On February 15, 2011, a territory which will soon become the world’s newest state was christened the Republic of South Sudan. The secession from greater Sudan, is scheduled for 9 July 2011.
This change is preceded by nearly four decades of civil war – part religious conflict and part scramble for resources. The clash started even before Sudan emerged from colonial rule in 1956 and pitted the richer and more powerful north, against the poorly developed south. The north identifies as Arab and Muslim, and the south identifies as Black, African, and Christian or animist. Internal battles within the south added to the people’s suffering.
Between 1983 and 2005 about two million southern Sudanese perished, and another four million people fled their homes.
Few experts are convinced that South Sudan will emerge a viable state. Few predict it will prove able to exorcise the tripartite demons of war, corruption, and debilitating poverty that have haunted greater Sudan since its inception.
But then, no one predicted the nation would emerge, surprisingly peaceful, from the vote for secession in January 2011: Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times had forecast genocide. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dubbed the region a “ticking time bomb.”
While Africa’s newest state will undoubtedly face daunting challenges in the months and years ahead, the Southern Sudanese people do enjoy at least one advantage over other “failed” or “failing” states. That is, an active church!
Christian missionaries didn’t penetrate southern Sudan until the mid-19th century. The southern Sudanese church remained small until the early 1960s when the northern government, suspicious of missionary motives, kicked them out of the country. Into their shoes stepped a dedicated cadre of Sudanese evangelists and a slow but steady trickle of believers joined their Sunday morning worship services.
John Bul Dau, a former “Lost Boy of Sudan,” explains that in those years “my father found out that Jesus doesn’t need anything; he doesn’t need a cow to be slaughtered, he doesn’t need a goat to be slaughtered… Jesus Christ is a God of Love.”
This trickle of believers turned into a flood when President Omar Al-Bashir imposed Sharia (Islamic) law across the whole of Sudan in 1989. Though the statistics are rough, experts estimate that the percentage of professing Christians in Southern Sudan rose from between 10 and 20 percent of the population in the late 1980s to about 70 to 80 percent by the turn of the century.
Many practice a syncretistic blend of Christianity and traditional religion. At the same time, a growing core have become disenchanted with the ‘old gods’ who, during the war, proved either unable or unwilling to protect families, cattle, and villages from destruction.
Persecution has also had a heavy impact on church theology; as churches have grown, they have both maintained denominational divides and overcome them.
According to Peter Tibi, a South Sudanese pastor, all of the churches, from Catholic to Pentecostal, tend towards an evangelical faith. The hardships bring people together, he said.
Please pray for the people of the new Republic of South Sudan. Pray Christ’s church will continue to shine.
August 2011
