Background: This discussion between Bishop Dandala and Angela Reitmaier (who worked with the Kenyan Secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development from 2007 to 2009) took place in Berlin on November 14, 2011, when Bishop Dandala gave the sermon at the ecumenical service to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the German Development Ministry. Bishop Dandala explains how he was exposed to the ecumenical movement in South Africa and in the UK, and how he had been formed by the Black Consciousness Movement. He makes a strong link between ecumenism and a clear and meaningful role for faith in society. In South Africa, the focus of the churches on reconciliation after the transition was remarkable, but today their common focus is far less clear. He argues that the ecumenical movement needs to work towards clearer unity with African Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. Bishop Dandala sees a role for the church not just in condemning socio-economic injustices, but also actively championing the vitally needed changes, including fighting corruption, educating people on good governance, and enhancing the skills of the African people to run their democracies effectively.
Your interesting career has involved you, not just in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, but also at the pan-African level and in politics. How did you come to do what you have done? What in your background inspired you?
Two things were critical. The first was that I studied at an ecumenical college, the Federal Theological Seminary of Southern Africa in Eastern Cape, which comprised Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. After having been steeped in Methodist tradition, it was quite an exciting moment for me to be exposed to the ecumenical family. That continued to form my life and ministry. Later on, when I studied in Cambridge (UK), I experienced the same strong ecumenical fellowship. So from a tender age, my Methodist heritage was nurtured in an ecumenical context. And as an integral part of ecumenism, the question of the role of faith in society surfaced.
The second thing that impacted my life very strongly was the Black Consciousness Movement. Those were the days when the late Stephen Bantu Biko was the prime student leader; others, including Barney Pityana, Mamphela Ramphele, and Njabulo Ndebele, have since become eminent citizens of our country. In our young student community, we asked questions about ourselves, the role of society in forming our attitudes, and our own role in forming the attitudes of society. These experiences were so fundamental in my formation that they have continued to guide my life.
You once remarked at the World Conference of Methodists that the church ought to reclaim its position as a moral compass of the world, not only to condemn socio-economic injustices, but to actively champion the necessary changes. Is this an example of where your church and your political background merge? Is this a position that is widely shared in your church?
This is a question that continues to trouble me. The Gospel represents the passion of God for the world. God created and God continues to create, and I cannot imagine a God, who waits until things have gone wrong, before doing anything. But in the churches, the central intent of ministry is often seen as bandaging the wounds, rather than preventing them in the first place. Central to my belief is that we cannot wait until the whole world falls apart and then try to put Humpty Dumpty together again. I do not believe that is represented in the scriptures. What I see represented is a constant call to try and make the world what it ought to be.
But this is not widely accepted. Primarily because of the multiplicity of faiths, instead of trying to understand God’s purpose for the world, the world instead wants to know, who it should listen to among the many religions. So the logical conclusion becomes that the world wants to be left alone, until the religions have agreed on an answer. And this is where my excitement and my conviction about the correctness of the ecumenical agenda begins. It is crucial for the churches to constantly talk and to constantly weigh each other’s views about God’s purpose. The Christian churches must not be afraid to do the same with the people of other faiths. It seems to me that sometimes the agenda is just to stop us people of faith from fighting each other and to get a semblance of peace. But we need to probe deeper into what our faith tells us about the world we envision. How does our faith as Christians synergize with the faith of a Hindu or a Muslim, when it comes to the issue of a common vision for the world. Now this for me is very critical.
Equally critical is our role as people of faith in influencing the agenda of the world. From the time my eyes were opened theologically, key players from the church were engaged in fighting apartheid. My own church, the Methodist church, actually made a prophetic statement to counter apartheid early on, with a Methodist conference in 1958 declaring its conviction “that it was the will of God for the Methodist Church to be one and undivided, trusting God to lead them to bring this ideal to its ultimate fruition.” This statement prevented any attempt to divide Methodists on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity. Other leading South African churchmen and women stood firmly against racism, including the late Anglican Bishop Alphaeus Zulu, the late Methodist Rev. Zaccheus Mahabane, and later, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others. This reinforced the sentiment that the churches’ role was prophetic. But after 1994, another question surfaced that has not been conclusively answered: what is the role of the church in nation building? People may say that fifteen years have been so long, and that that question should by now have been answered. But I do not think it is as easy as that, because people for close to a century have been immersed in a ministry of prophecy, and now they wake up one morning and find that the terrain has changed completely.
The church had played a critical role in the transition period itself offering a ministry of reconciliation, which culminated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The most challenging issue was that of reconciliation among the oppressed themselves. The wars and fights between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party nearly destroyed South Africa. In 1994 and during the transition period, there was absolute clarity about the calling of the church as facilitator of reconciliation. But once completed, it felt like you had hit a dead end. What then should the role of the church be in the changed situation? And for those of us who have believed very strongly in the engagement of the church, the issue remained paramount.
It was these inner explorations that probably led me to a direct engagement in politics as a member of the Congress of People and as a Parliamentarian. I felt strongly that some of the things we as church and as a nation had hoped for, were being sidetracked. But I would like to leave it to historians to analyze this. In terms of the statement I made at the World Methodist Conference, I am unshaken in the belief that the church should play a key role. After my little escapade into direct party political activity, I came back saying, whilst political positions are informed primarily by ideological positions, at the end of the day, I think it is the character of the people and nation that matters; it is the character that the nation wants for itself that matters; it is the character that we want to see even in global politics that matters. One of my greatest concerns is that if politicians are not prodded every day, they have a tendency to forget that they are primarily public servants, accountable to the public. And if bodies like the churches cannot think beyond merely preaching in the pulpits, but look for ways as well by which they can help to enable society to claim its space in holding politicians accountable, then we will have given up on the world of politics and said that it has no place within the realm of those values that the church cherishes. And I don’t believe we should allow this to happen.
When you mentioned ecumenical positions, you referred to Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. But would the African Instituted Churches, including the Pentecostals and Charismatic Churches, also be part of the ecumenical movement and would they share your view of a political role of churches or would you see a difference here?
I would not see a difference. But first I think that purely because of the common approach to theological education one tends to see the scope for collaboration happening with ease within the churches that I have mentioned. In my own context, these are the people that I went to school with and worked with every day. But the biggest challenge is ensuring that the indigenous, or the African Instituted Churches, claim their space within the ecumenical interaction. During the struggle in South Africa, one of the most exciting ecumenical programs that I was involved with when a minister in Port Elizabeth in the 1980s was the Interdenominational African Ministers Association of South Africa, Idamasa. Clergy from the African Instituted Churches participated, we held services together, and the power of the church at that time was absolutely phenomenal.
Interestingly, the government of South Africa at the time contested the relationships between the protestant movement and the Catholic Church on the one hand and the African Instituted Churches on the other hand. The apartheid regime deliberately sought to take a position that put these two groups at loggerheads. If I remember well there was even an instance where the apartheid regime set up a Bishop from the African Instituted Churches in conflict with Bishop Desmond Tutu of the South African Council of Churches. That was a classic demonstration of how this space can easily be contested by those who are holding power.
Recognizing that the African Instituted Churches are part of the body of Christ, and therefore belong within the imperative of the great prayer of Jesus, the ecumenical movement needs to find unity with them so that the world may believe. This is a big challenge. Whether we are doing that adequately or not is another matter. For instance, when I was with the All Africa Conference of Churches, one of the most trying challenges was the issue of the Kimbangu Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other parts of Southern Africa. Here were people, who did not articulate their faith on the basis of the Nicene Creed, people who saw Simon Kimbangu in ways that may be confused with one or two persons of the Trinity, and so the question arose whether they had a place in the ecumenical movement. But having accepted a particular basic statement as definitive on who belongs, how does one relate this to a church that may actually believe what we believe, but is not communicating it in the same way we do? So this is a challenge that will continue to call for our intervention as a church, and the ecumenical movement needs to find ways of dealing with this.
The most critical question for me is whether this should be done by the African Ecumenical Movement or by the Global Ecumenical Movement. I have come to the conclusion that sometimes the prejudices that one fears in the Global Ecumenical Movement do surface and show themselves also within the African Ecumenical Movement and the sympathies one would expect from the African Ecumenical Movement are sometimes evident in the Global Ecumenical Movement. And from where I sit I am not entirely convinced that this problem should just be seen as a problem of the African Ecumenical Movement. But we have to find a way to deal with it that is sensitive to people who are Christians, but come from a background which is philosophically and culturally different.
You mentioned accountability. The Special Investigating Unit reported that South African taxpayers lose up to 30 billion rand (or $3.8 billion) each year because of corruption, incompetence, and negligence in the public service. What is the role of the church in the fight against corruption? Are there examples of what the church has done? And what should the donors or partner churches in the north do to help?
There are two very specific things I believe could be done. The first is for the ecumenical partners to help the churches in South Africa set up programs that will enhance transparency. In other words, proactive programs are needed. The churches must be vigilant against corruption and expose corruption when they find it. A few years ago, the All Africa Conference of Churches launched a program to assist churches to be transparent about their own affairs so that they could speak with greater authority on corruption. Dr. Christoph Stueckelberger, an ethics professor in Basle and director of the Global Ethics network, supported the All Africa Conference of Churches in that initiative. Churches throughout the continent affirmed the correctness of this approach and called for assistance to deal with corruption in the church and to help the church become more transparent in its own life. The All Africa Conference of Churches started with its own audit. But the program was not taken forward with much vigor purely for lack of resources. If partners picked up the conversation with the All Africa Conference of Churches on this matter, I believe they would find a ready partner, who had initiated something, which was stalled for lack of resources.
The second thing that the church can do is to promote education on the principles of good governance. As mentioned before, it is right for the church to be prophetic and to probe issues of corruption, but in my view, the church has an equal obligation to nurture people in the culture of good governance. I am doubtful there are many churches that have such education programs. After my experience in public life as a politician, I feel strongly the need for the church to cultivate politicians, irrespective of ideological inclination or party affiliation, where basic values like honesty and care will be related meaningfully to public service. Now I don’t see why the church should not do that.
You already mentioned the All Africa Conference of Churches, where you served as Secretary General. Is there a strong pan-African spirit in the churches and their members? Do they strive to be pan-African? I worked for NEPAD Kenya Secretariat, and I sometimes detected a lack of pan-African enthusiasm, for instance a reluctance to join the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). What is your opinion?
In the ecumenical movement, the problem is at the grass roots level. People cooperate at high levels of their institutional bodies, and will participate happily in the councils of churches at the national or continental level, but when you actually ask whether they can strengthen the spirit at congregation to congregation level, the enthusiasm seems to wane. There are churches that frankly have no reason to exist as different churches any more. They do the same things, they believe in the same things, and through ecumenical dialogue, problems related to doctrine and polity have been resolved, and yet they continue as separate entities. So there is a real problem, but what is worse is that that problem interferes with mission outreach.
One of the programs I am involved with now is trying to get the churches together in all of Southern Africa and allow the mission land they own to be held together, possibly through a trust, and to be used by communities for the purposes of fighting poverty. I cannot judge the responses of all the churches at the moment, but with some you sense indifference and insistence on ownership. The counter argument is that the land was not given to churches to improve their wealth portfolio, but as an instrument of the mission to the people. But it will take a huge effort to ensure that in the twenty-first century, churches can work together and share resources, to combat the problems that our continent faces.
The late Wangari Maathai remarked in her Nelson Mandela lecture in 2005 that the most unrecognized problem in Africa was the disempowerment of the people. She quoted the story of the beggar, whom Peter and John meet, when they went to the temple for prayer. Peter and John, upon seeing him in that humiliated state, said to him, "Look up!" And, taking him by the right hand, Peter helped the lame man stand up, saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Wangari Maathai went on to say that friends and leaders of Africa should be like Peter and John. They should strive to empower Africa, and not only give alms. And African governments should be responsible and accountable to their people, lifting them from ignorance, disease, and poverty. The speech was given in 2005. Is disempowerment still a problem? Do you see it in South Africa?
Most definitely. I once asked a friend in Germany why Germany was able to recover so quickly after the Second World War, despite the devastations. He answered that the Germans had skills. So when they were supported through the Marshall Plan, they did not need people to come and do the job for them. So the crisis in Africa is the lack of skills. I keep asking myself why this problem is so intractable in Africa.
There are two reasons, the first one being that there must be a concerted effort to help Africans gain skills and competence. Chinese investments in Africa are almost all being done by Chinese skilled people, with Africans only involved at the second or third tier. Africans are not the prime technology drivers of the investment programs, whereas in Germany after the Second World War, the prime drivers were the Germans. Whether this is the responsibility of the partners or the Africans, is something that needs to be debated and discussed, but the point is that unless skills are located in Africa, there will continue to be a problem.
The second reason is a lack of political will among the African Governments to develop African skills. NEPAD was meant to achieve that, but has it been embraced with the enthusiasm and vigor that it deserves? And if not, why not? The answer for me lies with larger civil society. Maybe programs like NEPAD need to be engaged in by the churches and civil society, so that together they find a way to help the peoples of Africa to accept this as their agenda and force their governments to prioritize this agenda item.
