–– Joe Shoko
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Human beings are prone to amnesia, and the famous former German monk, Martin Luther, summarized our condition well by saying the following words, “We need to hear the Gospel every day because we forget it every day.” This is true especially when it comes to the aggressive growth of the pandemic that is still with us – The charismatic movement. The true Church of Christ, for many reasons, seems to forget that we are in a holy war, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is at stake. Presently, Africa is believed to be the centre of missions in the world. Whilst the US is fast abandoning its Christian heritage for liberalism, Europe is equally on a similar path with churches closing down.
Here in Zimbabwe, almost every church I come across has adopted the Pentecostal way of worship, even traditionally conservative churches such as the Methodists and Lutherans. Youth gatherings, prayer meetings, and Bible studies all begin their services with a frenzied call to worship. What usually follows is emotional music that would tingle any romantic music fanatic’s taste buds. Not too long after that is mass prayer and then a ‘sermon’ that is nothing short of folklore or a motivational speech. Charismaticism is the second-fastest growing religious sect in Zimbabwe, behind the white garment-clad ‘Vapostori.’
Why should we be worried?
Despite the picture that is painted in media that Christianity is growing at an astounding rate in Africa, the concern is that all those stats could in reality be pointing towards much of the Pentecostal movement. There are many self-proclaimed modern-day prophets and prophetesses who do not know the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and deny the sufficiency of Scripture. What is Christianity without the Bible?
Secondly, if this is true, then it means that the charismatic movement with all its falsehoods has a better reach than Gospel-preaching churches. If they have a better reach, then it means that there are many who are going to hell thinking that they received the truth from Scripture, when in fact they were imbibing damning heresies!
Lastly, many churches that were planted by missionaries have lost their sound and rich heritage. It means that a lot of what missionaries like David Livingstone laboured for has been replaced by syncretism which consists of African Traditional Religion masked by surface-level Christian platitudes. As a church planter, I meet a lot of young people who are in churches that have a rich history of sound biblical doctrine but are quite discouraged by how almost every element and form in their liturgy has been affected by Pentecostalism.
How should we respond?
The Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Matthew made an infallible promise, telling us He would build His church and against it, the gates of hell would not prevail (Matthew 16:18). Such an unshakable promise should not make God’s people fold their hands and put their feet up. We have work to do. There are a number of ways that we can be faithful to the cause of Christ and the expansion of His Kingdom;
- Pray
How awful it is, if our braai gatherings are much more packed than our prayer meetings. Isn’t this the case though? Prayer, in Gospel work, makes a world of difference. Matthew 9:38 reinforces the fact as it reads “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”
- Plant Churches
If at all we are to overcome the pandemic that has gripped the African continent, our churches must be planting churches at a faster rate. There is far too much caution from churches associated with money and resources that hinder Gospel advancement, especially in the remotest parts of our countries. How marvellous it would be if we as urban churches forfeited some of our comforts and flashiness, dug deep in our pockets, trained men in our local churches, and sent them out?
- Proclaim
The primacy of preaching the Gospel can never be emphasized enough. Perhaps one of the main reasons that everywhere you look there’s a Charismatic church is that we do not have men with spines of steel, who are willing to stand and proclaim the Gospel. Men like that are too often silenced or fired by their own congregations for preaching hard Gospel truth and replaced by yes-men, puppets, and those who are ‘contextual’.
This pandemic cannot kill true believers, but it does affect our neighbours who are infected, and woe is unto us if we stand by and watch them perish when we have the truth as the means and medication to help them.