El logro seguido de un Estado (L2)

Most of the scholarly literature available that touches conversion within East African Revival admits that the role played by the Revival towards the growth of the church in Buhaya (Haya area) is enormous. It is regarded by both missionaries and the indigenous scholars as an indigenous movement that helped towards indigenizing the Haya Christian conversion.

Bihop Kibira (1974), who was also a member of East African Revival but also critical of some of its theology and practice, regarded the East African Revival Movement, which came after missionary Christianity conversion in the early start of the mission work in Buhaya, as a contribution to the indigenous Church‟s theology. He understood East African Revival as “God‟s answer to the unconverted, beginning of the great part of the church and of some clergy”. Through it, Kibira says, the African church has built faith in God and thus has become a missionary church for Christ. To him, Revival is the very life of the church in Buhaya.

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In the same line of thought Bishop Sundkler as Swedish missionary (1980) in his book, Bara Bukoba, went a step further by seeing very clearly that East African Revival was a typically indigenous movement that indigenized conversion. As we will discuss in more detail in chapter five (5:4:2:2), Sundkler who was not only a missionary but a first bishop in the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Northwest Tanzania among the Haya, admitted that the initial attraction of the Haya to conversion was mainly due to the accessibility of western education and what was regarded as development – maendeleo – rather than religious motives. So according to him the Revival Movement was necessary for conveying a conversion that would be relevant to the Haya people. On this note, Sundkler views the Revival Movement as an African response towards indigenizing conversion.

Earlier, Bishop S. Mushemba (1979) in his Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) paper, The history of the Revival Movement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, North Western Diocese analysis and evaluation, from a historiographical perspective analysed and evaluated the role of the East Africa Revival in the church in Buhaya, Northwest Tanzania. He points out how the Revival Movement impacted the life of Christians during the missionary Christianity whereby baptized Christians were being challenged by revivalists to be “saved” (reconverted).

In the same way later, Niwagila (1991) argued that the East African Revival Movement which challenged the missionary Christianity‟s conversion that was based on the classical doctrines. To the revivalists, Niwagila says, sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist have no meaning unless one repents of one‟s sins and receives Jesus Christ as one‟s personal saviour. For those revivalist churches sacraments such as Baptism and Holy Communion were irrelevant if one was not revived and repented of one‟s sins in a way that revivalists understood it. He finally points out that this revival contributed much to the rapid growth of Christianity in Buhaya.

Both Mushemba (1979) and Niwagila (1991) see that the evangelization in Buhaya was dynamically accelerated by the indigenous revivalists, and many church workers such as

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evangelists, pastors and bishops are the offspring of that revival. So to them, according to their research, Haya indigenous Christians under the influence of this revival were the agents of mission for their fellow Hayas‟ conversion. However, this doesn‟t mean that the role of missionaries‟ approach in conversion in the area should be underestimated. I would immediately agree with Bishop Kibira (1974) who earlier maintained that, whatever western missionaries‟ mistakes might have been during early missionization to the Haya community, they brought the Bible (the Gospel) to the Haya and through it they have discovered Christ.

Other recent research that has been conducted among the Haya in the area of conversion and revival includes the work of Pastor Simon Kibigumila (2005) in his Doctoral research on Conversion and revival: A critical analysis of the Revival Movement among Lutheran Christians in the North Western Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.

In his work he critically analyses the understanding and practice of conversion among the Lutheran Christians, including East African revivalists (abalokole), in their Christian life.

His aim was to provide a new pastoral understanding of how to help people understand deeply the transformation that comes with conversion. Based on the findings, he contends that Lutherans in the Northwestern Diocese understand conversion and revival differently, so to some conversion means salvation, being born again, and others associate salvation with revival and spiritual experience, and to some it implies knowing Jesus Christ. He argues that East African Revival has played a significant role in challenging the Diocese to revisit its traditional understanding of conversion.

Although Kabigumila‟s interest is not in conversion in missionary Christianity‟s approach and impacts on Haya Christian life, his work contributes to our understanding of how the Haya understand conversion differently from the formal conversion presented in missionary Christianity. He shows how East African Revival challenges traditional understanding. This, one may argue, calls for an approach that will indigenize conversion among the Haya.

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Along this line of thought, other research done in the context of Tanzania on conversion is the work of Bishop Owdenberg Mdegella (2005). Mdegella in his Doctoral dissertation on Authenticity of Christian conversion in the African context, writing from Hehe context in the southern part of Tanzania, generally contends that Christian conversion in the African context has been authentic because of the translatability of the event of Christ. He argues from a missiological perspective, but also draws on social anthropological, systematic theology and historiographical approaches (2005:17). The event of Christ is defined as the incarnation, the suffering and death on the cross and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Through these events God made the calling of all humanity including Africans, for transformation unto salvation. He put it clearly that God is perceived as the originator and initiator of Christian conversion, while human beings and their culture are perceived as recipients and channels of God‟s mission. He therefore asserts that the combination of the concepts of evangelical preparation, the translatability of the event of Christ and the theology of the cross are the basis of the theological deliberations of his thesis.

Mdegella‟s dissertation contends further that with the proclamation of the Gospel Christians moved together with the wave of modernization. Due to the continuity of translation, Christianity strengthened its influence and became the Word of God in the Hehe vernacular. In that way Christianity was naturally indigenized and continually contextualized in the Hehe culture and belief was thus deeply entrenched in their daily life and could be rightly described as renewed Hehe (African) Religion. Therefore, the Hehe accepted Christianity because God appeared in the human (Hehe) nature through Jesus Christ and dwelt in the Hehe community and shared everything with them. God through Jesus Christ participated in the daily suffering. He was humiliated and became vulnerable and weak. Through the translation of the Word, God was no longer the ineffable beyond.

Mdellega‟s arguments are based on four lines of thoughts that are posed by critiques of the authenticity of African conversion which are summarized as follows:

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1. Africans should have remained with African Religion instead of converting to Christianity because in African Religion they lived a more authentic life than in Christianity.

2. The conversion of Africans from African Religion to Christianity cannot be authentic because Christianity was established under imperialism and colonialism.

3. Most Africans converted to Christianity because they were seeking alleviation from poverty; some were seeking food aid against hunger and whatever western missionaries could offer. Under such circumstances conversion couldn‟t be considered as authentic.

4. Christianization of Africans through western missionaries was detrimental to culture, religion and African identity, thus establishing the kind of Christianity that is a mere replica of European Christianity and civilization. Such Christianity must also lack authenticity.

Dealing critically with the above lines of thoughts, Mdegella argues that the Hehe believed prior to Christianization and how the encounter of that kind of belief with Christian faith brought forth an effect of cross-fertilization that became instrumental in opening the door for Christianization. The criticism against the authenticity of African conversion, according to Mdegella, might apply to any time, people and place, but unfortunately they have been directed towards Africa. Therefore his thesis is an attempt to respond to these lines of thought from a very specific context of the Hehe people in Iringa, Southern Tanzania.

Mdegella, just like other African scholars such as Sanneh (1990; 1993; 2003), Bediako (1995; 1996 and Walls (1996; 2010) see that African Christianity, despite the missionaries‟ shortcomings of their approach with regards to their attitude towards African culture, was indigenized in African soil due to its translatability. However, I assumed that this approach doesn‟t intend to limit the indigenization of Christianity in Africa within the East Africa Revival Movement and Pentecostal-Charismatic form of Christianity. However, Balcomb (2010), in his work, A hundred miles wide, but only a few inches deep!? – Sounding the depth of Christian Faith in Africa, has concluded by

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arguing that these spirituality notions, that have been seen by some African scholars as resonant with African worldview, could themselves be seen as translation of the message of the Gospel in Africa.

Mdegella‟s approach and his research findings and other aforementioned research among the Haya around conversion and revival are very helpful in laying a foundation for our research with regards to how Haya Christians strive to deepen and indigenize their conversion in revivals and other forms of Christianity that resonate their African religio-cultural worldview, as will be discussed at length in chapter five.

The questions, nevertheless, remain as: Has conversion among the Haya Christians been fully indigenized by the translatability of the Gospel through East African and Pentecostal-Charismatic forms of Christianity? What about those who don‟t identify themselves with this movement? Is their conversion authentic? Is missionary Christianity conversion totally wrong? Can the church find a model of conversion approach that can accommodate both missionary Christianity approach and conversion in other forms of Christianity so that Haya Christians will feel fully at home with their conversion without necessarily leaving their churches or deviating from their traditional teaching on conversion? These questions, to my knowledge, have not been adequately dealt with in previous research. In this research, therefore, among other issues, I will try to address these questions in chapter five and six.