Setting the Record Straight

Hany Longwe

Description

"Kusadziwa Nkufa Komwe"(Lack of Knowledge is as Being Dead) is a Nyanja maxim, African Philosophy that is true the world over. A person who lacks knowledge is as good as dead, inactive and insensitive. A dead person does not contribute to good life. Lack of knowledge leads to destruction, but having knowledge leads to informed decisions and freedom. Setting the Record Straight is about correction wrong understanding and replacing it with liberating knowledge, to the benefit of both church and society.

Informations

• Publié par: Luviri Press
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789996066436
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 13 Mo

Extrait

Setting the Record Straight

Copyright 2021 Hany Longwe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publishers.

Published by Luviri Press P/Bag 201 Luwinga Mzuzu 2 Malawi

ISBN eISBN

978-99960-66-42-9

978-99960-66-43-6

Luviri Press is represented outside Malawi by: African Books Collective Oxford ([e-mail])

www.mzunipress.blogspot.com www.africanbookscollective.com

Editorial assistance: Hope Kaombe

Cover Picture: Meeting called to draft the Salima Baptist Association Constitution at Senga Bay in the middle of the 1960s.

Setting the Record Straight

Essays on Ecclesiology,

Missiology and Evangelism

Hany Longwe

Luviri Press

Mzuzu 2021

"Kusadziwa Nkufa Komwe"

Lack of Knowledge is like Being Dead

4

Contents

Chapter 1 A Baptist Church Does Not Need a Pastor: A History of Theological Training for Convention Baptists in Malawi

Chapter 2 Theological Education in Baptist Churches in Eastern and Southern Africa

Chapter 3 Theology & Religious Studies and Development with Malawi in Mind

5

7

27

54

Chapter 4 Missions across the Border: Baptist Convention of Malawi's Expansion into Neighbouring Countries 75

Chapter 5 TheMatchonaContribution to Early Baptist Church History

91

Chapter 6 Kusadziwa Nkufa Komwe: The Baptist Theological Seminary of Malawi Fighting against HIV/AIDS 115

Chapter 7 Achewa Providence Industrial Mission: African Independent Church or Baptist? 127

Chapter 8 The Church, the Laity, and the Priesthood

Chapter 9 The Ordination of Women in the Baptist Convention of Malawi

Chapter 10 Baptist Churches in Africa

149

167

183

Chapter 11 The Contribution of "Fellowships" in the Evangelization Process in Malawi

Chapter 12 Post-Classical Missions' Missionary Affair in Malawi

Chapter 13 Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi

Chapter 14 A Pictorial Essay on the Early Life of the Baptist Convention of Malawi

Bibliography

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1: A Baptist Church Does Not Need a Pastor

Chapter 1

A Baptist Church Does Not Need a Pastor: A History of Theological Training for Convention Baptists in Malawi

7

If a pastor is understood as one looking after a congregation full-time or part-time, one does not find that office in the New Testament (NT). The word pastor occurs only once in Ephesians 4:11-12, and that is in the plural. A related word "shepherd" gives further insights. There is nowhere in the NT where one reads that one person was a shepherd of a certain congregation. Where the word shepherd occurs in the singular, it always refers to Jesus Christ who speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd (Jn 10). He is also called the Great Shepherd (Heb 13:20) and the Chief Shepherd (1Pet 5:4). The NT speaks twice of the elders of a church (again in the 1 plural) as shepherds (Acts 20:28) and as overseers (1Pet 5:1-4).

Ephesians 4:7-5:2 pictures the risen Christ as giving gifted persons to the church "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up" (4:12). Some people are gifts to the church! The elder/pastor is one of the many gifts. The Bible portrays the church as a living body or organism in which every cell contributes. Members of the church are to build up the body, "until we all reach unity in the faith … and become mature" (4:13). The whole body "grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work" (4:16). Historically, both pastors and laypersons, without making much distinction between the two, have led Baptist churches. In an ideal situation, pastors and laypersons work together in harmony for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

Generally, Baptists have viewed theological training as a way of making God-called men and women disciples of Jesus Christ. It transforms them 1  Klaus Fiedler,Baptists and the Ordination of Women, Zomba: Lydia Print. no. 5, 2008, pp. 3, 4.

1: A Baptist Church Does Not Need a Pastor 8 by renewing their minds with biblical truth, impacting their hearts with ministry passion, and enriching their souls with deepened Christ-likeness. Trainees are those who are committed to preparation for the practice of ministry, which emphasizes sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others so they can come to know and receive him as personal Saviour and experience him as Lord of their life. Ministry also includes attending to the physical, emotional, mental and vocational needs of others.

Theological training for Malawian Baptists began with the training in 1897 to 1899 in the United States of (USA) of John Chilembwe, who had been taken there by Joseph Booth, a Baptist from Melbourne, though not a Baptist missionary.

2 Chilembwe, the founder of the famous "PIM," was the first Malawian missionary to his own people and is better known as a national hero who fought for the liberation of Malawi from colonial rule that led to what has 3 been dubbed the Chilembwe 1915 Rising. His disciple Daniel Malikebu was invited to study in America by Emma DeLaney, the second National Baptist missionary to work at PIM. When Emma DeLaney left, his family refused him to go, but not much later Malikebu slipped out of the country 4 and arrived in New York in 1905, and by 1915, he had started training at 5 Meharry Medical College, Nashville in Tennessee, the same medical school where Kamuzu Banda was trained later, a fact which Banda seemed to have 6 always steered clear of. In 1917, he briefly attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and in the same year, joined the University of

2  Providence Industrial Mission, whose o fficial name since 1966 is African Baptist Assembly, Malawi Inc. It is the oldest Baptist church in the country. 3  For a history that emphasizes both the spiritual and the political aspects of John Chilembwe's ministry, see Patrick Makondesa,The Church History of Providence Industrial Mission, Zomba: Kachere, 2006. 4  D.L. Saunders, “A History of Baptists in East and Central Africa," PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1973, p. 27. 5  G. Shepperson and T. Price,Independent African, Edinburgh: University Press, 1987, first paperback edition, reprinted Blantyre: CLAIM-Kachere, 2000, p. 142. 6  Klaus Fiedler, “Africa’s Evangelical Turn," in Klaus Fiedler,Conflicted Power in Malawian Christianity: Essays Missionary and Evangelical from Malawi, Mzuzu: Mzuni Press, 2015, p. 364, footnote 82.

1: A Baptist Church Does Not Need a Pastor 9 Pennsylvania where he studied tropical medicine and took his internship at 7 8 Mudgett Hospital until 1918. Malikebu passed on Chilembwe's legacy. In 9 1926, Malikebu and his American wife, Flora, reopened Providence Industrial Mission which the colonial government had banned from 1915 to 1924.

Bible Study and Sunday School, the Priesthood of all Believers and Evangelism

One cannot talk of theological training for Baptists, without a discourse on Bible study and Sunday school, the priesthood of all believers, and evangelism. It has been a general practice for Baptists to use Bible study and Sunday school as tools for evangelism that lead to church planting. Through these they assist converts to grow in their relationship with God. Once a Bible study fellowship was established, some preaching was soon introduced. All beginning efforts were directed to evangelism and church development. Whether the group was officially constituted or not, Sunday school was introduced in which the Bible was taught to help the people not only to grow in their faith, but also to know and assimilate Baptist beliefs and practices.

One of the fundamental beliefs of Baptists is the priesthood of all believers that rests on the foundation that all believers are priests and have direct access to God through Christ, who mediates for the believer. Baptists believe that no bishop, no priest, no pastor is mediator between God and people. There is no distinction made between the clergy and the laity. All are equal. The role and function of each believer as a priest is understood in a functional sense. Priesthood of all believers is an expression of the belief that the individual ultimately must answer only to God, not to human authority. The priesthood of believers affirms important truths about the

7  Mekki Mtewa, “Tribute to Dr Malikebu,"The Enquirer, Vol. 1 No. (6 September 1993), p. 5. 8  See Hany Longwe, Identity by Dissociation - A History of Achewa Providence Industrial Mission, Mzuzu: Mzuni Press, 2013, pp. 26-28. 9  Flora Ethelwyn G. Zeto was born in Co ngo, but brought up by missionaries in America.