(Anglican Bishop of Kimberley, South Africa)
The Continent of Africa is facing enormous challenges. On the other hand, there is abject poverty and misery: and on the other hand people are at war with each other. What Africa requires is a sound spiritual base for reconciliation, reconstruction and development.
The Synod needs to consider three fundamental affirmations that are so vital for an effective evangelising mission of the Church in Africa towards the year 2000.
1) A need for an authentic and vibrant African Christian spirituality, that is God centred, biblically based, rooted in a deep sense of community, and which has been purified by the experience of pain and suffering that is rooted on the cross of Jesus Christ thereby exhibiting compassion , tenderness, a loving and caring disposition towards the other.
2) A need for the affirmation of the dignity of the African person created in the image of God. This requires, among other things, the incarnation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the very heart and being of the African person.
3) A need for Christians to co-operate with one another in obedience to the command "You shall be my witnesses". Evangelisation is too big a task for a divided Body of Christ.
Original text: English
