1.2 The background and motivation for the topic
1.2.2 Missiological motivation
During the 1990/91 holidays, in my second year, I once again went home. This time I had something really new, something that would change the lives and history of my family, the local church, the clan and the chieftaincy. I had the missiological task of transmitting the answer to our problem, the zeal to preach and teach this gospel with power, and I had the pastoral compassion and duty to minister to them. I was motivated to take the liberating gospel to my father's household and the church.
The war was intense, and my father moved from one hiding place to another with a group of people following behind him, like Moses in the desert. But this did not prevent my mission. I organized Bible studies every evening around the fire for more than 30 days. My parents, my brother and my sisters-in-law and some members of the local church participated. We challenged and put to the test the old dictum: 'A prophet is respected everywhere except in his home town and by his own family'
(Mat 13:53-58 GNB).
1.2.2.1 A prophet in his home town and in his own family: The liberation of my parents, family and church
Loko u hi xi loyi, lay a nyine wa wena
(If you are a powerful witch, bewitch your own mother)
This quote is an interpretation of a Tsonga teketelo (riddle) that indicates two things, first that it is difficult to convince one's own mother and, second, that in order to test whether something will work, try it on your own mother. Her reaction or the effect/impact of that thing upon her is indicative of the success or failure of that thing in the community. It was a struggle for me to be my parents' pastor, teacher and counsellor. But it worked, and it prepared me for that kind of ministry at different levels.
After a month of teaching, my elder brother made his commitment renouncing all his involvement with the spiritual powers operative in ntumbuluko and asked that I minister liberation/deliverance to him. Soon after that, he was asked to preach on a
Sunday and chose to preach on the subject of spiritual powers. As he stood up to preach, his mouth became paralysed for a while, he could not open it to say a word.
He prayed silently against evil forces and, on finishing his prayer, his mouth was released from paralysis. I did not understand what was happening until he told me about it later on. When he gave his altar call, my father, mother, two sisters-in-law and some members of our church (about 15 people in all) committed themselves to the Lord, renouncing their ntumbuluko involvement with spiritual powers. I set aside a day to minister liberation/deliverance to them, this being my second session of ministering to people in this way.
This personal and family story is an example of different attempts to solve spiritual problems and to achieve security, wellbeing and prosperity through different means.
Our superficial Christian faith did not work, we used ntumbuluko with all its ingredients (rites, divination, charms, amulets, mediums, etc.) but all these only aggravated the situation. We found no way out until we experienced the gospel as the power of God to save (Rom 1:16) and to deliver us from the evil one (Matt 6:13), which became a new experience in the Christian faith gospel.
1.2.2.2 New experience leading towards a new theological paradigm for the understanding of ntumbuluko and the Christian gospel
This experience, from both my personal deliverance/liberation and my ministry to others, led me into a new understanding of the nature of the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross as a new paradigm for the understanding of die gospel or Christian faith as a whole in relation to ntumbuluko. This experience pushed me far beyond the scope of my theological and ministerial training and landed me in deeper layers or areas of life, culture, faith and ministry; areas of which I had little knowledge.
When the day came for ministering liberation/deliverance I started with individual counselling, then family counselling to assess the situation diagnostically and give to appropriate guidance and Scriptures. After that I preached and destroyed all amulets and artifacts and, finally, I prayed for each of them and then for their families to stand firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ, cutting their link with spiritual powers.
Therefore, my motivation for choosing this topic is to explore more deeply the Tsonga culture in order to enable myself and others to minister effectively to the Tsongas. It is also my aim to produce an instrument that can help Tsonga Christians who live the kind of Christianity portrayed in my family and personal story above, to grow spiritually, and to find their liberty and freedom from the oppressive forces and elements operating in their lives and cultures. The kind of Christians that I am alluding to here would be the majority of Tsongas, as my research has revealed.
There is no other Tsonga concept more comprehensive than ntumbuluko that could be investigated and studied for this purpose. Other significant sub-concepts are xilandi;
ximunhu (ubuntu) and xinto, but all of these and other concepts as well are incoprorated in ntumbuluko.
Ntumbuluko is the Tsonga word which represents the Tsonga worldview. It comprises the whole Tsonga concept of religious beliefs and practices, the practical set of beliefs and their administration for the welfare of society and humanity as a whole.
Ntumbuluko is the whole set of natural and 'divine' or mystical laws governing life and life activities, wherever they exist. Ntumbuluko belongs to the very essence and vitality of life. It operates to preserve life, as well as granting its continuity by ensuring the cosmic harmony between nature and its phenomena; humans and their activities in relation to nature; the spiritual world in its relation to nature and humanity in its totality. In summary, ntumbuluko can be seen as a hermeneutic tool or theoretical construct of reality, on the basis of which Tsonga people perceive, interpret, explain, predict and control reality (Horton 1993).
It is also necessary to explain what is meant by the term "the gospel" in this study.
The term can be problematic since it may be understood differently by different cultures (Western, African, Asian, etc) and traditions (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic, AICs, etc). However controversial the term is, it we will proceed from the premise that there is a gospel, common to all humankind, based on the revelation of God through Jesus Christ and able to be appropriated universally.
This is the essence of the evangelical theology of which I am a proponent. In other words the term "the gospel", as used in this study, is universal, although it has cultural/contextual form. I accept this as a premise because only in its universality it
can effectively interact ntumbuluko. The terms 'Christian faith' or 'Christian faith gospel' and '(the) gospel' are used interchangeably in this study. This is the basic understanding from which we will be viewing interaction between the gospel and ntumbuluko within the context of gospel and culture.
The problem of gospel and ntumbuluko has never, to my knowledge, been explored deeply in any academic inquiry at this level from an evangelical missiological and theological point of view among the Tsongas in Mozambique17, particularly so in my own denomination, the Igreja Uniao Baptista de Mozambique. The relationship between faith and culture is sometimes an area of conflict between nationals and missionaries, between clergy and congregation, and sometimes even among the clergy.
As indicated above, Mozambican Tsonga culture and worldview can summarized by the concept ntumbuluko. My experience suggests that ntumbuluko has more power and authority over the lives of many Tsonga Christians in Mozambique than the gospel or Christian faith has. In times of crisis many Christians resort to ntumbuluko.
This research will clarify the ways in which ntumbuluko impacts Christians in Mozambique, with a view to assisting them to understand and live their culture and faith better.