SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY

Abstract

IN THE LATE 1 980S, at the time of the end of the cold war, Africa experienced the beginning of a second liberation, as the peoples of Africa tried to throw off the political systems that had come to serve them so badly. The struggle was not the same everywhere, but one of its common features was the significant role played by the churches. In Francophone Africa, the struggle took a particular form; citizens' groups forced the dictators to convene a national conference, at which a wide range of groups debated the nation's future. The dictators, vulnerable and deserted by their previously supportive Western backers, had to give way, at least in the short term. One of the remarkable features of these conferences was the way in which Catholic Bishops were asked to preside over them. In Benin, Mgr Isidore de Sousa, Archbishop of Cotonou, presided over the national conference, then as president of the Haut Conseil de la Republique overseeing the transition process, was the highest authority in the land for the thirteen months leading up to elections. In Gabon it was Mgr Basile Mve Engone, Bishop of Oyem. In Togo, Mgr Sanouko Kpodzro, Bishop of Atakpame, presided over the process. In the Congo, Mgr Ernest Kombo, the country's first Jesuit and Bishop of Owando, presided over the three month long national conference and then the entire transitional process. In Zaire, Mgr Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kisangani, was elected in 1991 to preside over the national conference attempting to halt Zaire's decline into anarchy.1 In many other countries, the churches' role was just as significant, though it took different forms. For years, in Kenya, the most articulate criticism of President Moi came from individual Anglican Bishops, and later from the National Council of Churches of Kenya. In Malawi, ie whole process of opposition to President Banda's rule was begun by the 1992 Lenten pastoral of the Catholic Bishops. In Madagascar, the Council of Churches was the core of the 'Forces Vives' that led to the ousting of President Ratsiraka in 1992. And in Zambia the churches were among the most prominent local bodies involved in the transition