The saints of African independent churches in Namibia : empirical research from Korean missionary perpective

Abstract

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015.

The history of African Independent Churches (AICs) in Southern Africa goes back
 for more than a hundred years. They have proliferated geographically and
 demographically in Africa more than the mainline churches could ever have
 imagined. They have grown to be as widespread and as influential as the African
 mainline churches. The reason for this growth is that the AICs are the churches of
 African indigenous people. They are launched by Africans from a background of
 an African traditional and cultural frame of reference. The most significant reason
 is that the founders of these churches are not Westerners, but Africans. Western
 missionaries find it difficult to understand the AICs from their perspective. Thus the
 Western churches describe the AICs as sectarian, separatist, syncretist, nativitist,
 and so on. Nevertheless, some scholars are attempting to view the AICs in
 positive ways.
 The fact that these two different churches have never acknowledged each other as
 true churches is a big challenge for Christian missions in Namibia. Each group has
 been viewing and judging the other party through suspicious eyes from their own
 perspective, each driving the other to block the channel of reconciliation before the
 presence of God. With the aim of solving this problem, this thesis attempts to
 answer the following questions about the AICs in Namibia:
 • What are the reasons that the AICs in Namibia have been seceded from
 mission churches?
 • What are the activities in civil society in which the AICs in Namibia are
 currently involved?
 • Do the AICs engage in any activities which go against the Word of God?
 • What causes other churches to be suspicious of the AICs?
 • What level of enculturation is inherent to the AICs in Namibia? In other
 words, what is the relationship between the liturgies of the AIC and African
 traditional religion and African culture?
 • What makes the AICs in Namibia regard themselves as a church?
 Would it be possible for the AICs and the mainline churches in Namibia to
 cooperate in Christian missionary work?
 • What is a possible Korean missionary perspective on this particular
 situation?
 This will be dealt throughout this thesis from a Korean missionary missional
 perspective.

tm2015

Science of Religion and Missiology

PhD

Unrestricted