Africa Study Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 90
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is in present-day Ethiopia, in the Christian faith.
Ezana became one of the great Christian kings of
Africa. Important popular Christian movements
also flourished, motivated in Ethiopia by Syrian
monastic missionaries, known to tradition as “the
nine saints,” and in Nubia by Jewish converts.
Over the next thousand years, Christianity in
Ethiopia grew stronger while in Nubia it declined.
Between 1200–1500, the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia, a family of Christian kings, revived Christian
art, literature, and church expansion. Lalibela,
the greatest emperor of the Zagwe dynasty, built
eleven famous stone churches carved out of solid
rock to create a “new Jerusalem.” But not everyone was happy with the Zagwe kings, and by 1225
the History of the Kings appeared as a protest.
This book purported to tell the story of Solomon
and the queen of Sheba and their son Menelik,
first king of Ethiopia. In 1270, a new “Solomonic”
dynasty replaced the Zagwe dynasty. This new
dynasty reached its peak in the fifteenth century during the reign of Zara Yaqob, who saw
himself as an African Constantine. He convened
church councils to address debates about Christ
and Sabbath worship. Zara Yaqob also purged
Ethiopia of African traditional religion. While
Ethiopia reached its height as a Christian kingdom under Yaqob, Christianity was eliminated in
Nubia. Nubian forces were defeated in battle by
a sultan from Cairo, Babyars I, and came under
the control of the Muslim Egyptians. By 1500,
Christianity in Nubia all but disappeared.
Wave Two: Portuguese Catholicism
From 1420 until 1800, Portuguese politics and
Christian missionaries from Portugal and Spain
dominated much of coastal Africa. A controversial decree by the pope, called the Padroado,
granted to the king of Portugal all rights to economic, military, and evangelistic activities in the
areas he controlled. Slave traders and missionaries wrestled with one another for the souls of
Africans. Portuguese missionary efforts were
spread too thin, however, to make a significant,
lasting impact. The result was only a thin veneer
of Christianity in most places they influenced.
Kongo and Soyo (kingdoms of Angola) and the
Republic of the Congo were exceptions. There,
Catholicism, indigenous popular Catholicism,
and traditional religion clashed for centuries.
Wave Three: The Evangelical Era
As the glories of Catholicism faded in the late
eighteenth century, a new force arose. Evangelical
Christianity was both a movement of spiritual
revival as well as a force for justice. It combined
a passion for personal religion with a crusade
against slavery and changed the face of Africa
forever. Evangelical Christianity has been described as a fourfold commitment to the Bible,
the cross, conversion, and mission.
In the late eighteenth century, evangelical and
other British leaders formed a movement that
sought to abolish slavery. Great nineteenth-
century British leaders such as William Wilberforce (member of the British parliament and
champion of anti-slavery legislation), Thomas
Clarkson (leader of the anti-slavery society in
England), and Granville Sharp (English abolitionist) did much good. Evangelicals in Africa
such as Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano were just as crucial to the anti-slavery cause.
They were two Nigerian former slaves who lived in
England and published stories of their liberation
and conversion to Christianity. Many African
slaves who were freed during the American Revolution found their way to the Canadian maritime
provinces where their faith was deepened by the
fiery preaching of Henry Alline of Nova Scotia.
Sierra Leone, a West African colony for freed
slaves, was founded in 1787. From Freetown,
the capital of Sierra Leone, the evangelisation of
West Africa began through liberated slaves such as
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Anglican bishop
in Africa. Liberia, founded for free-born American
blacks in 1822, played a similar role.
The evangelical revivals of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries in the United States
and England produced the modern missionary
movement. Denominational missions and faith
missions such as the Africa Inland Mission, Sudan Interior Mission, Sudan United Mission,
and the South Africa General Mission (later the
Africa Evangelical Fellowship) influenced African societies. Schools, hospitals, churches, and
many social agencies in Africa were the result of
missionary efforts in partnership with African
Christians. The same partnerships translated the
Bible or a portion into more than 640 African
languages, an effort which has helped promote
literacy as well as the knowledge of God. The
commitment of the missionaries to Africa is illustrated by the many who took their coffins with
them when they travelled from their homelands,
knowing that their lifespan would probably be
short. Many were martyred for their faith, including the American medical missionary Paul
Carlson, who was killed by rebel insurgents in