Nenilava, Prophetess of Madagascar: Her Life and the Ongoing Revival She Inspired by James B. Vigen and Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Abstract

Reviewed by: Nenilava, Prophetess of Madagascar: Her Life and the Ongoing Revival She Inspired by James B. Vigen and Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Mark Nygard Nenilava, Prophetess of Madagascar: Her Life and the Ongoing Revival She Inspired. By James B. Vigen and Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2021. 137 pp. From my mother Martha, I learned a respect, even a kind of reverence, for the lives of contemporary saints. "A washer of dishes in the church kitchen is as noble in God's sight as the pastor of the church," she would tell us, and I remember paying attention to see who these wonderful people working in the kitchen were. Two elderly, specially-gifted sisters who dusted our pews at First Lutheran in Minot were often discussed and appreciated at the Sunday dinner table. I have since marked where they are buried, and to this day I look for their tombstones as I drive by. This is a book of that kind of respect and even reverence for a contemporary saint. She is not a saint from North Dakota, so her [End Page 224] sainthood requires some interpretation for those who find Madagascar an exotic place. But she was a saint deeply loved by literally millions of Malagasy, and her humble story and its effects are still reverberating in the Malagasy Lutheran Church (MLC) and beyond, twenty-five years after her passing. Hagiography this book may be, but it is an academic hagiography. It reflects an orderly approach to the life and work of Germaine Volahavana (1920–1998), affectionately known as Nenilava, with presentation of data and thoughtful reflection. The first chapter—a history of the revival that she inspired until 1970—is an English translation of an oral account that she provided Zakaria Tsivoery, a MLC pastor, during her lifetime. Unquestionably the centerpiece of the work, it takes up the first half and furnishes the basic raw material for an insider's understanding of Nenilava and her work—preaching, casting out of demons, strengthening through laying on of hands, and assignment of personal hymn or scripture passages (45). Reading this chapter is an unvarnished, cross-cultural experience for the Western reader, from the merely peculiar, like an unusual consciousness of direction ("a photo of the baby was taken on the east side of the church," 42), to spiritual matters affecting the shape of faith, like awareness of divine presence ("Then Jesus took her by the hand and led her into the pulpit," 10) or of evil ("It isn't me who makes them vomit, but the devil who does it!" 32). It is with some relief, then, that the Western reader finds mediating voices in the second half of the book. In chapter two James Vigen finishes the story of Nenilava's life after 1970, including her travel abroad and the establishment of a healing center in France. In chapter three he proceeds to assess Nenilava and her ministry from his own perspective, including remembrances from the Madagascar missionary community and pertinent insights by theologian Paul Tillich, psychologist M. Scott Peck, and British missionary John V. Taylor. In a conclusion that might better be called a discussion opener, Sarah Wilson offers a series of brief, open-ended theological perspectives on noteworthy elements of Nenilava's story—evil spirits, healing and miracles, healing and sin, and "emergent offices of ministry" that focus outward towards the unbaptized rather than on the inward care of the established flock (127–28). This thoughtful [End Page 225] mediation by two sensitive American pastors/teachers with long international experience will make the Nenileva story coherent for many American readers. This is not a book for the unadventurous. Mild-thinking American Lutherans, accustomed to their favorite paradigms and narratives, may leave the book troubled and even angry. On the other hand, this may be just the book for the unadventurous, as one generation of saints calls out to another to stretch and grow and imagine fresh ministry for fresh situations. The work is accessible. Its pages should be able to ruffle seminarian and parishioner alike. Given all the Malagasy place names in the text and the pitiful knowledge of Malagasy geography of, at least, this...