From the Missionary Church to the local Church. The Methodological problems of Evangelization (2)

8/10/2019 From the Missionary Church to the local Church. The Methodological problems of Evangelization (2)

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FROM THE MISSIONARY CHURCHTO THE LOCAL CHURCH:

THE METHODOLOGICALPROBLEMS OF EVANGELISATION

PROf. SAMUEl T. L YEMEY

PILGRIMS PUBLICATIONS2001


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Copyright @ 2001 Pilgrims Publications

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

used or repro deuced in any manner whatsoever

without the written permission of the publisher.

Published in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

ISBN: 978 - 35362 - 6 5

Published in Port Harcourt,. Nigeria

234567 - 02 01 00 99 98

For any information, comment or contact with the

Author,

Please write to:

Archbishop Prof. Samuel T. L. Verney

P. O. Box 6865

CRESTA 2001

Johannesburg

South Africa.

E-mail: [email protected]

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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DEDICATION

To all Africans who cannot allow anybody to

define, identify or label them in Jesus Name:

To those that are not ashamed of whom they

are and have conscience of their dignity, humanity,

freedom and self-worth;

I dedicate this study.


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AKNOWLEDGEMENT

Though I did all the work myself, it is kind to acknowledge the help of my office in the

typing of it and the contact with the printer.

Deep gratitude to Rev. Evangelist Peter Pretorius. The Founder and CEO of Jesus

Alive Ministries International in South Africa, whom God has urged me to serve as a

missionary and Crusade Manager, for the wonderful blessing he has been to me.

Gratitude to Carolina Christian University, Campus of Pilgrims Theological

Seminary in Aba, Nigeria, for the opportunity of lecturing to their students which gave

me the enthuse of publishing these pages.

Thanks to The Good Samaritan World Missionary Association,

The Good Samaritan Episcopal and Charismatic Church and to The African Episcopal

and Charismatic Conference, for allowing, respectively their President and Founder, Arch

Bishop and Chairman, to be in the mission field for so long.

Prof. Samuel T. L. YEMEY

Arch Bishop

11


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PREFACE FROM THE AUTHOR

The discordance between the neo-testamentary conception of the church and its

situation in Africa puts any sound observer into confusion. Hence, our ecclesiophylia

causes us to look for an ecclesiological homeostasis.

To guarantee good health, integral and stable growth to the twenty-first century's

church, our analysis on this latter starts from it's origin and it's actualsituation, before

proposing steps for it's future. This is expressed in biological terms when we look at the

church as the body of Christ. Also have we postulated from the genetics science to

establish nativity principles for the local church called ecclesio-genetics.

That of the African present church as a result of western missionary evangelization

reveals that our church has a stigma. Hence the cloudiness ofit's social testimony and the

multiform crisis of Christian numeric majority countries.

Therefore, the era of colonial, empiric, missionary and provisory churches is over.

It is time for the inductive ecc1esiology, the birth of a local church observing some

ecclesio-genetical principles, which are unveiled in this study.

It is important to note that these pages were originally conceived for French

speaking readers when I was lecturing in The Democratic Republic of Congo.

After my lectures as a visiting professor at Carolina Christian University, Campus

of Pilgrims Theological Seminary in Aba, Nigeria, the increasing demand of my texts

encouraged me to translate them in English for students, scientific and academic staff of

this institution, as well as any African theologian and intellectual who is conscious of his


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humanity and does not allow anybody outside himself to define him, give any sense to his

life, history and future or label him and depersonalize him in Jesus Name.

Myself have directly translated the quotations in the following lines in English, in

order to facilitate the reading, as well as the titles of books in the notes. So, as you read

through different chapters of this presentation you will understand the epistemology of

western missiology exercised on African soil against the one of Christ and his apostles on

one hand, and you will also be inspired by our search for an original African philosophy

of missions for the new millennium, on the other hand.

Samuel YemeyPort Harcourt,

November 20, 2001


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FOREWORD

It is now an answered prayer and a show of great joy for me to present "From the Missionary Church

to The Local Church: The Methodological Problems of Evangelisation" to my students and all

resource persons engaged in the development oftheological education. This book contains lectures

designed by Archbishop Samuel T. L.Yemey, an erudite professor of University with ten years experience

in mission fields in Africa and abroad.

These lectures are hereby recommended for official use to the masters and doctorate students of

The African Mission Board, Carolina Christian University, Campus of Pilgrims Theological Seminary,

Aba, Nigeria, within the confines of evangelism and church developmental strategies. Beside the

historical and factial presentation of the lectures, coupled with high academic input by the Archbishop are

sinai-quaman to the development of the African church's theology and, of course, of great pridal

relevance to the African scholar and theologian.

From my scholarly experience, I have discovered several salient factors which are extremely

necessary before any type of growth can take place in the church via evangelism or missions through

these lectures. Leadership training and direction which dovetail with the theme of this booklet are equally

important.

The faculty, its management and students who had the privilege of enjoying these lectures directly

from the Archbishop, requested for him to be our visiting professor, which he gave consent to by the

grace of God. Ifyou want to be a person of dignity, read this booklet.

Bishop Prof. Cosmos Okpo, FF, Ph.D President & Founder of Pilgrims theological Seminary, Nigeria Chancellor of

Carolina Christian University AMB


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TABLE OF CONTENTSDedicationi

Acknowledgementii

Preface:.iii

Foreword .v

Introduction: 1

Church and Evangelization, Precedence andPosteriority.. 4

Evangelical hybridism of Christ and Apostles 7

Evangelical Daltonism of Western Missionaries 11 The genetics of the Local Church:.. 18

Notes... 21


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INTRODUCTIONThe cultural imperialism of the Western world on Christian churches of Africa, having

characterized the first and double centenarian of the civilization of Africa to the point that

Christianity is being confounded with thoughts current which have sometime served to

express it. Is it not reasonable today to pose the problem of the originality of Christianity

regarded as a historical and revealed religion?

Besides the problem of enculturation and development, the problem of the local

church is comprised in the three weights of the African theological research today. (1)

We speak about it in the context of our lecture at the Pilgrims Theological

Seminary at Aba, Nigeria as we entitled our intervention as follows: "From The

Missionary Church to The Local Church: The Methodological problems of

Evangelisation".

Concretely, it is a question of the obliged itinerary for the centenarian churches of

Africa. A dialectical marching toward the birthing of a church, our church. Areal

ecc1esial perestroika'. Genetics of a church coming out of set paths, a praxis enclosing it

in a kind of sleep not only dogmatic but also cultural, which fragilizes it.

A church that takes into consideration the being-inworld and being- together,

proper to its membership.

Tomake the intelligence of the 'How' of this ecclesiogenetical move, we articulate this

expose in four parts, last three ofwhich are disposed in Hegelian way in order to confront the

ideological presupposition as well as the hermeneutical categories of Western Missionaries with

those of Jesus Christ and the Apostles to speak about the respective methods of evangelism in


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order to invent those that can and must give at the ecclesiological maternity, birth, to a local

church.

We speak in the first part, of: "Church and Evangelisation: Precedence and

Posteriority". The second treats: "The Evangelical Hybridism of Christ and the Apostles".

And the third is abou t: "Evangelical Daltonism of Western Missionaries" and the fourth one:

"The Genetics of the Local Church."

CHAPTER ONE CHURCH AND EVANGELISM: PRECEDENCE AND

POSTERIORITY

Itis like saying, what is the oldest between the egg and the chicken? Defining again,etymologically the 'ecclesia' seems to us not opportune as long as the new testament

doesn't give for it a definition and we recognize or acknowledge three dimensions to it, namely:

Communitarian, Historical and Institutional.

The Missionary Church as well as the Local Church, being both of them churches, it

would be less honest to escape from this obligation both logical and methodological. The

ecclesiological exodus from one church to another not being ajump into the unknown, .it is

convenient, firstly, to surround the relations, linking, on one hand, the three dimensions of the

church and, on the other hand, church and evangelism.

Moreover, one cannot speak of a local church without a certain ecclesio-genetics,

meaning, without principles of the nativity of a church. In fact! How does a church come to

existence? Which precedes the other? And which succeeds the other between church and

evangelism?

The polysemy, which holds the ecclesia in a grip of sorts, is function to the conception

that we have of it. However, should we accept or recognize with Jean Hoffman in his study on


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"The Church and its Origin" that in the septuagint the word designates the political assembly of

the city. The gathering of people who decide what they have to do. Yet that of Israel is gathered

to listen to the word of God who has convoked or called out; who is present in its mildest and to

acquiesce to it in faith. Word and presence, which confer to Israel, its identity as a people that is

'convoked' and 'gathered' outside all usual gathering."

These characteristics are also applied to the Christian early community, which had the

conscience of being a convoked assembly, by God, Christ Jesus. One can therefore, understand

that for the early Christian community, evangelism precedes the church.

In fact, the church is conceived and presented as a social reality of histofy like othersocial groupings, religious or not. It understands and defines itself as a community ofbelievers in

reference to a founding event: the revelation of God in Jesus Christ."

Karl Barth holds that the word "Church" is clearless and causes a quantity of

misunderstandings. It is good to avoid it and interpret it so logically by the word 'community' or

'Christianity' as a convoked assembly founded and ordered by the word of God or finally by the

expression 'communion of saints' .4 The preaching of the word embodies a precedence in

comparison to the convoked assembly of God. This affirmation imposes itself when we make

ours the definition of Evangelism given by Paul Tillich as follows: "Communicating the gospel

is presenting it to people in a manner that they are able to decide themselves for or against Him

..." All that we can do is to make a true decision possible". 5

Paul Tillich confirms here our position that faith is a free act and choice, yet this

evangelism is done also according to the methods and the canon of the ecc1esial institution,

which brings the good news to a situated people. The faith that is conveyed is>canonical, and

institutional. A faith ofthe church that-says in her manner, God and Christ. Historical reality and


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community of believers, the church bears at each stage of her history, the mark and the weight of

an antecedent history, which has shaped her institutions, practices and languages.

There is a dialectical circularity not only between different dimensions of the ecclesia

but also between 'church and evangelism'. Actually, evangelism creates the church, and the

church creates evangelism. Moreover, believers shape the church and the church. shapes

believers at her convenience, .and, conditions them.

Olivier Delabrosse affirms the precedence of evangelism and the posteriority of the

church saying; "The church is born from the word, word of God who speaks ... evangelising is

sounding the word in the middle of history. Practice, words and institutions result in the processfrom the received faith and are exercised. And faith itself can only be birthed out from the heard

and accepted word.:" Therefore, a theological reflection on the local church in our context, will

have a dialectical double task of discerning what the church is today from her concrete

realization in our land through the missionary evangelism and interpreting in a critical manner

this realization from the real essence of the ecc1esia.

The methodological problems of evangelism will transpire from this analysis which in

fact understands evangelism as an anthropological and theological Hermeneutic of the Holy

Scriptures, which is tributary to the ideological presuppositions, and the Hermeneutical

categories of the' evangeliser, meaning, the interpreter.

To lucidity our position, we postulate from natural sciences especially, biology. In fact,

if we use the paulinian metaphor of the church as the body of Christ, we shall agree that there is

no human body that comes to existence 'ex nihilo' apart from God's creation. Genetics only can

scientifically explain birth process. Hence we believe that the local church's birth, as well, can be

explained by what we call the ecclesio-geneties, whereby, the- gospel preached by the


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evangelisers and the host culture constitute the two parents (or gene givers) of the church in the

ecclesio-genetical hybridism.


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CHAPTER TWO

EVANGELICAL HYBRIDISM OF CHRIST AND APOSTLES

God Himself is the perfect agent of communication, having His linguistics and semiology. He

has revealed Himself to man in different manners, and in a specific way, through the incarnation

of the verb, out of the burden of solidarisation with the addressee of His message. His will was to

save man. But to get to this, despite His Almightiness, He chose the way of the incarnation of the

eternal verb.

It is this descending, this enculturation that Jesus adopted, putting Himself in the shoes

of His listeners in order to be understood. In fact, the preaching of Jesus Christ had essentiallyJewish form. James Stalker states, "It is characterized by images, figures of style and the

parables or rhetorical forms of His time". Stalker in his book entitled "The Life of Jesus Christ'

adds that, "Jesus Christ had been an attentive observer, liking the nature, colours, flowers, birds,

the growth of trees, the change of seasons... He had observed with so much caution attitudes 0 f

men in different aspects or domains of their live: religion, business, family ... His preaching

was rendered vivid by this kind of references, hence, full of colours, movement and

varied forms."

It is obvious that the method of evangelism of Jesus Christ was the enculturation

of His message beside His assimilation with His listeners even in their language.

According to the principle of the identification of people of like minds by Empedoc1es, It

is these women and men, poor and miserable who were the first disciples of Jesus that

were finding comfort in this am-ha-arez who was coming from their milieu. Thus,

Professor Mushila Nyamakank affirms the proletarian origins of the New Testament and

regards the earlier church as a community of faith, sharing and misery."


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This methodology of evangelism finds its justification in the ideological presuppositions

and the hermeneutical categories of Jesus. If besides Mushila, we look at the ~ideological

presuppositions as the background that stands behind a discourse, a text or a given praxis and the

hermeneutical category as any concept which has to be deciphered as in the case of a key word

for a text, a code of philosophical system or any other which is utilized

as a reference or a criteria, it is possible to say that His method of evangelism was sustained by

His ideological presuppositions which were: love (see John 3 v 16, 13 v

34-35) and liberation (Luke 4 v 16 - 20); and His hermeneutical category was the will of His

father. Here is the whole issue, love and liberation prepares one to humility and to theconsideration of the evangelised as a person, created in God's image, and to the respect of his

culture no matter which tool is utilized to proclaim the Good news.

Professor Mengi remarks in his doctoral thesis entitled "Protestant Missionary

Evangelisation and the Congo Culture. The rootedness of the gospel into a culture" that,

this love goes beyond traditions and the law, beyond the culture, as Jesus showed it by the

healing that He performed on a Sabbath day. Love, then, revolutionizes the comportment of the

cultural being. It is this possibility of transcendence, of enrichment, that must be communicated

through evangelisation as the disciples of Jesus Christ experienced it on the day of the

Pentecost."

On the Pentecost day, the Holy Spirit reveals Himself a partisan of enculturation. He

descends upon the disciples in a crowd of diverse cultural origin, actually, the whole Middle East

and the Northern Africa, in the Mediterranean bassin known at that time. This episode marks the

beginning of the evangelisation. The twelve preached the unique word of God under the

impulsion of the Holy Spirit but each listener hears the publication of God's marvels in his own


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language (Acts 2 vII). vVe all know the result of that evangelisation and the life of the church,

which was born thereafter. In fact, the birth of the early church comesfrom the hybridization of

two parents. The divine message, crossed to the host culture, giving in the first filiation,

according to the first law of Mendel of the Uniformity of hybrids, a balanced church, non

discriminatory, engaged and engaging to the point that there is no indigence in her (Act 4 v 35).

It is an ecclesio - genetics, a hybridism of evangelical dominance and cultural

recessivity. Peter and Paul followed the footsteps of their master by enculturing the evangelical

message. We lucidly perceive that the whole trinity has encultured his message in order to

communicate with man. So we wonder in the name of which God these Western Missionariesdid this dummy evangelisation of Africa. Wehave indulgence for some of them such as

Americans, British, Swedish and so forth because they were absent

on the day of Pentecost.


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CHAPTER THREETHE EVANGELICAL DALTONISM OF WESTERN MISSIONARIES

The Daltonism is a fault in the vision of colours. Often, a Daltonian is merely unable to

distinguish red from green. There are very severe cases which can go as far as the confusion of

more or less all colours. The study of families shows that Daltonism is hereditary. 9

If the biological Daltonism consists of a confusion of two or allcolours, the theological

and the evangelical Daltonism of those who had the merit of depersonalising

our people consists of a partial or total confusion of cultures. We are going to demonstrate it like

we did for Jesus Christ, attempting to bring out their ideological

even anthropological presuppositions and hermeneutical categories as evangelism is being

perceived as a theological and anthropological hermeneutic.

The gospel came into Africa through colonization. The essence of colonization is

domination and its finality is exploitation. So we agree with Professor KitiKila that the

missionary position in that period was not realistic. It was even a theology at the service of

colonization.I'' If one has to find out the ideological presupposition of the evangeliser of that

time, an adventure who was discovering day after day the realities of a world that

was unknown to him, yet, with scandalous theological potentialities ignored even by natives of

Africa, we believe that these surely were: exploitation, domination, oppression and alienation.

The hermeneutical categories were: exotic race and tabula rasa. These two pillars constitute the

very foundation of their evangelistic method. This is why KitiKila says that Missionaries living

in the Colonial era, era of the oppression of blacks by whites, had a biblical reading, which

complied with the spirit of the moment.!' The following verses of Senghor deserves to be quoted:

"They have come

Bible around their arms


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Guns in the hand

Dead have piled up

People have wept And drums have stopped."12

Guilty complicity and legitimation of exploitation, oppression and alienation in Jesus

name. Founded' on these kinds of bases, the methods of missionary evangelisation consisted in:

1. The Deculturation:

This is a ethno-cid of the host culture by the evangeliser's culture. This means the

evangeliser's invades so much the evangelised one to the point of killing it. It is a

negative method.We see the issue, this method was sustained by a wrong conception of the black

man as a tabula rasa instead of accepting that they didn't know much about his history,

his life, .his thought, his culture, yet, over esteemed the western culture as the over-

esteem was founded on an ontological, epistemological and theological reduction of the

black man. The truth is that there has never been a tabula rasa man in the world.

Everyman as a dasein; is "bornat a cross- road of a series of determinisms. These -aregeographical, biological, theological, social and so forth. Every human' being is a

cul tural being.

In the Psycho pedagogical domain, for notions as abstract as God, do the active method

of teaching not advise that, the summary of a lesson must emanate from the students, instead of

being a recipe from the teacher?

The same in andragogy, an adult or an elderly person can never be a tabula rasa.

Hence, the Weltanschauung of missionaries had faken their anthropological conception of the

evangelised black man; regarded as a descendant of Cham, the cursed one.


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2. The Legalism:

A logical consequence of de-culturation, the legalism characterized the missionary

evangelisation. Eugene Nida states it so well in his book entitled: "Customs And

Culture" as follows: "certain missionaries have preached signs of new life in Christ as diverse

things as the abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, Beta nut, Kola nuts and so forth ...The Bible was

sometimes utilized to sustain the superiority, even, the supremacy of the right of the white

world.":" There is here confusion between the gospel and moral discipline.

3. The Acculturation:

This is the adoption, even the appropriation by the evangelised of the culture that invades himand desertifies his own.

Being like a white is firstly proofing social ascension, being converted to Christianity

coming out ofthe inferior conditiorr.of .the primitive. The power of the white is dispensed

through education and faith. The first converted would be attributed immediate advantages: such

as being employed, becoming managers or employees at commercial counters. So, to be

converted means to abandon customs and traditions.

4. The Assimilation and social discrimination:

One of the consequences of acculturation is the assimilation of the Evangelised to the

Evangeliser. This means that africans were firstly assimilated to the nationality ofthe society that

evangelised their respective regions. For instance, Kimpianga Mahania affirms at the tenth

theological week of Kinshasa that, in the lower- Zaire region, the manianga territory was

regarded as swedish by other missionary sccieties.> The second consequece was the social

discrimination between christians on the mission settlement and pagans in the village, between

the protestant gentleman and the civilized catholic. The other consequence is the paternalism,


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which reduces the african down to the state 1of eternal infance and snobbish admiration of the

missionary. We can then ask ourselves whether there has been any evangelisation of africa.

These few methods, which we have mentioned, result from the ideological

presuppositions and the Hermeneutical categories of the missionary church for

which, the purposes of the mission was: conversion of infidels, plantation or implantation of a

church and causing the church to be born, helping her to grow up in the way that she could really

and fully be herself and responsible in Christ alongside other Churches as Ngindu Mushete stated

in his article entitled "The New African Theologies: Between the European Heritage and The

African Culture." He mentions three theories:(a) The theory of the salvation of Souls or the conversion of the infidels.

(b) The theory of the implantation developed since 1920.

(c) The theory of the adaptation.

These theories pose again the problem of ecclesiogenetics and are tributary to the same

ideological presuppositions and the hermeneutical categories. Meaning, the same daltonism. The

consequences of the missionary evangelisation are inevitable and betray both the genotype and

the phenotype ofour present churches, which are in exodus and are going through the wilderness

heading to the promise land - which is the local church.

Like in Daltonism, our present churches are stigmatised because resulting from

stigmatized genotypes. The missionary Gospel rests upon a wrong anthropological conception of

the evangelised, on one hand, and on the other, the accultured evangelised has a wrong

conception of himself and of his culture badly disparaged by his father - the missionary.Both of

them carrying the stigma of the confusion of cultures. The hybridisation or the crossing of

these two garnets will give in the first filiation or generation, seventy five percents


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(750/0) of stigmatised Daltonians and twentyfive (25%) of normal offspring as illustrated

in the following diagram .

3/4 of the members of our churches are Daltonians. They have a confusion of cultures, They

have fear andshame of their veritable identity. In fact, speaking about the consequences of the

theory of the implantation, Ngindu Mushete declares "one kno s the consequences, the theory or

the implantation theories have birthed out paralysed communities without creativity, without

originality, praying with borrowed words, thinking l2Y procuration transiting through Rome,

Paris, London, Bonn and other European capitals";" even NewYork. V4 of members of ourchurches are difficultly normal, meaning, without confusion either of colours or capable to,

objectively, criticize the missionary work on our soil and undress the people of God from the

inherited stigma from missionaries and initiate a liberation action of Africa by elaborating a new


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ccclesio-genctics and an inductive ecc1esiology in order to bring to existence the local church,

the church of our land, the church of Good Samaritans. One would notice that we have not

mentioned things like the testimony of life, a vivid preaching, open air campaign, the liturgy of

the word, teachings through mass medias, sacraments, pastoral dialogue, handing out of tracts,

educational systems, ..:, which we regard not as methods bu t ways or tools of evangelisation.

Now, which genetics for the local church?


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CHAPTER FOURTHE GENETICS

OF THE LOCAL CHURCH:

Eugene Nidawrites "the development of the local church and the handling by itself of the

responsibilities is the real purpose of the missionary work which is the response to the order of

Jesus: 'Go ye and make all nations my disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son

and the Holy spirit'. And the advice of Paul to timothy: "entrusts that to faithful people who

would be able to teach it to others" .16

The birth of the local church is a particular realization

of the church. It is imminent, irresistible and inevitable. It must replace the historical, empiric

and provisory churches, which do not possess the Kingdom and cannot be confounded with it.

After having confronted the salvific work of Christ with what one is convinced to call,

issionary evangelisation, we want to propose in this section which intends to be, not only a

critical appreciation of antagonists in presence but also their resultant and dialectized

comprehension

of evangelisation, some Genetical steps which can lead to the birth of the local church that is in

gestation.

The evangelisation or the proclamation of the good news is a hermeneu tic of the will

of God for men created in His image. Every hermeneutic like every scientific practice carries

extra scientific values. The fake objectivity and the acclaimed neutrality of sciences are

abandoned to the benefit of the engaged-science, affirms Muene Batende, prefacing the study of

Justin Bukasa Kabongo entitled" Engagement of extra-scientific values in the sociology' of

Alvain Gouldner}} .17


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Moreover, the historical materialism applied to the study of the text, allows one to

discover the mechanisms of the functioning of the language of the literary production in

particular, which is closely linked to ideology, politics and economy."

The methods of evangelisation are deeply tributary to the ideological presuppositions

and the hermeneutical categories of the evangelisers. One can then ask: which evangelisation?

For which local church? The answer is not in the methodology to be utilized, but, firstly and

mostly in the person of the evangeliser himself. It is not a question of rethinking the methods and

mostly recreating ministers.

In fact, if the church springs out of the word, if faith comes from hearing and hearingfrom the word of God, the priority should be the training of the evangelisers according to a

profile, which responds to the exigencies of our society. This task belongs to the trainers and the

leaders of our theological training institutions. Besides, the evangeliser of the local church must

be a prepared man and toolled up at two levels. One, intellect and scientific education. Two,

moral and spiritual education.

On the intellectual and scientific level, he must study and master very well the

language and the whole culture of the group or the people that he is going to evangelise.

For Africa, the evangeliser must understand the basic socio-religious beliefs: African ontology,

its cosmology, its theodicy, its anthropology, its eschatology, its conception ofGod, the ancestor's

worship and so forth ..

Beforestudying the culture (hat one will face, he must know very well his own culture

and have a solid theologicaleducation which willenable him to distinguish between what is

gospel and what is tradition or cultural element so that he cannot confound evangelisation and

acculturation or civilization or we'sternisation or colonization.


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His ideologicalpresupposition would be, besides those of Jesus, love and equality of

human race (e.g. Experience of Peter in Cornelius house) and his hermeneutical categories

would be liberation and Emancipation. Therefore, his method will be enculturation. Hence an

hybridisation of two pure races willtake place. On one hand, the gospel undressed from all

cultural wrapping and on the other, the receptive culture undressed from all complexes. In the

first generation we will have uniform hybrids all without any stigma or fault. The local church

will be a relaxed one, a veritable body of Christ, a community of sharing where there will not be

high Christians and low Christians. This is the genetics of the church; this is the ecclesiogenetics

for the 21st century.


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NOTES

1. Ngindu MUSHETE, The New African theologies: between European heritage and African

cultures in Enculturation And Ecumenical Dialogue. Kananqa, St. Marc University Parish)

1989) p. 39.

2. Jean HOFFMAN, The Church and its origin) in Initiation to the Practice of Th.eology,

Doqmatic, Vol.5) Paris) Cer], 1983)p.57.

3. Ibid) p.59.

4. Karl BARTH, Introduction to the Evangelical Theology. Geneva) Labor et Fides) 1962) p.33.

5. Paul TILLICH, Theology of the Culture at the Interior Experience. Mayence. Planete,1968} pp.301 -302.

6. James STALKER, The Life o[Jesus Christ. La Begride de Maznc, France. The Crusade of

Christian book) 1974)pp. 59- 61.

7. Mushila NYAMAKANK., New Approach in Theological hermeneutics, unpublished textbook,

Faculty of Protestant Theology in Zaire; 1985, p.43

8. Mengi KILANDAMOKO, Protestant Missionary Evangelisation versus The Congo Culture,

Laval) 1981) p.189.

9. F. DUFEY Biology: Reproduction - Heredity - Evolution. Kinshasa, Center of Pedagogical

researches} 1986} VS5.

10. KITIKILA Christian and Politics in Zairian Magazine of Protestant Theology n 5,1991,

p.28.

11. Ibid p.29 ..

12. WiberforceA. UMEZINWA, Religion


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13. EugeneA. Nida, Customs and Culture, Ed. Des Groupes Missionnaires, Greenwich, 1984,

p.326.

14. KimpiangaMahaniah, Traditional Religions and Christianity in Africa Today. Acts of The

Tenth Theologicalweek of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, 1980, p.56

15. MGINDUMUSHETE, op. cit., p.43

16. EugeneA. Nida, op. cit., p.43

17. MweneBatendein J. Bukasa Kabongo, Engagement and extra-scientific value in the

sociology of Alvin Gouldner, Madrid, SA. Calle

Tomeros, 58 GETAPE, 1985, p. VII18. MUSHILAN. op. cit., p. 3.

Documents

From the Missionary Church to the local Church. The Methodological problems of Evangelization (2)