The Reformation Conversation

These were the words of Thabo Mbeki, then vice-president of the new South Africa, at the inauguration of the new constitution in 1996. With this speech he also revealed the concept of the African Renaissance – a new era of cultural rebirth and economic upliftment for a continent battered by the legacies of colonialism, exploitation and chronic under-development. Although many today feel that Mbeki has failed in providing the leadership to make this a reality it remains a noble vision indeed; and a vision for all Africans.

Just as the European cultural renaissance, starting in Italy in the 14th Century, was followed by spiritual revival and religious revolution in the Reformation led by Luther and Calvin, so many in Africa sense the birth of a new African Reformation concomitant to its cultural rebirth.

The missiologist Andrew Walls has long argued that the West has entered a post-Christendom era and that world Christianity is entering a post-Western era. Many are looking to Africa, the cradle of humanity (and to Asia and South America), for the emergence of a reformed and renewed paradigm in Christian thinking and practice. It is time for emerging Christian leaders in Africa to give voice to what is being birthed – not so much to give answers, craft doctrines, or create structures – but to ask the difficult questions and grapple with the very real challenges of interpreting the gospel in a truly African way and establishing God’s Kingdom in a still fractured continent.

However, in a globalized world where we are only as human as our interdependent bonds with those on other continents, this is not a conversation that can take place in isolation. North and South, East and West, we need each other.

This is most certainly a spiritual calling but it is equally a social, political and economic one. Everything must change.

This is the unique space of dialogue and engagement that Amahoro Africa will once again host at its annual gathering in June 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa.