Ecumenism in Mozambique

In Search of Ecumenism That Is Live-giving and Healing

At the eighth assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998, the delegates agreed that up to the next assembly the Council should focus on Africa and its contribution to the life of the churches and the ecumenical movement. As a contribution to that overall emphasis, this paper will concentrate particularly on the situation in Mozambique.

Mozambican theologian and WCC central committee member Simao Chamango, in his book on the history of the churches in Mozambique, writes that among the first groups of Protestant missionaries to bring the good news to the country were Mozambicans who had converted to Christianity in neighbouring South Africa, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and who returned home as evangelists. "In search of subsistence for their own families, those Mozambicans brought from the neighbouring countries the inexhaustible wealth that is the word of God, the gospel."(1)

This inexhaustible wealth which has spiritual, material and moral dimensions is indeed the good news that we read about in the gospel of John: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (3:16). And yet in the same gospel, Jesus Christ states the following about himself: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (10:10). Through his life and ministry, Jesus Christ: was concerned that the sick and marginalized should have life.

In other words, what Jesus did was to preach and to build the kingdom of God that is "an authentic global and structural revolution" through transforming the global structures "of this old world into the novelty and joy of God reigning over everything". This is, for Leonardo Boff, what it means to be a Christian. According to Boff,

   To be a Christian is to be a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17), and the kingdom of
   God, in the words of Revelation, is the new heaven and the new earth (Rev.
   21:1): "There will be no more death, and no more mourning and sadness. The
   world of the past has gone" (21:4).(2)

At the end of his mission and before he was taken up into heaven, Christ told his disciples: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matt. 28:19-20). The expression "all nations" means "the whole inhabited world", the oikoumene. Today, after 2000 years, the same command is still addressed to all people in Mozambique, Africa and worldwide, that the world may believe (John 17:21).

The church in Mozambique

The Portuguese began colonizing Mozambique in the 15th century. As in many countries in Africa the colonization and evangelization processes took place simultaneously.(3)

The Roman Catholic Church was the first to come to Mozambique, and it remained the only Christian church in the country until the 19th century, when some Protestant missionary societies began to establish themselves, especially in the southern and central regions.(4) The newspaper of the time, O Comercio de Lourenco Marques, reported:

   Time must provide a ready remedy for what is happening in Lourenco Marques
   [now Maputo]. All kinds of religions and sects are spreading their
   propaganda while our Catholic Church stands still or even goes into
   reverse.(5)

According to the Mozambican Roman Catholic Episcopal Conference, the lack of success of the Roman Catholic Church between the 15th and 19th centuries was due to the fact that its pastoral activities were directed more to the Portuguese residents, although from time to time some attention was also given to native peoples.(6) But by the turn into the 20th century, a number of missionary societies and Protestant churches were making their presence felt throughout the country. This developed even as Catholicism became stronger and more dynamic -- largely in the areas of mission, education and health(7) -- in the 1940s, after the signing of the missionary agreement between the states of Portugal and the Vatican, through which the Roman Catholic Church became the official church of the Portuguese state.(8)

Mozambican authorities estimate that there are currently more than 300 Christian denominations operating throughout the country, all of which have registered with the department of religious affairs in the ministry of justice.(9) These include the Roman Catholic Church, the mainline Protestant churches, the Evangelical churches, the African Independent "separatist" churches and the Pentecostal churches.

Ecumenical activity

According to Chamango, before the Berlin conference in 1885 the Protestant churches and missionary societies were not officially allowed to operate in Mozambique, but after this historic conference Protestants gained "relative freedom"(10) to work in the country. By the 1930s there were about 18 Protestant missions operating throughout the country.(11)