IBADAN, Nigeria (BP)–“Hope is the only thing we in Africa can hold on to, hope based on faith in Jesus Christ,” said Douglas Waruta, vice president of the Baptist World Alliance and a professor at the University of Kenya.
In the featured address at the Nov. 11-15 Assembly of the All Africa Baptist Fellowship (AABF) in Ibadan, Nigeria, Waruta described Africa as “a continent of paradoxes,” a confusing continent that is difficult to define and is searching for its own identity.
The AABF is one of the six regional bodies of the BWA.
Waruta addressed the assembly theme, “Celebrate Christ the Hope of Africa,” with questions about the reasons for hope in Africa.
“How do you celebrate in a context of misery?” Waruta asked. “How do you celebrate 500 years of exploitation, humiliation and degradation? How do we celebrate a continent that carries a debt burden that we cannot pay? Do we need celebration or lamentation?”
Africa is a continent with people of laughter and the dance, Waruta said, asking whether dance is a cover up for the continent’s mourning and weeping. “Does our laughter hide the anguish that is destroying us?” he asked.
Citing a litany of the challenges Africa faces, Waruta said there is violence from tribal and country wars and the continued existence of unjust and repressive regimes. AIDS and other diseases take a huge toll on lives and unsanitary conditions and water-born diseases plague the health of its people. A continent that is the richest continues to be the poorest, he said.
Describing Africa as the biblical Rachel mourning for her children, Waruta said, “The time for our comfort has come in Jesus Christ. The words of Jesus, ‘Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted,’ have great meaning for the African continent. We do not ignore but confront our predicament in the hope that is grounded in Jesus Christ.
“The hope,” Waruta said, “is in Christ’s suffering, death and in the power of the Resurrection.
“We have a right as Africans to cry like Jesus on the cross, ‘God where are you?’ because Jesus Christ hung there and he did not pretend,” Waruta said. “The cross was one of real suffering and humiliation, the bottom of the bottom of where a human being can go.
“But in [Christ’s] resurrection God announced victory over evil. God has not forsaken us or abandoned us,” Waruta said, “The God of Jesus Christ is in Africa. He speaks through Christians who have been redeemed and who know what redemption is and are committed to bringing this hope to every corner of this continent of Africa.”
Saying Africa is not a place for “comfortable religiosity,” Waruta noted, “We must take the God of Jesus Christ seriously. We must confront the forces of evil headlong.”
Waruta called on Baptists to plant trees of hope in Africa. “We must plant trees for the diseases for those who are dying,” he said, “trees of health. Let every Baptist church know that unless every Baptist church is involved in healing diseases, in helping to combat ignorance, in helping mothers to grow healthy children and fathers to be good parents, we had better not be preaching.”
More important than the number of churches is their role, Waruta emphasized. There are more that 18,000 churches among the member bodies in AABF, but, he said, “It is not enough to have that many churches. We perhaps need 800,000 churches, but each church must become a tree of hope; otherwise it has no business being planted.”
Waruta’s call for African Baptist churches to step up and be counted in turning around the economic, political and spiritual condition of their people was enthusiastically accepted by Baptist leaders from more than 16 countries who attended the meeting.
“How can I join in the celebration when my people are suffering and they don’t understand why?” asked professor Bokundoa bo-Likabe, leader of Baptists in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was elected the AABF’s new president.
Bokundoa said his people in the Congo River feel abandoned by the whole world, even Christians, as they cope with the continuing civil war in their country.
“We cling to our hope in Jesus Christ,” he said. “The song, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus,’ has become very precious to us.”
The announcement that Sierra Leone rebels had agreed to a ceasefire in the Nigerian capital of Abuja during the meeting was greeted very cautiously by Baptist leaders from Sierra Leone.
“It is our prayer at this time that it will come to a reality,” said James T. Bangurah, general secretary of the Baptist Convention of Sierra Leone. “It is so difficult to talk exactly of the suffering we have endured during the 10-year war. There has been so much loss of life and destruction, and Baptist work has been seriously affected,” he said.
The main Baptist work in Sierra Leone is in the northern provinces, and these areas are the ones under rebel control. Many church members have been displaced, pastors, teachers, medical workers lost and most institutions vandalized or destroyed. “But we are faithful to God,” Bangurah said, “and already 28 churches have been started in Freetown with those who have escaped from rebel areas.
“We are thankful to Baptists around the world who have helped us with displaced persons,” Bangurah said.
One word of hope at the conference was one from B. Uche Enyiola, president of the Baptist Seminary at Kaduna, Nigeria, who reported that their senior class graduated last June in spite of the damage done to the seminary by Muslim rebels.
“In Kaduna we have worked to rebuild enough so that students can come back in January,” Enyiola said, “but things are still very tense.”
Recently the Muslims issued another warning that they will again destroy the seminary, and they are still calling for Sharia (Islamic) law because 50 percent of the state is Muslim. “However,” Enyiola said, “50 percent is Christian and the Christians will not accept the Sharia rule. We are committed to stay even though in the future we may look for a new location for the seminary.”
Asked about his personal safety, Enyiola said, “Yes, I am afraid sometimes, but I have the support of the Christian community here and I cannot abandon them. I am committed to stay. We believe that the seminary is an essential part of our Christian witness.”
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