The saints of African Independent Churches in Namibia : empirical research from Korean missionary perpective

[摘要] The history of African Independent Churches (AICs) in Southern Africa goes backfor more than a hundred years. They have proliferated geographically anddemographically in Africa more than the mainline churches could ever haveimagined. They have grown to be as widespread and as influential as the Africanmainline churches. The reason for this growth is that the AICs are the churches ofAfrican indigenous people. They are launched by Africans from a background ofan African traditional and cultural frame of reference. The most significant reasonis that the founders of these churches are not Westerners, but Africans. Westernmissionaries find it difficult to understand the AICs from their perspective. Thus theWestern churches describe the AICs as sectarian, separatist, syncretist, nativitist,and so on. Nevertheless, some scholars are attempting to view the AICs inpositive ways.The fact that these two different churches have never acknowledged each other astrue churches is a big challenge for Christian missions in Namibia. Each group hasbeen viewing and judging the other party through suspicious eyes from their ownperspective, each driving the other to block the channel of reconciliation before thepresence of God. With the aim of solving this problem, this thesis attempts toanswer the following questions about the AICs in Namibia:• What are the reasons that the AICs in Namibia have been seceded frommission churches?• What are the activities in civil society in which the AICs in Namibia arecurrently involved?• Do the AICs engage in any activities which go against the Word of God?• What causes other churches to be suspicious of the AICs?• What level of enculturation is inherent to the AICs in Namibia? In otherwords, what is the relationship between the liturgies of the AIC and Africantraditional religion and African culture?• What makes the AICs in Namibia regard themselves as a church?Would it be possible for the AICs and the mainline churches in Namibia tocooperate in Christian missionary work?• What is a possible Korean missionary perspective on this particularsituation?This will be dealt throughout this thesis from a Korean missionary missionalperspective.

[发布机构] University of Pretoria