was formed in 1970, the ECC enables Protestants to have a common witness and a united voice in relations with the government as a recognized religious body along with the predominant Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Kimbanguist Church. For the Disciples of Christ Community, one of the principal supporters of the unity, it was a longed-for outgrowth of the Protestant Council of Congo and the ecumenical ministry of CWBM/UCMS missionary Emory Ross (1887-1973). Dr. Itofo Jean Bokeleale became the executive in 1968 and longtime bishop after the ECC was formed. Churches related to the American Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist, and other mainline denominations, mostly in North America, are among the member communities and provide committed leadership.

Dr. Marini Bodho is the general secretary of the ECC, teaches Hebrew Scripture at the Protestant University, and has been President of the National Senate since the creation of a transitional government for the troubled country 15 July 2003. Denominational interests and relations abroad continue to challenge the unity, which remains problematic to outsiders. The ECC supports Interchurch Medical Assistance programs, refugee and reconciliation services, evangelization, participation and rights of women, and so on. Roman Catholics number 40 to 50 percent, and were favored under Belgian colonialism; 25 percent are Protestants, stemming largely from Anglo-Saxon missions; 9 percent are Kimbanguists, from a charismatic prophet jailed in the 1920s; 2.5 percent are Muslim, influenced by traders; and 10 percent are "others," though African traditional religion is present to some extent in all spiritual groups. The Protestant University of Congo, with Disciples scholar Dr. Ngoy Boliya as president, has forty-five hundred students; two hundred and seventy-five of them are in the department of theology. A statue of Patrice Lumumba, national hero, stands not far away at the entrance to the city of Kinshasa.

1 This paper was written for the Association of Disciples for Theological Discussion (ADTD) meeting 10-12 October 2003, at Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Oklahoma. ADTD is sponsored by the Division of Higher Education of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. and Canada. This is the first of a two-part series, which will conclude in Encounter 65, no. 4 (Autumn 2004).

2 Karl Earth, Epistle to the Romans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 419.

3 Walter Brueggemann, ed., Hope for the World: Mission in a Global Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 13-23.

4 Ibid., 156-7.

5 Gary Dorrien, "Axis of One: The 'Unipolarist' Agenda," The Christian Century (8 March 2003): 30-35.

6 Readers are referred to the Common Global Ministries Board of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. and Canada for partnerships in mission represented here.

7 Simon Winchester, "The Mapmaker to Blame for Distorted Worldviews," The New York Times, 23 January 2003, sec. B, p. 9.

8 D. Preman Niles, Keynote Address: "Toward the Fullness of Life: Intercontextual Relationships in Mission," London Consultation, 14-19 April 2002.

9 Cf. Henri Vernier, Au Vent des Cyclones: Missions Protestantes et Eglise Evangélique à Tahiti et en Polynésie Française (Paris: Les Bergers et les Mages, 1986).

10 Raphaël Liogier and Blandine Chélini-Pont, eds., Géopolitique du christianisme (Paris: Ellipses, 2003), 156.

11 Cf. Kim Yong-Bok, Messiah and Minjung (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 1992).

12 Park Sang-Jung, private correspondence, 27 August 2003.

13 Samuel Pearson, private correspondence, 1 September 2003.

14 Cf. Janice Wickeri, ed., Love Never Ends: Papers by K.H. Ting (Nanjing: Amity Printing Co., 2000).

15 Katrin Fiedler, "Pursuing Legal Support," Amity Newsletter (April/June 2003).

16TIm Couzins, Murder at Morija (Johannesburg, South Africa: Random House, 2003).

17Albert Luthuli, "The Road To Freedom Is Via The Cross," 1952 press release, Biographical Website.

18University of South Africa website, August 2003.

William J. Nottingham

Affiliate Professor of Mission

Christian Theological Seminary

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