Rhodesia has been claiming new world attention since U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger took a hard line against its minority white government while he was in Africa last month. Nationalist elements have said there can be no settlement short of war. The government has now added four black men to the cabinet. In the midst of these developments, Christians scheduled a national congress on evangelism this month. The following report on the Rhodesian situation was provided by Donald K. Smith of Daystar Communications, now headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. He has been a missionary in Africa nearly twenty-five years, living some of that time in Rhodesia.
Behind the current Rhodesian conflict is fear of the future. Both black Africans and white Rhodesians agree that the central issue is “protecting our future,” but they can’t agree on who can be trusted with control of that future. Christians are on both sides of the issue. On a Sunday afternoon a visitor was told by his white hosts, “We don’t care who governs the country, white or black. We simply want to insure the future of our children.” The visitor was told less than two hours later by his black African hosts for the evening, “We don’t just want black rule. We want to be sure our children have a future.”
The whites are a tiny minority within Rhodesia: 278,000 against an African population of 6,110,000, a ratio of 1 to 22. The whites are steadily becoming a smaller percentage of the population, decreasing from 5.8 per cent in 1965, when they declared independence under white rule, to 4.4 per cent today. Both white emigration and a higher African birthrate contribute to this.
White skills coupled with African labor have given all segments of the population the second highest living standard in Africa. On a strong base of mining (chrome, asbestos, gold, tin, and many other minerals) and agriculture, first stages of industrialization have been achieved, largely since 1965. Despite wide political dissatisfaction among blacks, the crime rate is falling. Good though thinly stretched road, air, postal, and telecommunications networks aid a sense of national identity. Even the two major African groups, the majority Shonas and the historically dominant Matabele, have this sense of national identity.
The issue in Rhodesia is not economic but political control. The whites control the country by virtue of occupation and conquest in the 1890s. In 1920, an all-white government was granted self-rule by Britain. It is referred to as “responsible” government by the Rhodesian whites in contrast to black rule prior to 1893. Black rule over the centuries spawned several powerful dynasties. The remains of these empires are found in places like Khami, Dlodlo, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is the name Africans now prefer for all Rhodesia. It refers directly to the long history of black rule prior to European conquest.
Africans want political control to insure that their best interests are cared for; whites want control to insure that the good life they have built for themselves will continue. Daily relations between the races are not explosive. In the last three years white respect for the Africans has sharply increased. There is a persistent desire for full cooperation with the whites on the part of the African peoples.
Whites have, however, severely limited the possibilities for African advancement, even in education. Approximately fifteen times as much is spent on a white child’s education as on an African child’s education. The result is that there is virtually no white unemployment, and that the whites occupy nearly all positions of top leadership in both public and private sectors. Although the ruling Rhodesiar Front party claims there is no bar to advancement on grounds of race, the educational system is weighted so heavily in favor of whites that few Africans car qualify for positions of control.
In addition, 50 per cent of the land is reserved for white occupation though they are only 4.4 per cent of the population. The resulting economic imbalance deprives Africans of equal opportunity to progress. This and education are key areas where Africans are pressing for change.
Several times since 1963 the British, nominal rulers of Rhodesia, and the white Rhodesian government have attempted to negotiate the legalization of Rhodesia’s independence. All negotiations have broken down over Rhodesia’s refusal to consider majority rule now or in the foreseeable future. Prime Minister Ian Smith has, however, modified his adamant “not in my lifetime” stance to “perhaps in fifteen or twenty years.” But that change is too little and too late for the recognized African political leaders, Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, and Bishop Abel Muzorewa (United Methodist Church).
African leaders are all emphatic that there must be majority rule now, though they are divided about how it will be achieved. Direct negotiations between Nkomo and Prime Minister Smith have broken down, as did previous negotiations involving Nkomo, the prime minister, and Bishop Muzorewa. The failure was due to the white government’s refusal to give the African representatives in parliament a one-third vote, large enough to block racially inspired legislation.
The Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, a Rhodesian United Church of Christ minister trained by UCC missionaries from the United States, had earlier openly turned to guerilla warfare as the only solution. Muzorewa also turned to force as the only alternative after the failure of his negotiations with Smith. In April, Nkomo spoke of the inevitability of war: “These people have refused to remove the cause of war. It is obvious that they have said they are prepared for war. They have done it, not us.”
Four African presidents have sought to aid peaceful negotiations leading to African rule: Khama of Botswana, Nyerere of Tanzania, Machel of Mozambique, and Kaunda of Zambia. President Kaunda, known as a Christian, has long sought peaceful change of Rhodesian racist policies, but now says, “For the last ten years we have been talking the language of peace.… For ten years the clock has been ticking. It is now past midnight.… That’s why we have declared a state of emergency—we are preparing for war.” Mozambique has already closed its long border with Rhodesia and declared that a state of war exists. Rhodesia’s only apparent supporter, South Africa, has withdrawn troops and much military support from Rhodesia. The fall of Angola to Marxist forces also increases pressures on Rhodesia.
The ten-year guerrilla warfare is intensifying, and battles no longer heavily favor white Rhodesians. Five thousand guerrillas are reported on Rhodesia’s borders, and an unknown number already operate inside Rhodesia. In the northern and eastern border areas farms have become fortresses. African populations in those areas have been relocated into approximately 175 “protective camps” of 1,500 to 3,000 people each. More than ten mission stations have been closed, but one mission hospital continues to function behind high protective walls and military guard.
To many whites, it is a fight for survival. There is a feeling that it is better to fight and keep all they have than to negotiate and attempt to share.
Anyone in favor of white rule is seen in the white community as a “defender of Western Christian civilization.” Everyone else is considered a Communist. The identification of a racially based rule with Christianity has severely damaged the credibility of many churches in the eyes of Africans. “The white farmers and artisans are die-hard reactionaries,” claimed Nkomo, “and so are the churches.”
Bishop Muzorewa’s role in attempting to negotiate African political rule balances the whites’ claim of Christian support for their position. But terror activities of guerrillas undermine “Christian” credibility. Guerrillas who shot three South African tourists in Rhodesia on Easter weekend claimed to be part of Muzorewa’s organization. There are documented cases of the maiming of Africans who refused to support African guerrilla forces.
There is no clear-cut “Christian” side in this conflict. Both sides have demonstrated non-biblical standards and conduct. Both sides have genuine Christians as leaders and in the actual combat troops. Not only are churches divided within themselves, but families are torn between support for relatives in the guerrilla forces and those in the Rhodesian security forces. Respected churchmen have concluded that conflict is the inevitable step to African self-determination. Other churchmen condemn the use of force to resist the white government, praying for the government forces but omitting prayer for the “terrorists.” Some whites support African aspirations, and some blacks want white rule to continue.
North American missionaries (more than 500 were listed in the 1973 Mission Handbook) are in an extremely difficult position. Most minister to the African population and understand African desires. But the ruling authority is white, and open support of African political goals means expulsion from Rhodesia. Missionary sons are subject to Rhodesian military service when they become 18; this forces them to fight against the goals of the people to whom their parents are ministering. The only acceptable option for many is to leave the country.
Those who are caught in the battle zones have been remarkably open to the teaching of the Gospel. In areas previously resistant to the gospel message, meetings of 500 and more are commonplace—within the protective camps. But response to the Gospel does not mean automatic support for the political status quo. The deep desire for control of their own future remains.
The issue is not one of Christian versus Communist, nor of the West versus the Communist East. Communists are present because they offer help to the “freedom fighters.” The simple issue is self-determination versus white rule—an issue of conscience, not Scripture.
Shinto Strides
A new era for the world’s religions may have dawned, say Shinto leaders in Japan. They are still considering the “success” of the Shinto rites of the omoto sect conducted last year at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Episcopal), one of the largest cathedrals in the world.
A fifty-minute movie has been made to commemorate the unprecedented inter-religious rite and the Shinto rituals performed that day in a Christian church. As in the pagan ceremonies in Japanese shrines, an offering of vegetables and fruit was made—this time at an altar set up under the cross of Jesus Christ, an important altar generally used only a few times a year for certain Christian ceremonies.
Evangelical missionaries in Japan consider some of the rituals an invitation to demonology, and in their eyes the mixing of omoto idolatry with the worship of the true God is a serious offense.
The current leader of the omoto sect, Mrs. Naohi Deguchi, takes pride in the move of the Christian churches toward women clergy. “Omoto itself was not only founded by a woman but is always to be led by a woman,” she points out.
The founder was Mrs. Nao Deguchi (1837–1918), who began omoto in 1892. She claimed she fell into a trance and began to prophesy because of “a power, a god,” within her. “God thinks women are better suited as true ministers,” she said. “Hereafter, more women shall be seen in his service. Men are too self-willed to be used exclusively.”
The founder said that in her trance God declared that he had “been eclipsed,” that he had withdrawn from human beings since time immemorial, leaving the fate of the world in the hands of lesser and often cruel gods. But now God revealed himself as “the God of the Beginning and the End,” the “Creator of the World,” the Father God to whom all human beings are equally his children. He supposedly manifested himself because of the catastrophes awaiting mankind, as an expression of his infinite compassion.
Thousands of written pages collected in eighty-one volumes have become the “sacred texts” of omoto, whose name means “great origin.” Among the 300,000 present-day adherents of the sect, Onisaburo Deguchi, son-in-law of the late founder, is regarded as “the savior of the world.”
NELL L. KENNEDY
FIRST COUNT ON ABORTION
A move to consider amending the U. S. Constitution to grant legal protection to human fetuses was defeated by the Senate by a 47–40 vote. It was the first time the abortion issue has reached a vote on the floor of Congress since the Supreme Court struck down a number of state laws regulating abortion in 1973.
The vote April 28 was on a motion to table a proposal by Republican Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Helms sought formal consideration of a no-exceptions amendment generally regarded as the most extreme among a number of measures designed to counter the 1973 ruling.
Members of both houses have seemingly been reluctant to be counted on the abortion issue. The number of senators who voted on the Helms move was surprisingly high. (Two strongly anti-abortion senators, James Eastland of Mississippi and John Pastore of Rhode Island, were absent.) Technically, the votes for and against tabling the Helms proposal cannot be construed as votes for or against an abortion amendment, inasmuch as some who favor consideration of an amendment might not favor the amendment itself. Nevertheless, lobbyists will see the vote as the best indication so far of where legislators stand. Antiabortion forces say they got unexpected support from more than half a dozen members of the Senate, including Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Religion In Transit
Among clergymen bidding for Congress this year is Robert P. Dugan, 44, president of the Conservative Baptist Association of America. He seeks to be the Republican candidate for the seat representing Colorado’s second district, currently held by a Democrat.
A light plane operated by Missionary Aviation Fellowship crashed while attempting a landing at a very small airstrip in an isolated village in Honduras last month. Two Honduran passengers were killed and another was injured. The MAF pilot, Steve Marx, 27, of Wapato, Washington, suffered a shattered vertebra but was said to be recovering satisfactorily. The fatalities were the first in MAF operations in more than five years.
The Ahlstrom brothers are off and running again. Joel, 30, of Minneapolis, and Tony, of the Chicago area, set out from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge on April 26 to run 2,957 miles to Washington, D.C. Aiming to average fifty-one miles a day for fifty-eight days, they plan to arrive by July 1. Their run is one of the official events of the Bicentennial. En route they’ll gather signatures on copies of the Declaration of Independence (the American Bible Society is distributing eight million copies to churches) to give to President Ford. The pair, members of the Evangelical Free Church of America, ran from California to New York in a 1971 “Save America Run” in which spiritual and environmental concerns were emphasized.
After three years of fighting, Canada’s largest synagogue, Beth Tzedec in Toronto, and its former rabbi, Stuart Rosenberg, 54, agreed to a $450,000 out-of-court settlement. Rosenberg had been fired from his $50,000-a-year job after a rift opened between him and the synagogue board over policies and effectiveness of his ministry. Rosenberg refused to move and sued for $2.5 million, claiming breach of contract and libel. The synagogue countersued. The rabbi will collect half in cash immediately, half in installments.
