Freedom of belief

Change

16 October 2023

4 min read

Letter from South Sudan

The people of South Sudan face more conflict and uncertainty as elections are postponed. Samuel Enosa Peni records how Christian faith is changing lives amid difficult times.

Samuel Enosa Peni

Samuel Enosa Peni is Archbishop of Western Equatoria in South Sudan.

Outside a church a congregation waits seated while an onlooker rests on a motorcycle by a tree.

South Sudanese Anglicans await the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to their church.

South Sudan as a sovereign state gained its independence in 2011 after experiencing a civil war which lasted for many decades. According to the 2018 International Religious Freedom Report, Christians make up 60 per cent of the population, 33 per cent constitute indigenous religion followers among whom some combine both Christian and indigenous practices.

In 2012 Christian faith in South Sudan celebrated the centenary of sustained Christianity in the land, for both the Roman Catholic church and the Protestants (Episcopal Church of South Sudan - Anglican Communion). There has been a tremendous growth of Christian faith in South Sudan and an increased number of Christian denominations. Lives have been saved and many South Sudanese have received Christ as their personal saviour. The Christian faith has also played a major role through its evangelization in drawing many people of all ages to participate in church activities and more. The church offers psychological and social support, inter-religious peace building initiatives, education, health and care that is changing lives. Christian faith is embedded in the reality and life situations of the people.

What does daily reality look like for people trying to live out their faith?

Life in South Sudan is characterized by war, tribal and communal conflicts. This has left the country facing many challenges, and the people are living in fear. Those who are trying to live out a Christian faith in South Sudan are not excepted from the general challenges and problems. The primary problem the majority face is the cost of living and security.

High inflation in the country is a factor of socio-economic problems and the hit of COVID in 2020. Life has never been the same since. Over 80 per cent of the people in South Sudan live below the poverty line. Despite the living conditions, as Christians, many have not ceased to live out a Christian faith. This is evidence by Christians participating in huge numbers during every Sunday Mass, prayer gatherings, Bible studies and church activities. Door to door and targeted evangelism mission outreach are effective. And a great number of people are called to the ministries such as becoming clergy, being commissioned as youth ministry leaders, Mothers’ Union members, evangelists and lay workers in the church.

What are the pressures and dangers being faced?

Due to lack of political will among the key players to permanently end conflict and bring peace to the people of South Sudan, there is still the danger of insecurity and fear among people in many parts of the country. Politics and socio-economics challenges and differences remain a problem. Christian faith also faces a danger of insurging witchcraft practices. Massive prayer initiatives are the response of the church. The mission to evangelise, teach and disciple remains a burden as a third of the people of South Sudan constitute indigenous religion followers or follow emerging false prophets. Because of the current economic situation, the church is lacking finance for its developmental programs. These range from capacity building, through missions, youth and women programmes, to working with vulnerable groups providing health and education. This poses a threat in the smooth gospel mission and discipleship programs.

How is Christianity fuelling justice?

South Sudan’s independence struggle was often considered a fight for religious freedom for the mostly Christian south against the Islamist government in Khartoum. With the current situation, the church has always been a key advocate for justice. As her role is to fuel justice, the church has been promoting dialogue, healing and reconciliation amid the ongoing political strife and ethnic conflicts. In 2017/2018, the South Sudan Council of Churches and its partners conducted a “Community Conversation” as an Action Plan for Peace aimed at documenting the voice of the people towards peacebuilding and addressing community issues and differences. The church is never silent to speak out against abuses of power and injustices in the Country. On 10 March 2023, the South Sudan Council of Churches released a statement which reads, “Deeper than simply avoiding war, nonviolence calls us to a new way of life which respects the dignity of every person and the integrity of creation. Nonviolence names a core value of the Gospel, in which Jesus combined an unmistakable rejection of violence with the power of love and truth in action for justice and peace. It is much more than the absence of violence and it is never passive. It is a spirituality, a constructive force, an effective method for social force, an effective method for social transformation, and a powerful way of life committed to the well-being of all. It rejects any form of violence and commits itself to a prophetic stance against violence and injustice. This is not a passive approach, not simply submitting to or colluding with violence, but is active and prophetic in responding to all forms of violence, amongst individuals, families, clans, tribes, and political and military factions, and including systemic violence embedded in our cultural, societal, and political life.”

What about the upcoming election?

Every South Sudanese is looking forward to a “free and fair” vote in the upcoming 2024 elections. Church leaders are also urging the government to adhere to the peace agreement it signed with its rivals, and to conduct a peaceful election. From the viewpoints of the current political climate, though the government has shown commitment to conduct elections in December 2024, remember that elections were to be conducted in February 2023 but did not materialize. The certainty of conducting elections in 2024 remains unclear. The facts are that the following measures needed to run an election have not yet been implemented: electoral laws, a census, voter registration and constituency boundaries, safe environments to vote, repatriation of refugees and security arrangements. Revitalized peace agreement protocols are also yet to be fully implemented. Looking at the remaining period to elections, this poses a question whether the election will be viable or not. From a Christian perspective, there is hope, with God nothing is impossible. The church is praying and working closely with the political parties and other community organizations to ensure there are elections in 2024.

Explainer

Change

8 June 2023

6 min read

Eden in the East End

Belle Tindall writes of her afternoon in an East End kind of Eden, and tells the stories of how, through All Hallow’s Church, Christianity is being lived out in Bow.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A neo-Romanesque church sits at the acute corner of two roads. To its side a tower block rises over a row of low-rise flats.

All Hallows,Bow. 'Ahaba' is an old Hebrew and Arabic word for love.

Google.

Feeling increasingly restless in the comfortable confines of West London, Rev. Cris and Beki Rogers, along with their family and seven others, decided to take on All Hallows Church and make Bow their home.

Fast forward thirteen years, and here’s Cris, sat with a coffee on the corner of an intersection in the heart of London’s East End, flanked on every side by blocks of flats and talking over the sound of heavy traffic: this is Cris Rogers’ Eden.

‘I love this place’, Cris delightedly declares, ‘I love the sounds, I love the smells, I love the people’.

And why wouldn’t he? This is the place where Clara Grant, the infamous ‘Bundle Woman of Bow', founded the Fern Street Settlement in 1907, ensuring that thousands of children were warm, fed, taught and loved.

It is where, in 1913, Sylvia Pankhurst established the East London Federation of Suffragettes, fighting for the rights of working women.

It is where, in 1985, the profoundly influential grime music artist, Dylan Kwabena Mills (perhaps better known as Dizzee Rascal) was born and subsequently raised.

It’s not hard to see why Cris describes his home as a place of profound justice, of resilient compassion, of innovative creativity and of rich community. In ways that we’re likely to be unaware of, we exist in the cultural ripple effect of places such as Bow. We owe them a great debt. And yet, there is, of course, another way to perceive and speak of Bow; a perception which places its focus upon slightly different identity markers.

It is, according to the Government’s Deprivation Indices, one of the most deprived communities in the UK. It has an above average crime rate, with a particularly high number of home break-ins. The percentage of home ownership in the area is 17 per cent, which is dramatically lower than the national average of 65.8 per cent. It is also a community that, because of the establishment and closure of St. Clements Mental Health Hospital, has an increased number of residents who live with mental illness and addiction.

It is true, in many ways, Bow struggles.

And it’s not that Cris and the community at All Hallows ignore these facts. On the contrary, they’re on a crusade against poverty in the area, working to eradicate it entirely. They’re also relentlessly pursuing justice and offering support to those in their community who need it most.

No, ignorance is not the source of Cris’ perspective - Jesus is.

I’m aware that such a sentence is in serious danger of sounding eye-rolling-ly twee, so allow me a moment or two to explain further.

The playwright himself took the stage, the author jumped inside the page, the architect inhabited the plans. Admittedly, it’s downright strange.

John, one of Jesus’ four biographers, opens his work with a prologue of epic proportions. Nestled into this prologue is this line –

‘The Word (that’s Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling among us’.

In John’s original Greek writing, the words ‘made his dwelling’ can be more literally translated as ‘tabernacled‘, or rather, ‘pitched his tent among ours’. Author Eugene Peterson subsequently paraphrases it this way:

‘The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.’

The belief that God squeezed himself into the confines of humanity is certainly one of the more mystic elements of Christianity. The premise is that the playwright himself took the stage, the author jumped inside the page, the architect inhabited the plans. Admittedly, it’s downright strange.

And yet, this is the bedrock of what theologians call Incarnational Theology, a theology of Jesus’ embodied presence on the earth. Or, what Cris Rogers would call ‘moving in and living deep’. It's the astonishing idea that Jesus is present amongst, he is present alongside.

If the Incarnation happened, as Christians believe that it did, if Jesus really did pitch his tent next to ours – in that, he literally entered into time and place – then the implications of such aren’t only spiritual. The gospel (for want of a less Christian-ese word) is also a physical encounter, it is intent on changing one’s day, one’s week, one’s life, in tangible and practical ways. It must still be found in time and place. The church (as in, the people, not only the building) is one of the most obvious ways through which this could happen, as they take their lead from the one they represent and they themselves ‘move in and live deep’.

So, with that in mind, back to Bow.

For the residents of Bow, this thing called ‘Christianity’ is not a set of ideas that floats in the ether. On the contrary, it’s the people that teach them to speak, read, and write English in their ESOL lessons. It’s as tangible as the presence of the food banks, as obvious as the building on the intersection, as relentless as the recovery courses that run week after week.

Of the people who flow through All Hallows Church 40 per cent are in varying stages of recovery from addiction. It’s not surprising, therefore, that a major focus of Cris’ team is helping people through those often-complicated stages. Whether that be through the AA/NA courses (including one delivered in Russian), or visits to Pentonville Prison when addiction has taken hold once again and paved the way for behavioural mistakes to be made. After all, recovery from addiction is anything but linear.

And then there’s the recovery service. Every Tuesday evening the building hosts around 40 people who attend a specifically recovery-oriented service, held by Raf, the curate at All Hallows – who himself is ten years clean and sober. This service combines the twelve step programme with the Bible, week after week after week, building a community upon the power of these two liberating texts.

Moving in and living deep means that the team at All Hallows can take Jesus’ instruction to ‘love their neighbour’ completely literally. Even when that neighbour is breaking into their church’s coffee shop for the fourth time. It means that, together, those neighbours can love their home well and refute the notion that someone has made it when they finally have the means to move out of it. It means that Cris was right where he needed to be when someone walked past their church building on the way to take their own life, and decided to ask for help instead.

This is what incarnational theology looks like on the ground. This is how Christianity makes itself known in Bow. As Cris says, ‘we are called to love the hell out of our estates as no one else can’.

An East End kind of Eden

I’m telling this story through the vehicle of Cris, his family and his team, but this piece really isn’t about him or them; it is about Bow. A beautiful place filled with beautiful people. It’s a story of a group of people living in and learning from a community they know and adore. It’s a story of the mystic nature of incarnational theology looking like a Russian recovery course. It’s a story of being enchanted with one’s home.

I say this because, as Cris has observed, words matter. The story you tell about a place matters. This is the reason that they have re-written the words to a hymn from 1885, the third verse of which goes like this:

When through the woods and forest glades I wander

And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.

When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur

And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God to Thee,

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

Beautiful as these words are, the story they tell to residents of places such as Bow, is that beauty is elsewhere, that God is more present, and somehow easier to find, in places that look nothing like their home. In order to counter that, these are the words that ring out from All Hallows on a Sunday morning:

When through the estate and shaded parks I wander

And see the shops and people in the streets

When I look up and see the tower blocks’ grandeur

And hear the cars and the sound of dancing beats. 

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, 

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

There is a kind of Eden in the East End, in fact, there are numerous. And while I can’t speak for them all, I can say that Bow is one of the most special places I’ve ever found myself (with some of the best coffee).