ACFAR Announces Its First Major Conference

Mark your calendar now for “The Bible and the Challenge of Discernment” (1 Thessalonians 5:21–22), a national conference for pastors and Christian leaders to be held on the campus of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda on March 15–17. The event is being held to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Kanungu Tragedy.

Noted speakers include:

• Dr. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana)

• Robert M. Bowman, Jr. (Institute for Religious Research, USA)

• Eric Pement (Centers for Apologetics Research, USA)

• Robby Muhumuza (Leadershipwise Africa, Uganda)

Among the topics to be addressed are the Christian’s call to discernment and defending the faith; the integrity and authority of Scripture; the Word-Faith movement; indigenous cults and sects; the Branham movement; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Mormonism; and the challenge of child sacrifice.

The conference is being jointly sponsored by ACFAR and the Kampala Evangelical School of Theology (KEST).

We truly covet your prayers as we prepare for this event!

Space is limited! For registration and additional information, visit the conference web page.

A False Prophet Spreads His Confusion Across Africa

Harold Camping, the head of the international Family Radio broadcasting empire, is predicting the end of the world for May 21, 2011. (He previously stirred controversy by declaring that 1994 would bring the end of the world and mark the coming of Christ, and by announcing “the end of the church age” in early 2002.)

Camping is taking his latest prophecy around the globe, with a special emphasis on Africa. According to one recently published article, “Family Radio is searching for people who can help them expand their range of broadcast languages. Included in the proposed new mix are Arabic, Armenian, Creole and Khmer. By far the largest component on the list, though, is African languages—and especially South African languages. If Family Radio is successful, listeners will soon be able to hear about the imminent Second Coming of Christ in Sindebele, Northern Sotho, Sesotho, Shona, SiSwati, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu.” Billboards promoting the false prophet’s message have been placed in Lesotho (above), Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Ghana.

Pray with us that evangelical churches across Africa will actively resist this latest abuse of Camping’s media platform—and help believers to “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21–22).

A POWERFUL NEW STATEMENT ON THE “PROSPERITY GOSPEL”

In two consultations at Akropong, Ghana (October 2008 and September 2009), the Lausanne Theology Working Group, Africa chapter developed a new and powerful statement addressing “the phenomenal rise of prosperity teaching around the world at large and Africa in particular.”

The statement, released online this month by Christianity Today, declares that “it is our overall view that the teachings of those who most vigorously promote the 'prosperity gospel' are false and gravely distorting of the Bible, that their practice is often unethical and unChristlike, and that the impact on many churches is pastorally damaging, spiritually unhealthy, and not only offers no lasting hope, but may even deflect people from the message and means of eternal salvation. In such dimensions, it can be soberly described as a false gospel.”

The statement offers a detailed, and fairly comprehensive, series of affirmations and rejections focusing on the major defects of this neopentecostal theology and the widespread damage it causes. We commend it to everyone who has an interest in the future of Christianity in Africa.

En route to Kenya

ACFAR coordinator Rodgers Atwebembeire is on his way to Kenya for several days of ministry. Plans include preaching on discernment and the defense of the Gospel at a conference in Rititi, as well as various research-related meetings. Please remember him in your prayers.

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An important update from ACFAR coordinator Rodgers Atwebembeire

What a timely and timeless blessing ACFAR is to the malnourished church in East Africa! There could be no better moment than this for such assistance.

As floods of western relativistic tendencies and postmodern idealism sweep the region, the church finds itself ill-equipped to sustain its relevance in an unpredictable, constantly changing society.

The most subtle and venomous enemy of the church is the invasion of cults—pseudo-Christian and aberrant groups, both foreign and traditional—now arising to challenge orthodox beliefs. Syncretism, unsound theological trends, widespread ignorance of God’s Word, a lack of discernment, social benefits promised by the cults, the unpreparedness of pastors, and other factors heighten the predicament in which the church finds itself.

The African church needs to stand in defense of the Gospel. It must emphasize both formative education and corrective discipline. It must seek to win cultists to the truth rather than simply brand them as its enemies. And it must teach the absolute truth of God’s Word, defending it from misinterpretations and corrupting influences. This will require biblically informed leaders, theologically knowledgeable men and those passionate for the defense and preservation of the Christian faith.

In partnership with Kampala School of Evangelical Theology (KEST), ACFAR is organizing training conferences for the week of March 14–20, 2010. The timing coincides with the tenth anniversary of the doomsday cult tragedy in Kanungu which left nearly a thousand people dead. We hope to gather about 400 pastors and church leaders from all over Uganda. Themes will include the authority and reliability of the Bible, practical apologetics and evangelism, resisting the “prosperity gospel,” and the challenge of cults and child sacrifice in Uganda.

Will you commit to praying with us from now until the conferences? We realize that in planning these training events we are about to enter a season of spiritual warfare, and every prayer, every petition, from the saints of God matters greatly!

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AN IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON THE NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH

Dr. Victor Kuligin has graciously granted us permission to post his article on the New Apostolic Church to the ACFAR web site. The article, which first appeared in the Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology (Vol. 24, No. 1—2005), offers a rare critique of a cultic movement that’s growing rapidly across Africa with little resistance.

He writes: “With over ten and a half million members worldwide in over 72,000 congregations, the NAC is a church to be reckoned with. Nearly three-fourths of its membership is in Africa, making it one of the largest single denominations in the entire continent....with nearly sixteen times more members in Africa than in Europe. From the surface, the NAC appears to be just another Protestant denomination, but a deeper investigation yields some disturbing theology and practices in this church.”

In conclusion, Dr. Kuligin states that “we can conclude that the NAC is not simply another church or denomination but is in fact a cult.” He adds: “Whereas often we find ourselves concentrating on the ‘classic’ cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons, neither of these compare to the NAC in terms of membership numbers and influence on the continent. In the next decade, the membership of the NAC will approach ten million Africans. Teaching concerning this cult should play a more prominent role in the education of evangelical church leaders and pastors, and subsequently of evangelical believers continent-wide.”

The Prosperity Gospel in Africa: “Did Jesus Wear Designer Robes?”

The November issue of Christianity Today (pp. 38–41) offers an important new article about the damage wrought by the Prosperity Gospel on Africa. You can read the article here, watch the related video here, and go “behind the scenes” with the filmmakers here.

Excerpt: “The gospel of Jesus Christ—with its promise of liberation, deliverance, forgiveness, grace, and restoration—can never be a gospel of poverty. But just as the Bible does not glorify poverty, neither does it glorify greed. Scripture consistently warns that the pursuit of worldly interests can lead us to neglect the deeper values of the kingdom of God. Yet this is exactly what happens in the biblical interpretations favored by prosperity teachers.”