Witchcraft and Death: Inculturation and Orthodox mission
Stephen Hayes[1]
During a Ministry Training course held in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria in May 2003, two topics were raised which we postponed for consideration at a later course: witchcraft and death. Before we can deal with them in a training course, however, we need to consider them theologically, and formulate some kind of policy about them. This paper offers some tentative thoughts about a subject that needs to be investigated much more thoroughly.
INTRODUCTION
In May 2003 a ministry training course was held in Johannesburg by the Orthodox Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria. There were 20 students, from different cultural backgrounds. All but two were South African - of the others, one was Romanian, and the other Malawian. They ranged in education from one who had a degree in theology to one who had never been to school. Their experience of Orthodoxy was also varied, from growing up in the Orthodox Church to never having set foot in an Orthodox temple before the course.
The ones responsible for organising the teaching (and who led much of it) were Fr Athanasios Akunda, a missionary priest from Kenya, and Stephen Hayes, a South African missiologist and Reader.
At the course the questions of witchcraft and ancestor veneration were raised, discussed only briefly, and consideration of them was postponed to a future course. It was clear that the questions are both important and urgent, and need to be dealt with, but that they could not be dealt with without thinking about them a lot more deeply.
In some ways the questions of witchcraft and death are two different issues, and they could be dealt with separately in the training courses. I myself feel more confident in dealing with witchcraft, and have studied the subject for some time (Hayes 1995).[2] I find the question of death, and related topics, such as burial services and memorial services more difficult. But they are also related, and so I have introduced them together, even if they are eventually taught in different courses.
THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM: DEATH AND BURIAL
In South Africa we are faced with the problem of receiving into the Orthodox Church many people who formerly belonged to the African Orthodox Episcopal Church, and some who have come from other denominations or none.
One of the first things that people look to the Church for is burial services. People die all the time, and will not wait until we have translated the burial services into all the local languages, and trained priests to lead the services in those languages.
In Orthodox countries, there is no problem. Even in the communist countries, where for many years atheist burials were the norm, when the Church regained its freedom, priests and deacons knew what to do, and people expected them to do it. Funeral customs differed in different places. In some places, the bones were dug up after a few years and put into ossuaries, in others they remained in the ground. There are different minor customs and traditions. But Orthodox Christians in those countries are buried with basically the same rite, and the Church’s theology of death and dying is proclaimed in the rites themselves.
In South Africa, it is different. We live in a multicultural society, where people have different understandings of life and death. There have been many different burial customs, which have influenced each other, but now one of the strongest influences is secular. Burial customs are influenced by secular bodies like undertakers and burial societies. They create the expectations in people’s minds of what a "proper" funeral ought to be like, in the cities anyway.
This makes it very difficult to hold Orthodox funerals, and the theological understanding of death and the way in which people cope with it is primarily expressed in the liturgical praxis of the Church, and especially in the funeral services. It is very difficult to teach this, however, if people do not have the opportunity of attending an Orthodox funeral service.
The problem of teaching on death, then, shows itself in both a practical way and in a theological way.
The practical problems, for which we need a policy, are:
- How should funeral services be conducted?
- By whom should they be conducted?
- How should Orthodox Christians conduct funeral vigils?
- Are there any customs that are contrary to Orthodox teaching?
- How should memorial services be conducted?
- Should the custom of holding a Slava be encouraged?
These are obviously linked to the theological questions:
- How does the Orthodox theology of death relate to South African cultural understandings, in both traditional and popular modern culture?
- How does Orthodox theology interpret traditional beliefs, such as those relating to amadlozi?
Others have been this way before
The question of mission and culture is not a new one and it is not something that we are facing for the first time. Missiologists refer to it as "inculturation". It is a problem that Orthodox missionaries have had to face for the last 2000 years. Oleksa (1992) shows that Orthodoxy has often been better at dealing with this question than Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, and that Orthodoxy takes a more positive view of human cultures.
In southern Africa many conferences have been held and many books have been written on the topic of inculturation, and there have been many different approaches. A Roman Catholic priest has recently written a doctoral thesis on burial customs, and there have been many similar things. We need to study some of what has been done and what has been written, not so much in order to copy what others have done, as to try to understand the problem, and learn from the mistakes they made. I have therefore included in the bibliography some books and articles written by non-Orthodox writers, and recommend that we read some of them. I will also quote some of them in the text.
"Our culture"
South Africa has many cultures, and they have different understandings of death. These cultures are not static, however, and they interact with each other, so the culture and customs surrounding death are always changing and developing.
People sometimes speak of burial customs as part of "our culture", yet this culture is often shaped by secular influences and institutions as much as by religious ones.
Mrs X goes to a funeral, and sees that when Mrs Y's husband is buried, the chief mourners sit in armchairs under a canopy at the graveside. If her undertaker does not provide armchairs for this purpose when her husband dies a few months later, she will be convinced that she is not getting her money’s worth.
Thus popular expectations of what constitutes a "proper" funeral are shaped by secular agencies like undertakers and burial societies, which in turn come under pressure from their clients to conform to these expectations. It is a constantly evolving process.
Burial societies exist mainly to help people cover the cost of funerals, which can be a crippling expense for poor families. In addition to the cost of the coffin and other burial fees, relatives often come from great distances, and need to be housed and fed.
The influence of the burial societies often shapes funerals in other ways, however. The funeral is run like a business meeting. A Master of Ceremonies (MC) draws up a programme, and interspersed between the speeches of various people, times are allocated to the "moruti" (minister), who will be expected to say a prayer or preach a sermon. There may, however, be several baruti, representing the various denominations that different members of the family belong to, and some may simply be neighbours who come to join in the fun.
The problem with this, however, is that it makes a liturgical hash of the Orthodox burial service. During one of the intervals allocated to the "moruti" the priest may get an opportunity to cense the coffin. This is followed by a speech, and the prayers that follow the censing get squeezed out, because the next time there is a slot for the "moruti" in the programme, the MC points to a minister of another denomination.
Generic Protestantism
In South Africa, for funerals (and other occasions where people from many different backgrounds gather) there has developed what could be called a generic Protestant way of doing things. There are variations from one place to another, and one community to another, but in spite of the variations, there is a common pattern.
I have called it "Generic Protestantism" because of what the "moruti" is expected to do. The "moruti" listed in the programme is expected to say a prayer, or possibly preach a sermon or give an exhortation, but not to do something, like cense the body, or sprinkle holy water.
Though people have sometimes said (e.g. Hodgson 2003:118) that this generic Protestantism is "Africanised Christianity", in fact it is also very Western. It is based on the Western idea of how to conduct a meeting, with the important people in chairs facing the audience, with a programme drawn up by the chairman of the organisation, and everything being done with one eye on the clock.
Though traditional African societies in South Africa varied in their burial customs, they were in many ways closer to Orthodoxy than the modern "business meeting" style of conducting funerals. For one thing, ritual was often as important as words. This is possibly still the case in rural areas, where people still sometimes bury their dead without the help of undertakers or burial societies. But in the cities, at least, the "Generic Protestant" style seems to have taken over.[3]
Lay funeral leaders in the Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church in South Africa has instituted special training courses for lay funeral leaders, and has published training materials. Father Michael Wuestenberg has written his doctoral thesis on their functioning in a rural parish, and has described how they work in practice, and evaluated the experiment. He also describes modern burial customs.
While Orthodox funerals differ from Roman Catholic ones (the Roman Catholic Church, for example, has stressed the importance of the Requiem Mass) there are many similar principles that apply. For example, Fr Michael Wuestenburg (a Roman Catholic priest) writes:
Funeral societies play a vital role also in our rural communities. Being part of them and paying contributions makes the participation at funerals a must. That disrupts at times the normal pastoral work and outreach since people, in the case of a funeral, opt for other priorities and skip the appointment in their church community.
At funerals the problem is rather with the MCs who are not necessarily members of the funeral society. If they have no understanding for the church or the particular denomination it happens that they want to cut short this "faith appendix".
Bishop Hirmer of Umtata published recently a small booklet with advice on funerals after having experienced a lot of abuse of church ritual. It is published by Paulines.
My experience is that a Catholic community that is stronger and with good and accepted leaders can withstand the pressure of a MC who wants to cut the church service short instead of the sometimes extremely lengthy speeches. I experienced some Catholic MCs who actually cut short the speeches in order to provide dignified space for the church ceremonies. "I give you 2 minutes for your speech" he said and cut the speaker short after 3. Therefore we tried to encourage having a MC from our own congregation at Catholic funerals.
Orthodox practice in Alaska
I asked Fr Michael Oleksa, the Dean of the Cathedral in Anchorage, Alaska, and a noted Orthodox missiologist, about this, and he responded:
We have solved the "funeral problem" here only by insisting that for Orthodox Christians, there be a full Orthodox funeral service. What you describe as the norm in South Africa sometimes occurs in Alaska as well, but the Orthodox clergy do not participate. We do our service and leave. Whatever the others do, we neither witness nor condone. In most cases, such parallel or double services occur only when the deceased was Orthodox and the rest of the family is not or never was.[4]
This might be difficult to implement in South Africa. In Alaska, people have been Orthodox for 200 years, and though they have similar problems of small scattered congregations in rural areas where there are no priests, they probably have a better understanding of what is entailed in Orthodox funerals. Orthodoxy came to Alaska long before Protestantism did, and Orthodoxy became part of Alaskan culture (Elanna & Baluta 1992:302). In South Africa, Protestantism has become part of the general culture.
POSSIBLE WAYS FORWARD: DEATH AND BURIAL
In this section, I am not recommending courses of action, but rather suggesting possibilities that need to be discussed.
Training clergy
If we send people to seminaries in Orthodox countries, we should ask the seminary authorities to ensure that they are exposed to Orthodox funerals, and that they should also discuss these in relation to common burial customs in South Africa, both with their teachers and fellow students.
There is a danger that students will end up with two unrelated sets of knowledge - one for South Africa, and one for the country in which they have done their seminary training. They will perhaps need to think more deeply about it than most students. Students from the local country will find it easier to accept the relation between the funeral service and local beliefs and customs. South African students will have two (or more: there are many cultures in South Africa) sets of relations to interpret.
Role of the clergy
What should the part of the clergy be, especially in the case of catechumens, or a non-Orthodox relative of an Orthodox Church member?
Ecumenical participation
Similarly, if an Orthodox Church member dies, what should be the role of clergy of other denominations at the funeral?
Lay funeral leaders
We need to consider what lay funeral leaders should do. What should such leaders do at funerals, and what should they not do, and how should they be trained?
Fr Michael Oleksa describes how it is done in Alaska:
Readers conduct funerals where no clergy are available. Since the Panakhida is mostly a choral service, the only sections omitted are the litanies, and with a bishop's okay, even the prayer "O God of Spirits and of all Flesh..." could be read aloud at least once at the end. So 95% of the regular service can be done without a priest present. We need only to train our readers how to do this when the priest cannot come or there are none available, which happens here quite often.[5]
Teaching people now
We need to begin teaching people now! Waiting until someone dies is too late, because then the members of the family are upset, and not sure what to do.
What to do when someone dies?
We need to draw up guidelines on what to do if a person dies, especially if that person is a baptised Orthodox Christian. But before drawing up such guidelines, we need to think carefully about the implications. It will often happen that the senior member of the family, who is responsible for making the burial arrangements, is not Orthodox. Such a person will often want to assign a larger part in the burial service to a minister of their own church, and will not understand how Orthodox funerals are conducted. Or they may simply arrange for the funeral to be conducted entirely by a minister of their own church.
If we give teaching to Orthodox people on what to do when someone dies, we also need to discuss with them how they can make their wishes known to members of their own families, if they want to have an Orthodox funeral. Many members of the Orthodox Church are the only member of the family who is Orthodox.
Liaison with burial societies
We need to have liaison with burial societies that church members belong to, so that they are aware of the requirements for Orthodox funerals. Some church members are members of the committees of burial societies, and could arrange for a priest, like Father Athanasios, to speak to the committees on what needs to be done at an Orthodox funeral.
They should be encouraged to consult the priest in drawing up the programme for any burial of an Orthodox Church member.
An Orthodox burial society?
It may be worth considering setting up an Orthodox burial society.
There are some members of the Church who are committee members of burial societies, and their experience should make it possible to set up a society. Before doing this, we would need to conduct a survey of church members to see how many belong to burial societies and how many do not, and whether the societies they belong to are willing to cooperate in preparing for Orthodox funerals.
Memorial services
Up till now we have put the stress on the 40 days Memorial Service (Requiem, Mnemosyne, Panikhida). It is usually sufficiently long after the funeral for the family to appreciate it in a clearer frame of mind. It also comes at a time when others are likely to have forgotten their grieving somewhat, and when they feel more need for support.
It is difficult to know what to call it in English, as in South African "Generic Protestantism" a "Memorial Service" is often an anti-funeral service, a service held instead of a funeral. The term "Requiem" can likewise be confused with the Roman Catholic "Requiem Mass". The Zulu term "Isikhumbuzo" could be used, with the equivalent in other languages.
Memorial services and isikhumbuzo
The annual Memorial Service and Soul Saturdays perhaps need to be emphasised. The first anniversary of death in traditional Zulu society, at least, is the time of ukubuyisa, when the dead person returns home and becomes idlozi, an ancestor. The dead person remains part of the household, but acquires a new status within it.
This is undergoing reinterpretation for several reasons. One is that in urban society, there is not the same close-knit community of rural villages. Urbanisation is changing the way people see things. Another is that many people do not know their fathers. Most children are born to unmarried mothers, and grow up not knowing who their fathers are.
The Memorial Services are also important, therefore, in relation to family life. They help to show the continuity of the family.
Many Protestant theologians and exponents of African Theology are inclined, in discussing such matters, to stress the uniqueness of African culture, and to stress its difference from European culture. But the differences are actually far smaller than they sometimes assume.
Spinka (1968:8) shows how traditional Slav religion was similar to traditional African religion, and in many ways Orthodox Christianity has already been inculturated in such societies:
The Slavs practised animism, ancestor worship, and an elementary polytheism. They believed that Perun, the god of lightning, was the lord of all things, and sacrificed cattle to him. All nature was regarded as being permeated by spiritual beings. They worshipped ancestors and household gods ded, dedek or dedushka domovoy - the equivalent of the Latin penates. The spirit of the departed ancestor was the genius of the household, who protected the family. Sacrifices were offered by the head of the family, tribal chiefs and princes. Sacrifices consisted of poultry - especially a black cock or hen - sheep, pigs or cattle. There was occasional human sacrifice. There were shamans or medicine men, known as volkhvi, who were also regarded as healers. The volkhvi became the chief opponents of Christianity when it was introduced.
There seems to be little difference between Perun and the Zulu Inkosi yeZulu (Lord of Heaven), the trampling of whose cattle in the sky caused the sound of thunder, and whose cult was led by heaven herds (abelusi bezulu), who are different from diviners (Berglund 1976:46). The dedek (grandfathers) are none other than amadlozi, and the volkhvi are little different from the izangoma.
What made it easier for Orthodox missionaries in the Balkans (as compared with Protestant missionaries in Africa) was that the Orthodox missionaries belonged to a premodern culture, like that of those they evangelised. Protestant missionaries in Africa came from the West, which after the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment had developed a radically different worldview, which we call modernity. The cultural gap was far greater.
The offer of bursaries for students to study in seminaries in Serbia should therefore be especially useful, as students would be studying in a place where Orthodoxy had already been inculturated (or incarnated) into a society that was similar to African societies.
Slava
The Serbian custom of the Slava could be encouraged.
This is a kind of family name day, which links both the living and departed members of the family. The family saint is normally the one on whose feast the first member or members of the family were baptised. It seems to fit well with African culture.
Spinka (1968:11) shows that when Orthodox Christianity reached the Balkans, it faced challenges of inculturation that were not all that different from those in Africa today, and the Slava was one response to those challenges:
Ancient gods were converted to Christian saints. Veles became St Blasius and continued to guard the flocks of Christianized Slavs; Perun became Elijah and continued to wield thunderbolts. The household gods were retained as family saints. Ancestor worship continued in the slava celebration, when Serbian peasants bring food and drink to the graves of their dead.
Blessing of tombstones
We need to give some thought to how this should be done, and how it relates to isikhumbuzo and ukubuyisa.
Vigils
Funeral vigils are common among most black people in South Africa. We need to consider the most appropriate form for the funeral vigils of Orthodox Christians. Should they simply follow the "Generic Protestant" pattern? If not, what should be done in addition to, or instead of, the existing pattern?
THE THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF DEATH
The Orthodox theological understanding of death is expressed primarily in the liturgical rites relating to death, the Burial and Memorial (Panikhida) services. Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy are closely related, here as elsewhere. As Fr Michael Oleksa writes:
I think our theology of Death is clear from the Panakhida, but the Resurrection does not get well emphasized. I realized during a Bright Week Funeral, when we sang the Pascha Canon when approaching the casket to pay our final respects (ordinarily the "Last Kiss" hymn is sung from Hapgood here) that this was far more life-affirming than the "usual" rite. Yup'ik Eskimos wait until the burial, and sing "Having Beheld the Resurrection of Christ" from Sunday Matins and the Kontakion of Pascha over and over until the grave is filled. Since this is usually in the graveyard that surrounds the church itself, the bell is tolled rapidly at this point too, like on Pascha. Either way, the Triumph of Life over Death is the final triumphant theme of the burial. We might not get an episcopal blessing to do the Paschal Canon at funerals outside the Paschal Season, but this kind of resurrectional conclusion can be done, I think, anywhere, and at any time of year.[6]
The main way in which people learn about the theological understanding of death, therefore, is by attending funerals and Memorial services. The problem here is the difficulty in holding Orthodox funerals, as they tend to get overwhelmed by the generic Protestant type of funeral.
Ancestors
In most African societies, the traditional understanding of those who have died is similar to the pre-Christian Slavic one. There seem to be notable parallels between beliefs about the amadlozi and the domovoi. The Slava service has built on this.
Diviners
In African societies diviners often have a special role in relation to the dead. In Zulu society, for example, a diviner (isangoma) is often called by the ancestral shades, and people consult them to find out what is causing their problems, such as illness or other misfortunes. The diviner may say that the problem is caused by displeasure of the ancestors (because they have been neglected), or that it is caused by witchcraft, or by an alien or mischievous spirit.
Anthropologists have often called such diviners shamans, a term that comes from the Tungus-speaking Evenk people of Siberia. If the South African diviner (isangoma, igqira) is regarded as a kind of shaman, then an Orthodox approach can be determined quite easily from St Innocent of Moscow, who grew up near Lake Baikal, in the place where the Tungus people lived, and was later a missionary in Alaska (Hayes 1998:249; Mousalimos 1991:165).
I referred above to Spinka’s (1968:8) point that the volkhvi (Slavic shamans) were often opponents of Christianity, but in Alaska the sudden turning to Christianity actually appears to have been the result of the of the approval and encouragement of the shamans (Mousalimas 1991:157).
In South Africa we have shamans (izangoma) who want to be baptised as Orthodox Christians. How should they relate their traditional knowledge to the Orthodox Christian faith?
There have been four main approaches:
- Rejection. The traditional knowledge is rejected as purely evil.
- Dvoeverie. Two incompatible beliefs or worldviews are held side by side, with little or no interaction between them.
- Syncretism. The two different beliefs are mingled, to make a third, and new belief, which is different from either component.
- Inculturation. Where the original local culture is transformed, and the Christian belief becomes part of it.
This is where careful thought is needed. Before making any judgements about whether an African shaman (e.g. isangoma) who becomes Orthodox falls or will fall into any of the above categories, an Orthodox Christian from a different culture needs to consider their relationship with their own culture: into which of the above categories does it fall? To take a similar field, one could compare the relations between Orthodoxy and shamanism in African culture with the relations between Orthodoxy and psychology and psychotherapy in European culture. Can the relations be characterised as rejection, dvoeverie, syncretism or inculturation?[7]
If we are to go beyond dvoeverie, therefore, we will need to give careful thought to how we should catechise izangoma. Inculturation means that cultures are transformed by the gospel, and all cultures need to be transformed, including, and perhaps especially, our own. As Orthodox Christians we sometimes criticise evangelical Protestants for saying that they are "saved". We say, quite rightly, that this claim is arrogant, and that the most we can claim is that we are "being saved". Yet so often we speak and act as though Orthodox cultures were "saved" rather than "being saved".
Orthodoxy has a double way of looking at the world, with its societies and cultures. In one way, it is a fallen world, and its societies and cultures are in the power of the evil one (I John 4:19). On the other hand, God loves the world, and wants all men to be saved (John 3:16). In all human societies, there is good and evil, beauty and ugliness. All need to be transformed.
So Orthodox missionaries have said that pagan societies worship demons, and need to repent of this, and turn to the living God. But Orthodox missionaries have also taken a far more positive view of non-Christian religions than most Protestant missionaries.
It was St Maximus's opposition to the monothelitism of his times, and to the Platonic theology of Origen, that laid the foundations for the positive view which Orthodox missions have generally had of traditional societies in central and eastern Europe in the 9th & 10th centuries, and across central Asia and into eastern Siberia and Alaska over the next 800 years. As Oleksa (1992:61) points out:
Orthodox evangelists felt no obligation to attack all the pre-contact religious beliefs of shamanistic tribes, for they could perceive in them some of the positive appreciation of the cosmos that is central to St Maximus' theology. They could affirm that the spiritual realities these societies worshipped were indeed 'logoi' related to the Divine Logos, whose personal existence these societies had simply never imagined.
Inculturation does not require either uncritical affirmation, nor uncompromising condemnation of all previous cultural beliefs and practices when people come to baptism. What is required, however, is rejection of the devil and acceptance of Christ as king and God.
WITCHCRAFT
Witchcraft is in many ways much easier to deal with, at least conceptually. It is mentioned here because there are links between witchcraft and death. In many African cultures people believe that death, especially unexpected death, or the death of a young person, is brought about by witchcraft. Thus when the Church ministers to a family that has suffered a death, the members of the family may often believe that they have been bewitched as well.
In most African societies witchcraft (ubuthakathi, boloi) is regarded as the evil, and witches (abathakathi, baloi) are regarded as incorrigible. The principle of "Once a witch, always a witch" holds sway, and a major task of the diviner (isangoma, igqira, moreku) is to detect witches and neutralise the harm they cause. In this role, diviners are often called "witchdoctors" in English, that is, doctors whose work is to heal and solve the problems caused by witchcraft. Once detected, the witch must be put to death. In the early 1990s more than 400 people were killed (usually by burning) in South Africa’s Limpopo province because they were suspected witches.
The scope of the problem
The problem usually takes two forms:
- How to deal with people who believe they are bewitched
- How to deal with witches and suspected witches
Protestant approaches
The approach of many 19th-century Protestant missionaries was to assert that witches and witchcraft did not exist. For them the cure was to persuade people to abandon such superstitious beliefs, and instead to put their trust in Western medicine (Hayes 1995:345).
As a result of this, many African Christians came to distinguish between two types of sickness: izifo zaBelungu (white people’s diseases), which could be treated by Western medicine, and izifo zaBantu (peoples, or folk diseases), which had to be treated by folk medicine and remedies (umuthi waBantu). Witchcraft definitely fell into the latter category - something that could not be dealt with by Western medicine.
Thus people fell into what Orthodox writers have called dvoeverie (double-mindedness). They would accept the Christian faith as preached by Protestant missionaries for some purposes, and look to traditional culture and its solutions for other purposes (Levin in Batalden 1972: 93; Fedotov 1960: 346ff).
Things began to change with a new group of Protestants in the 20th century - the Pentecostals and Zionists. The Zionists rejected all forms of medicine, African and Western, and emphasised divine healing. Owing to quarrels among the Zionists, and between them and the Pentecostals, numerous different denominations appeared, some of which softened the original rigid opposition to scientific medicine.
The earlier arrivals (who styled themselves as "mainline" churches) looked down on the Zionists and Pentecostals, and their leaders generally maintained their position that witchcraft did not exist. The rank and file members of these denominations, however, either continued in their dvoeverie, or mingled it with ideas borrowed from the Zionists and Pentecostals, which was part of the process that led to what I have called "Generic Protestantism".
The Zionists at least had the merit of taking African problems seriously, and did not neglect ministry to those who thought they had been bewitched. The Zionists, in particular, provided a Christian alternative to the isangoma, and much of their ministry was to protect against the harm caused by witches. They also, however, encouraged witches to confess their crimes, not so that they could be put to death, as happened in traditional society, but rather to restore them and reintegrate them into society (Hayes 1995:347).
There are signs of a third variety of Protestantism, however, which came to Africa from Europe and North America in the 1970s and 1980s, and has been growing rapidly. This kind, sometimes called "neopentecostalism", is creating a new synthesis of the worst of Western and the worst of African values. It is based on Western competitive individualism, which is seen in the names of some of the denominations ("Winners Chapel"" for example). It is important to be a winner and not a loser, which seems to be a strange inversion of our Lord’s saying, "He who seeks to save his life shall lose it." This is amalgamated with the worst part of African beliefs about witchcraft, so that people are encouraged to believe that "someone out there has a job that doesn’t belong to them; it’s YOUR job. Someone is driving a car that doesn’t belong to them; it’s YOUR car. Someone is living in a house or apartment that doesn’t belong to them. It’s YOU that should be living there." In this case the speaker (in the Democratic Republic of Congo) went on to say "God will show you who it is that is preventing you from enjoying success in your life. The sorcerer may be an uncle or it may be your spouse, it may be your own child. God will reveal it to you, and will have the success that God wants for you" (Bernhard 2002:13).
To summarise, then, there are three main Protestant approaches, which came to Africa in roughly chronological order.
-
The "mainline" approach, which tends to deny that there are such things as witches, and to regard such beliefs as superstitions that must be eradicated.
- The Zionist and Pentecostal view, which teaches that Christ has the power to overcome demons and witches, and can even convert witches who repent, and restore them.[8]
- The Neopentecostal view, which puts a high value on "success", and takes on the witch-finding role, promising to find the witches who hamper one’s success.[9]
Orthodox approaches
I believe that there is some variety in Orthodox approaches, but that in general the approach is not dissimilar to the second of the Protestant approaches I have described above. Orthodox Christians are not unfamiliar with belief in witchcraft (for example, belief in "the evil eye"). The teaching of the Church, however, is that God can protect us against the malice of others, and he is able to do so more easily if we struggle hard against malice in ourselves.
The Church also teaches that we should avoid excessive fear of demons. Perhaps the best summary of the Orthodox understanding comes from a secular anthropologist, who studied a village on the Greek island of Naxos:
The nature and breadth of Orthodox tradition make it difficult to establish where Orthodoxy ends and alternative traditions begin. Nonetheless Church tradition concerning the Devil does observe certain doctrinal essentiae. Instances of radical divergence from such doctrinal positions are considered heresy (airesis) or deisidaimonia, a revealing term usually translated as "superstition" but literally meaning "fear of demon(s)." Inordinate fear of demons was precisely the point. One who had accepted Christ should properly disdain demons as vain and ineffectual. In the early Church, any one who still actively showed awe or concern for demons was arguably not Christian at all, but still swayed by some form of pagan religion (Stewart 1991:147-148).
Father Michael Oleksa gives another useful summary:
I agree that "Witchcraft" is easier to deal with because it is precisely an interest in demons who, from a Christian perspective, have reality, truly exist, but have already been defeated. The Hollywood Dracula films, with the forces of evil terrified by the image of the Cross is a Balkan testimony to this relationship. Evil exists just as sin does, but it has already been defeated by Christ and His Cross is the Symbol (in the fullest sense) of that Victory.
People interested in witchcraft are also looking for ways of exercising power over others, even if it has negative effects. This desire to have control for its own sake is always demonic, even within the Church. Christ grants freedom. Freedom, St. Gregory of Nyssa believed, is the very identity of the "image" of God in humankind. God is Free and He bestows this Freedom on Adam as the very content of His image in him. Witchcraft always seeks to limit that freedom, sometimes by using evil spirits themselves and other times by using natural forces -- wind, fire, water or bacteria -- to limit or destroy the freedom of another. Any intervention in another person's life without their knowledge or consent by manipulation is therefore totally inappropriate, and potentially demonic.
For those who practise witchcraft, therefore, the Orthodox teaching is clear: it is a sin they need to confess and forsake, like any other behaviour that involves treating others with malice and hatred.
For those who fear that witchcraft is being practised on them by others, the position is no less clear: theologically, we believe that the ultimate victory is Christ’s. The Hollywood Dracula films have often made clear the potency of Christians symbols. What makes it even more clear is Bram Stoker’s original novel, Dracula - a vampire or other spiritual agent of evil can only enter a house, or a person, with their permission. It is one’s own spiritual weakness that allows these creatures to gain a foothold. The difficulty here is not so much in the knowing as in the doing. It is easy to quote "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7), but the techniques of resistance need to be learnt and practised. This is part of the spiritual struggle (ascesis, podvig).
Witchcraft and spiritual warfare
The early ascetics often saw their struggle as primarily being against hostile demons. Later the hesychast theologians shifted the emphasis of the struggle (ascesis, podvig) from resistance to the growth in holiness and theosis (Fedotov 1960:153). As one advances in the struggle, deisdaimonia decreases.
We need to teach about spiritual warfare in both senses, showing the link between them. This is probably not something that can be covered quickly and completely, in one course, but needs continual teaching.
Once again, Stewart (1991:146) sums up succinctly what the aim of such teaching should be:
The Orthodox moral world emerges as an arena in which good struggles against evil, the kingdom of heaven against the kingdom of earth. In life, humans are enjoined to embrace Christ, who assists their attainment of Christian virtues: modesty, humility, patience and love. At the same time, lack of discernment and incontinence impede the realization of these virtues and thereby conduce to sin; sin in turn places one closer to the Devil... Since the resurrection of Christ the results of this struggle have not been in doubt. So long as people affirm their faith in Christ, especially at moments of demonic assault, there is no need to fear the influence of the Devil. He exists only as an oxymoron, a powerless force.
CONCLUSION
Strictly speaking, there is no conclusion.
As I said at the beginning, this is a discussion paper, intended to spark discussion, and to encourage people to think more deeply about the subject, so that we can develop a policy, and therefore teach in our courses with definite guidelines in mind, rather than haphazardly.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batalden, Stephen K. (ed). 1993. Seeking God: the recovery of religious identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
Berglund, Alex-Ivar. 1976. Zulu thought-patterns and symbolism. London: Hurst.
Bernhard, Wendy. 2002. Massive new anti-witchcraft movement in Kinshasa. Review of AICs, Vol 13(1), Jan-Apr: 12-13.
Ellana, Linda J. & Baluta, Andrew. 1992. Nuvendaltin Qhut’ana: the people of Nondalton. Washington: Smithsonian.
Fedotov, G.P. 1960. The Russian religious mind. Vol 1. New York: Harper & Row.
Hayes, Stephen. 1995. Christian responses to witchcraft and sorcery, Missionalia, Vol 23(3), November: 339-354. Can be seen at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/witch1.htm
Hayes, Stephen. 1998. Orthodox mission methods: a comparative study. Pretoria: University of South Africa, DTh thesis.
Hayes, Stephen. 2001. Sundkler deconstructed: Bethesda AICs and syncretism. Missionalia. Vol 29(3), November: 494-501.
Hodgson, Janet. 2003. "Stones the builders rejected": Ecclesial communities of the excluded in the Anglican Church in Southern Africa. Missionalia, 31(1), April: 117-156.
Levin, Eve. 1993. Dvoeverie and popular religion, in Seeking God: the recovery of religious identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, edited by Stephen K. Batalden.: pp 31-52. Vide Batalden 1993.
Mousalimas, S.A. 1991. The account from Old Harbour regarding the baptism of the Kodiak Alutiiq (1794-1795). Greek Orthodox Theological Review. Vol 36(2): 155-168.
Oleksa, Michael. 1992. Orthodox Alaska: a theology of mission. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Spinka, Matthew. A history of Christianity in the Balkans. No place stated: Archon.
Stewart, Charles. 1991. Demons and the devil: moral imagination in modern Greek culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
NOTES
[1] Stephen Methodius Hayes is a tonsured Reader in the Orthodox Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria. He is mission secretary to His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim, Archbishop of Johannesburg and Pretoria. He holds a doctorate in missiology from the University of South Africa. He may be contacted at PO Box 7648, Pretoria, 0001 South Africa; E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk
[2] http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/WITCH1.HTM
[3] Many of the customs that some have described as peculiarly African in fact depend on the modern technology of death such as refrigerated mortuaries and motorised hearses, not to mention all the sepulchral haberdashery of plastic grass, ornate coffins, etc. This allows a week or more to elapse between death and burial, and for friends and relatives to gather from all over. In traditional African society the dead were buried within a day or two.
[4] E-mail: Fr Michael Oleksa to Stephen Hayes, dated 4 June 2003.
[5] E-mail, Fr Michael Oleksa to Stephen Hayes, dated 4 June 2003.
[6] E-mail, Fr Michael Oleksa to Stephen Hayes, dated 4 June 2003.
[7] This is not a purely hypothetical question. A Lutheran church historian and missiologist, Bengt Sundkler, once criticised some African Independent Churches, and accused them of being unbiblical and syncretist. However, he did not cite the Bible in his criticism, but instead referred to Freudian psychology (Hayes 2001:498-499).
[8] This is a generalisation, and there is a great variety of approaches among Zionists and Pentecostals. In general, however, they do not claim to detect witches. Some do, however, claim to be able to detect objects and substances that have been placed by sorcerers with the intent of causing harm, and to neutralise these.
[9] I do not want to suggest that all Neopentecostal groups encourage witch-finding in this way. There is a great deal of variety among Neopentecostals as well, but the cult of success and prosperity seems to be common to most of them, and this can easily be linked to a witch-finding movement, though it is not necessarily so linked in every case.
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