A Gospel of Power

“Would you bless my child?”  The mother had brought her little baby to us as the service was coming to an end.  It was a common custom among the Africans to bring their children to the missionaries to be blessed.  We were glad to do it even though such blessing rituals were not part of our experience growing up in America.  As we held the child we felt various objects tied around the waist.  “What are these?” we asked.  “Charms to protect our children from evil spirits.”  Charms, evil spirits!  These too were not a part of our experience growing up in America.  It wasn’t long after we arrived in Kenya that we learned how profoundly different their world was from ours. 

When we first came to Kenya, our plan was to establish strong, healthy churches.  We preached the gospel, held Bible studies, and gathered the believers into small church fellowships.  Our emphasis was on solid Biblical doctrine, good organization, persistent visitation and loving benevolence.  We thought these would be a winning combination that would bring great success.  However, we discovered our plans had left out a very important ingredient.  Power!

In our Western scientific world-view the spiritual realm is separate from the physical.  To us, sickness is caused by a virus or bacteria.  Inability to become pregnant has a physical problem and a physical solution.  In the world of modern science and education, there is no room for angels or evil spirits.  In the modern world the spirit realm does not connect with, interact with, or affect the physical.

We soon learned that Kenyans and Ugandans don’t see the world that way at all.  For them there is a strong tie that binds together physical and spiritual realities.  There are no accidents.  Everything that happens physically is a result of spiritual activities.  Crop failure, a sudden death, a dip in business, trouble with a neighbor, inability to have children, sickness, and a host of other physical things is directly connected to the spirit realm.  When such problems occur, the answer is to go to one’s witchdoctor so he can discern what spiritual problem has created the physical crisis and then what charms or sacrifices are needed to put things right.

We were particularly surprised to see belief in witchcraft and evil spirits embraced even by the more educated and “modern” Kenyans and Ugandans.  For example, lawyers may send an assistant to a distant homeland city to purchase charms to help them win a case.  They will then wear these charms on the belt loops of their western suit.  A defendant in a lawsuit may place a charm in his mouth to give him persuasive powers during testimony.  National soccer teams hire powerful witchdoctors to help them win international tournaments.

The Kenyans’ and Ugandans’ belief that physical events have spiritual causes, affects their approach to Christianity. It is a lens through which they interpret scriptures; an unseen foundation of belief and values that often remains unchanged even after they become Christians.  Then, when crises come, these deep beliefs resurface, creating issues for repentance and Christian discipleship.

Interacting with our East African brothers and sisters caused us to reflect more than we had on the reality of the spiritual realm. The experience led us to rethink our own assumptions about how we believed.  As we looked closer at the biblical stories we began to see a much closer relationship between the spiritual and physical realm.  If the problem for our African brethren was too much faith in the supernatural power of charms and amulets, our problem was perhaps not enough faith in the supernatural power of the gospel.  In time, our own understanding of the importance of the spiritual realm grew.  As it did, we began to change our own approach to presenting the gospel.  Instead of merely dismissing or ignoring issues of demon activity or witchcraft, we began instead to emphasize Jesus’ power over the spirit realm.  Spiritual power!  We came to see this as a critical element to gospel preaching in Africa (and an element far too often overlooked in the preaching of Western Christians.)  The East Africans needed to hear a gospel that has power to cast out demons, heal diseases, protect against the Devil, and do miracles.  They needed to hear a gospel that did not separate the physical realm from the spiritual.  We needed to hear that gospel as well. 

We came to Kenya and Uganda to be teachers, but we have often been the ones taught.  Specifically, our understanding of the spiritual realm has been greatly expanded.  In some ways, the Kenyans and Ugandans understood the Bible better than we did because the world of the Bible was more like their world.  The world of the Bible included the spiritual realm and took it seriously, more seriously than the world we had grown up in.  We learned that different parts of the Bible resonate more deeply with them than they do with us. In time our preaching and teaching began to include more of those stories and Biblical principles which addressed the spirit realm and spoke so directly to our African audiences. Living in their world has helped us to respect the spiritual realm far more and to appreciate that the gospel we preach truly is a gospel of power.

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SPIRITUAL TRUTH #5

 

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities against the powers

of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.  Ephesians 6:12