Jesse Zink’s research on Christianity in South Sudan wins recognition

CCCW Director Jesse Zink has been awarded the Audrey Richards Prize  by the African Studies Association of the UK for his PhD thesis: “Christianity and Catastrophe: Sudan’s Civil Wars and Religious Change among the Dinka.” The prize recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in African studies examined in the UK in 2014 or 2015.

Dr. Zink completed his dissertation in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. David Maxwell (pictured), who himself won the Audrey Richards Prize in 1996. The dissertation is a study of the grassroots Christian movement that emerged among the Dinka people of southern Sudan during civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. It is based on Dr. Zink’s fieldwork, interviews, and archival research in South Sudan.

In addition to his work at the CCCW, Dr. Zink is an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity where he contributes to undergraduate and graduate teaching on world Christianity. He is also working on revising his dissertation for publication as a monograph.

Jesse Zink was in Rwanda in early June

CCCW Director Jesse Zink spent the first week of June in Rwanda as a guest of the Anglican Diocese of Kigali. He shares some memories from the trip.

The CCCW has a special connection with East Africa and particularly the East African Revival. Our archive contains the papers of Joe Church, the missionary who did so much to promote the idea of Revival. So it was a particular highlight to spend time at Gahini, site of the first Anglican mission station in colonial Rwanda and birthplace of the Revival. I was given a tour of the various places of significance in Gahini by a young man who has taken upon himself the task of interviewing surviving elders who remember the Revival and writing a history of the Revival in Kinyarwanda.

When I asked him why he was doing this, he said, “When you search the Internet, there is nothing about the East African Revival in Kinyarwanda. I want to change that so we can know our history.”

I also had the opportunity to visit with a few people who had clear memories of the Revival themselves. This included Cyprian Kabenga, a retired Anglican pastor, to whom I gave a copy of The East African Revival by Kevin Ward and Emma Wild-Wood. It was a wonder to him that the Revival he knew so well was the subject of study in other parts of the world. I also spent time with Marian Kajuga, who is 93 years old. In her life, she has seen the flourishing of the East African Revival and the growth of Christianity in Rwanda. But she also survived the 1994 genocide, during which her husband and oldest son were killed. It was remarkable to think about all that her life has encompassed, all sustained by her life of faith.

One of the most surprising—and delightful—parts of my time in Kigali was the opportunity to explore the Anglican Diocese of Kigali’s impressive archive. Over the last 18 months or so, a few hard-working souls have taken what used to be a pile of old papers in a shipping container and turned it into a working archive. They’ve sorted the material and organized it in binders. The range of material is astonishing, from early documents related to Anglicanism’s arrival in Kigali in the 1940s to parochial reports, correspondence with government officials, letters between bishops, reports on the church’s work of reconciliation, and so much else. Had I been able to read Kinyarwanda, I’m sure I would have uncovered even more. The CCCW is storing a copy of the archive’s catalogue and will be thinking of ways to support the Diocese as it continues to add material.

It was also good to visit Kigali Anglican Theological College and learn about the ministry there. As the Cambridge Theological Federation reflects on its own future, it was helpful to hear how another theological college, albeit one in a different country and cultural context, had recently rearranged its delivery of teaching to be more cost-effective and responsive to the needs of the church.

There were many other memories of this visit, of course, including visits to genocide memorials and the opportunity they afford to remember the deeply painful past while also looking towards the future. I had glimpses of that hopeful future in the church services I attended and in the incredible range of ministries in the Diocese of Kigali.

A large crowd gathered in the Faculty of Divinity on Wednesday afternoon, 27 April 2016, to learn more about the rich history of Christian mission associated with the city and university of Cambridge.

The event was both a seminar offered by the Rev. Dr. Ian Randall, a research associate of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, and the launch of a new occasional paper from the Centre. The subject? The Cambridge 70, a hitherto little-studied aspect of Protestant mission in the mid-20^th century.

You can listen to the talk here: Part 1  Part 2

The Cambridge 70 took their inspiration from the long history of mission in Cambridge, looking back to Henry Martyn in the early nineteenth century as well as the Cambridge 7 of the 1880s. In 1955, scores of students associated with the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union committed themselves to overseas missionary service. The students who answered this call found themselves in a wide variety of ministries across the globe. They were also part of the ongoing change in mission thinking and practice. Rather than seeing mission as ‘from the west to the rest,’ they were on the frontlines of mission ‘from everywhere to everywhere.’

“So much changed about Christian mission in the 20^th century,” noted the Rev. Dr. Jesse Zink, director of the CCCW. “What is significant about the Cambridge 70 is how they were caught up in these changes and offered faithful witness to God at a moment of transition.”

The story is told inThe Cambridge Seventy: a Twentieth-Century Missionary Movement, an occasional paper published by CCCW and authored by Dr. Randall. The occasional paper has its origins in a series of ‘witness’ seminars that CCCW hosted in 2014 and 2015 in which members of the Cambridge 70 shared their memories and stories. Dr. Randall’s research used these seminars, as well as his own survey of Cambridge 70 members and the growing collection of archival material in the CCCW’s collections.

Conversation at the seminar and launch looked both back to the Cambridge 7 of 1885 and also ahead: if the Cambridge 70 followed the 7 by 70 years, would there be a Cambridge 700 in 2025? Some attendees noted that given the international nature of the student body in Cambridge now, any future Cambridge 700 would no doubt involve missionaries representing a wide diversity of the world’s cultures.

The research and publication were funded in part by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Maurice and Hilda Laing Foundation.

Copies of The Cambridge Seventy are available for £5 (including P&P) and can be obtained by writing to the Centre’s administrator Polly Keen.

A newly processed donation to the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide’s archive sheds important light on the role of church leaders during a time of turmoil in Kenya.

Paddy Benson, now archdeacon of Hereford, worked in the Diocese of Mount Kenya East from 1978 to 1989. It was an important time and Benson worked with several consequential figures, including David Gitari, bishop of Mount Kenya East, who was developing a reputation as an outspoken church leader who was unafraid to criticize the failings of President Daniel Arap Moi’s government. Bishop Gitari was also an innovator in mission and theological education, served on international commissions of the World Council of Churches and the Anglican Communion, and expanded his diocese in substantial ways. He later went on to serve as Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Archdeacon Benson has donated a substantial collection of his books and papers from his time in Kenya to the CCCW archive. They include extensive collections of local news-cuttings, internal publications of the Kenyan church and recordings of Bishop Gitari’s sermons. The donation has been sorted and work is in progress to ensure their proper preservation and cataloguing to enable them to realise their research potential.

“This is a significant collection,” said Dr. Philip Saunders, CCCW’s archivist. “It’s particularly important for the material it contains on church and state in conflict during the Moi presidency. But it also gives new perspectives on the church’s interface with African cultural issues such as polygamy, FGM, burial rites, and much more.”

Bishop Gitari, who died in 2013, left behind a substantial archive of his own in Kenya. The donation to the CCCW archive allows researchers to consult important primary documents in England and complements what already exists elsewhere.

 “The history of the African church in the decades after independence continues to be written,” noted Dr. Jesse Zink, director of CCCW. “The work of building the archive from which that history can be written is an ongoing task. Archdeacon Benson’s material is a vital contribution.”

The CCCW welcomes enquiries from interested researchers, as well as from those who may be considering how best to preserve their papers.

The Centre was awarded a £6,800 grant from The Heritage Lottery Fund. See how we used it to help celebrate Cambridge’s tradition of service overseas through sound archives, an audio tour, witness seminars, significant conferences and a launch day.

An audio tour, sound archives, and a launch day:

The Free Audio Tour of Henry Martyn’s Cambridge

Listen to some sound archives on the talking telephone

The Launch/Open Day on 25 October 2014

Witness Seminars and Conferences:

Three witness seminars were given in October last year, and May and June of this year, for the Cambridge Seventy research project which is being undertaken through the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. The first part of the project has aimed at understanding the early experiences of members of the Seventy in the UK and then overseas. We hope to follow this up by looking at later developments.

The Centre hosted the Religious Archive Group (RAG) conference at the CCCW on 4th June 2015 where the members were able to view the extensive library and  archives.

The Centre received a visit from the Association of the British Theological and Philosophical Libraries (ABTAPL) on 14th April 2015. A large group of Librarians from Theological Libraries across the UK attended the ABTAPL conference hosted by Westminster College, Cambridge. As part of their programme, they visited the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide library. Dr Emma Wild-Wood gave them a history of the Centre and its library and this was followed by tours of the library and the archives.

The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide bid farewell to a friend and scholar this week.

Dr. Paddy Musana is the head of Department of Religion and Peace Studies at Makerere University in Uganda. He has been in Cambridge since September as a fellow of the Cambridge Africa Partnership for Research Excellence. During that time, he has been based at the CCCW. He returned to Uganda earlier this week to resume his responsibilities at Makerere.

Dr. Musana’s current research examines women and Pentecostalism in Rwanda and Uganda. He used the time in Cambridge to take advantage of the wide range of resources available about the growth, history, and development of Pentecostal forms of Christianity.

“The library at the CCCW is very, very rich,” he said. “There are many people in my university from many disciplines who could benefit from spending time here.”

During his time in Cambridge, Dr. Musana presented two seminar papers, one to a CAPREx audience and one at CCCW’s regular seminar. The latter paper was titled “Christian African or African Christian: Dilemmas of Identity” and focused on questions of the inculturation of Christian faith, drawing both on Dr. Musana’s pastoral ministry and academic research.

“It was a real pleasure to have Paddy based at the CCCW these last few months,” said CCCW director Jesse Zink. “The Centre offers a base in Cambridge from which researchers such as Paddy can take advantage of the resources of the Centre and the broader university. Our seminars and life together were enriched by his presence with us.”

Dr. Musana’s departure came in the same week that the Centre hosted a handful of researchers in Cambridge for shorter periods of time, who were consulting the Centre’s rich archival collection.

The CCCW welcomes inquiries from scholars around the world who may be interested in a period of study in Cambridge.

The Rev. Jesse Zink began his new post as director of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide on 1st September 2015.

“I am so pleased to begin working at a place which has played such an important role in my own research and life in Cambridge,” he said. “There is an exciting energy around the study of world Christianity and mission right now in both the University and the Cambridge Theological Federation. The Centre is well placed to be part of this flourishing of research and teaching about a set of issues that are central to the future of the church.”

Dr. Emma Wild-Wood, the previous director, has been seconded to the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge University for two years as lecturer in world Christianities. She will continue her teaching in African Christianity as well as her research about religious encounter in colonial Uganda and Congo through critical biography of African evangelists.

The Rev. Zink is an Anglican priest ordained in the Episcopal Church in the United States. He trained for ordination at Yale Divinity School and recently completed a Ph.D. at Cambridge on the growth of Christianity in southern Sudan during the civil war in the 1980s and 1990s.

Prior to ordination, he served as a missionary in the Mthatha, South Africa, an experience he chronicled in his book, ‘Grace at the Garbage Dump: Making Sense of Mission in the 21st Century.’ He has travelled widely in the world church, with a particular focus on seminaries, theological colleges, and clergy education. His second book, ‘Backpacking through the Anglican Communion: a Search for Unity’ draws on these travels to offer snapshots of Anglican life at the grassroots level around the world and argue that in an age of globalization, the unity of Christians is part of our witness to the world.

“It’s clear that to be a Christian in the 21st century is to be part of a global body of Christ,” Zink said. “My research and writing has tried to help us reflect on how we arrived in the situation we are in and how we move forward in mission as one body in the midst of all our glorious diversity.”

The Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide is entering its second year in new purpose-designed premises that house its extensive library and archive.

The Centre also runs the Intercultural Encounter program, which funds students and others to take part of the life of the church around the world.

“Programs like the Encounter were vital to my own formation as a priest and helped introduce me to the life of other Christians around the world,” Zink said. “They are key to the future of the world church.”

The CCCW welcomes enquiries from researchers and students from around the world.

Collected Pamphlets of the Reverend Richard Minter

The Reverend Richard Arthur Minter, who died aged 91 in 1997 after half a century as Vicar of the Cambridgeshire parish of Stow-cum-Quy, was a well-known figure in Anglican circles in the Cambridge area.  After so long a clerical innings that is hardly surprising.  Less known is his life-long interest in the church in Jamaica where he served as rector of Claremont, St Ann’s Parish, between 1938 and 1945.

Following his death his research collections were presented to the Centre by his daughters.  They include his thesis, ‘The Comparative Importance of Influences Hostile to the Slave Trade within and without the Established Church in the West Indies before 1783’ that he wrote for his B.D.(1955). A long-held interest in the downtrodden, from the moral dilemma slavery presented to the 17^th-18^th century clergy to and refugee issues in modern times is also demonstrated by a small group of papers from the 1930s that include the pamphlet by Professor G.C. Baravelli, The Last Stronghold of Slavery – What Abyssinia is.  The title may suggest something written out of humanitarian concern but conceals something rather different, as its real purpose is as an apology for the Italian military intervention by Mussolini’s regime in Abyssinia then taking place and which so exposed the impotence of the League of Nations.

Minter’s interest evidently broadened in later life to the history of the Jamaican church generally, as the collection includes correspondence, replies to enquiries, and other notes and articles on Jamaican churches and clergy 1969-83 as well as drafts of the book eventually privately-published in 1990 as Episcopacy without Episcopate: The Church of England in Jamaica before 1824.

Particularly useful for researchers without an airline season ticket to Montego Bay are the collection of local church histories, often written in response to commemorative events, such as the 75^th Anniversary of St Cyprian’s, Highgate St Mary, known as “The Banana Church”.  This incorporates an earlier detailed history from 1921 by Canon Samuel Swaby, so it takes us back more than the average church history would be expected to do, and it includes an acknowledgement to Minter for his assistance. The collection also has some formal documents of the Jamaican church, enough to understand its organisation in modern times.  But the collection confined to the Anglicanism, as it contains a substantial account of the Congregational Church in Jamaica, Mission to Jamaica [1947] that valuably includes a directory of Congregational churches and ministers with details of their pastorates since 1834.

For a full list of the Minter Papers email the Archivist.

The Centre’s Intercultural Encounter Coordinator, Amy Ross, attended the Lausanne Creation Care and the Gospel Conference for East and Central Africa held at Brackenhurst Conference Centre, near Nairobi, Kenya, 17-21 May 2015: Creation Care in Africa: Theology, Practice and Intercultural Dialogue.

This conference was one of a series of events in the Lausanne Creation Care Network’s global creation care campaign. Emerging from the Lausanne Global Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel held in Jamaica in November 2012, each of these conferences is designed to help participants develop creation care movements in their own countries (click here to Learn more about the global campaign and read The Jamaica Call to Action, an important document that came out of the Jamaica Consultation).

Amy shares: “Highlights from the programme included fantastic case studies of creation care as holistic mission both in the main plenary sessions and in breakout groups.”

Topics covered in the breakout sessions were as diverse as ‘Urban Waste Management in Rwanda’ (delivered by a knowledgeable Rwandan vicar), ‘Farming God’s Way’ and ‘Indigenous Forestry’ by Care for Creation Kenya, and ‘Tools for Political Advocacy in Africa’ by Dr Jesse Mugambi from the University of Nairobi. Main sessions also included practical creation care case studies, such as A Rocha Kenya’s ASSETS forest protection and ecotourism scheme, which funds high school students’ education, and a project on bio-sand filters being delivered in Kampala by A Rocha Uganda.

Delegates came from South Sudan, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, and even Madagascar. Key speakers addressed creation care from different angles, for example theological, scientific, practical and economic. Different perspectives were delivered by the following contributors, alongside many others who were equally as noteworthy:

• Dr. Zac Niringiye (Assistant Bishop in Kampala Diocese, Uganda; on the importance of political advocacy in addressing environmental issues)
• Dennis Tongoi (International Director of CMS Africa; on the necessity for worldviews that motivate and empower communities)
• Prof. Eric Aseka (International Leadership University, Kenya; on sustainable economics)
• Dr. Stella Simiyu (Plant scientist for the international Convention on Biological Diversity; gave a scientific overview of the impact of environmental degradation in East and Central Africa)
• Prof. Jesse Mugambi (Dept. of Philosophy & Religious Studies, University of Nairobi; on conflict, climate and environment)

There was a general feeling that creation care as an issue had been neglected within evangelical church teaching in the region, up until this point in time. However, a number of Bible colleges and seminaries of various denominations were represented at the conference (Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Anglican, AOG, independent etc) and delegates voiced a strong desire to develop curriculum for training theological students, church leaders and material for adult Bible Studies, as well as Sunday school groups.

Comparing creation care priorities in East and Central Africa with the concerns of Western churches and theologians revealed some significant differences and similarities. From the African perspective:

• There seemed to be a stronger focus on how environmental protection and economic development are mutually compatible, compared to in the West where we are asked to restrict our consumption for the sake of our global neighbours, even when we don’t see the impact. This leads to different explorations of ideas of ‘suffering’ or ‘sacrifice’. See below for further reflections on this issue.
• Climate change denial was less relevant as a problem that needed to be overcome in churches/seminaries/society. Unlike in the West, the impact of climate change seems to be too obvious to be questioned (many local examples were described by conference speakers).
• Less evidence of concern about ‘deep ecology’ (i.e. humans on par with all creation) compared with Western ecotheology, which must carefully address this approach because it is seen to threaten Biblical human superiority over the rest of creation. There was simply more emphasis on simply affirming the role of human beings as God- appointed agents of good stewardship.
• Dealing with witchcraft. Specifically, learning how to ‘tease out’ good creation care practices from traditional spiritualities that have often been rejected historically, in their entirety, following the adoption of Christianity.
• The need to explore whether Africa is ‘cursed’ by God, relating to acknowledgment of the relationship between environmental degradation and poverty vs. the African capacity to overcome problems through better environmental management following the adoption of an empowering Christian worldview.
• Corruption of leaders, which was blamed as a large part of the problem.
• The historical proximity of dependence on the land through subsistence farming, which can mobilise current adult generations in Africa who still have relevant memories of this compared to the increasingly urbanised and disconnected new generation.
• The importance of Christians as peace-builders in the context of increasing environmental conflict (especially important when natural resources must be shared across national boundaries that were enforced by external colonial powers, without taking into account traditional tribal boundaries that had more closely mirrored natural resource zones). This highlights the power of the global Church to provide vital opportunities for safe and loving dialogue.

Similarities between ecotheology in Africa and the West included:

• A call to ecumenism, the need to work together across denominational boundaries because the physical nature of the problems is so large.
• The need to re-affirm the link between spiritual and bodily practices (overcoming an entrenched theology of dualism, inherited from the Greek tradition, which encourages Christian to focus attention on abstract ‘spiritual’ matters to the neglect of discipline and holiness in everyday physical tasks).
• This is linked to a prevalent belief that Christians shouldn’t engage in politics, but conference speakers identified the importance of church leadership in political advocacy to address creation care issues.
• Eschatology – the importance of an understanding of the awaited re-newed heavens and re-newed earth, and consideration of what the values of the Kingdom of God look like today.
• Many of the same key Biblical texts were used to explore ecotheology (e.g. Romans 8, Colossians 1, Genesis, the Noah story) and some of the same (Western) theologians were informing the talks e.g. N.T. Wright was cited by a number of the African scholars and Dave Bookless and Ed Brown, LCCN representatives at the conference, framed many of the issues.
• Repentance for neglect of creation care in the past.
• Evidence of the danger of putting the onus on humans alone to solve the environmental crisis, which happens when theologians react to the traditional position of leaving all responsibility to God e.g. last devotional speaker on Thurs morning interpreted Romans 8 as saying that creation is waiting for humans to redeem it by their own effort (rather than in partnership with Christ).

It became obvious during the conference that there are very deep theological questions stemming from the economic disparity between Africa and the West, as well as the impact this has on increasing competition for global environmental resources. This highlighted the vital role of international communication between Christians, particularly to address conflict stemming from the ‘them and us’ attitude that preserves the ‘right’ of people to consume local resources at global cost. It requires courage and sacrifice to really address these issues, but if we can do so as the global Church we will be in a position to assist the rest of the world struggling with these increasingly pertinent questions.

For example, the question came from a young Congolese man “Why should we suffer for the sake of others far away?”, in reference to limitations placed on the consumption of natural resources through protection of threatened state forests.

These forests play a vital role in absorbing global carbon emissions, but can also lead to women not being able to harvest woodfuel for cooking. From a different perspective one may consider Europeans responding to African asylum seekers and economic migrants arriving en masse in Italy, where some people ask themselves the same question

“Why should we suffer share our limited jobs and resources for the sake of others from far away?”

Climate change affects every person on the planet because natural resources must be shared on a global scale. Just as the work of Christian ecotheologians in the UK involves helping people to understand why they should ‘suffer’ (i.e. sometimes denying themselves things they take for granted) for the sake of others ‘far away’, so too must theologians and leaders in the global South explore what these issues mean in their own communities. Here we can follow the example of Christ, who suffered the most for the sake of others ‘far away’. The challenge is in the dialogue and exposure of levels of suffering. Is it a question of having the ‘rights’ to access resources or having the ‘responsibility’ of caring for and preserving them?

Towards the end of the conference it was exciting to see each national group develop goals for application of the knowledge they had gained during the week. These goals fell into three main categories: Personal, e.g. many delegates were church leaders who committed to speaking on creation care regularly in church services and leading by example with their actions; Organisational, e.g. seminary lecturers would develop courses on eco-theology and mission organisations would include creation care as part of their missional activity; and National, e.g. many planned to organise conferences at the national level to pass on what they had learned to their counterparts within their own country.

We are now considering ways that CCCW can respond to the challenges set at the conference and incorporate care for creation more consciously into our work and daily practice.

Thanks to Andrea Ebley/Care of Creation Inc. for providing these photographs.