On July 9th, 2011 South Sudan becomes the world’s newest nation. Despite a battered and bloody past, with little infrastructure, the soon-to-be nation has a major strength -- an active church.
On February 15, 2011, the territory which will soon become the world’s newest state was christened the Republic of South Sudan. The secession from greater Sudan is planned to happen on 9 July 2011.
This change is preceded by nearly four decades of internal strife and bloody civil war. Part religious conflict and part scramble to control rich natural resources. The clash started even before Sudan emerged from colonial rule in 1956 and pitted the richer and more powerful north against the tribal and 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’s own tribal and cultural differences added to the people’s suffering. Between 1983 and 2005 about two million southern Sudanese perished, and another four million fled their homes to escape the violence and bloodshed.
Few experts in nation building are convinced that South Sudan will emerge in independence as a viable estate. 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 more than 50 years ago.
But then, no one predicted the nation would emerge, surprisingly peaceful from the nearly unanimous vote for session in January 2011. Journalists and the nation building experts had predicted reprisals from the north resulting in mass genocide. Even the U.S, government dubbed the region a “ticking time bomb.” Nothing like that has happened.
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. The advantage is an “active and vibrant 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 and devout cadre of native Sudanese evangelists and a slow but steady trickle of believers joined their Sunday morning worship services.
What the southern Sudanese people discovered was the love of God. Jesus was a stark contrast to the religious traditions they had practiced for centuries. They no longer had to slaughter a valuable animal, a cow, a goat, to appease their many gods. They discovered Jesus didn’t need anything from them... expect their loyalty, love, faith and obedience. Jesus Christ became what they had longed for but could never find in their animistic religions... He was the God of Love... who loved them!
This trickle of believers turned into a flood of new converts to Christianity when Sudan’s president Omar Al-Bashir imposed “Sharia” (Islamic) law across the whole of Sudan in 1989.
Though the statistics are at best sketchy... experts estimate that the percentage of professing Christians in Southern Sudan rose from 10 and 20 percent of the population in the late 1980s... to a whopping 70 to 80 percent by the year 2000. The church eleven years later, continues to grow in numbers.
Albeit, many practice a syncretistic blend of Christianity and traditional African religions. 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. In other words... the “gods of animism” failed because the people began to realize such gods of wood and stone are not real, nor living, and can not help the people.
Persecution has also had a heavy impact on the church’s theology: as churches have grown, they have both maintained denominational divisions and overcome them.
All named Christian denominations are working in southern Sudan... from Catholic to Pentecostal. As these believers in Jesus Christ “mature in their faith experience” more and more are turning to a Biblical truth based evangelical expression of faith.
Hardships, challenges and the God of Love have brought people together seeking the true purpose and meaning to life. As they grow in their faith... growing in knowledge and understanding... they become seekers of God’s truth.
Please pray for the people of the new Republic of South Sudan. Pray that Christ will continue to be uppermost in their vision of religion and that the people’s faith will grow and mature... centered in Biblical TRUTH.
