Note: The first half of this article appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Lutheran Forum.

The Establishment and Growth of the ELCT

The formation of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanganyika in 1963 came as a result of the already existing Federation of the Lutheran Church in Tanganyika. The seven churches which initially formed this Federation were linked to their traditional mission societies: the Lutheran Church in northern Tanganyika initially established by the German Leipzig mission; the Lutheran Church of Usambara-Dingo (northwestern Tanganyika), influenced by the German Bethel Mission; the Evangelical Church in Buhaya (northwestern Tanganyika), influenced by indigenous movements, the Bethel Mission, the Danish Church Mission, and Anglican and Church of Sweden missions; the Lutheran Church in Uzaramo-Uluguru (eastern and coastal Tanganyika), influenced by the German Bethel and Berlin Missions; the Southern Lutheran Church (in Tanganyika), influenced by the German Berlin Mission, the Swedish Mission Society, the Finnish Mission Society, and the Danish Church Mission (especially in Ulanga Kilombero); the Central Lutheran Church in Tanganyika, influenced by the Augustana Mission; and the Church in Iraqw (near the Arusha region in northern Tanganyika), influenced originally by the Swedish Evangelical Mission and later by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission.1 Other mission societies such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, the Department of World Mission, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northelbian Centre (NMZ) came along later.2

In areas where more than one mission society was active, there existed joint mission boards that oversaw assistance plans for developing the work of each synod.3 The collaboration of these mission societies, despite diversities in their theologies and administrative systems, paved the way towards a united Lutheran Church in Tanzania.4 Moreover, the nationalistic ideas of unity for an independent Tanganyika challenged the regional churches to form one united church.5 After Tanganyika and Zanzibar formed the United Republic of Tanzania, the name of the church changed automatically to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.6
The united churches under the new organisation of ELCT have maintained the following objectives since then, namely: a) to preach the gospel to non-Christians, b) to give Christians the opportunity to participate in the saving act of Christ through the word and sacraments of baptism communion, c) to promote solidarity and communal love among believers in serving each other, d) and to reach and serve all people, regardless of their religious affiliation, who need diaconal assistance through guidance of Jesus Christ.7 The church also approved the following responsibilities, namely: a) to call and consecrate officers of the church along with other workers, and to make sure that they abide by the code of conduct instituted by the church, b) to take care of the property of the church, c) to establish, strengthen, supervise, and monitor all activities of the church, d) to find means of generating income and to develop financial savings for supporting all the common work of the church as shall be needed to do so, e) to represent all Christians before the government as well as other churches and organizations, and f) to prepare worship programs and content to be used in the whole church.8

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania grew very fast in its episcopal and administrative infrastructure. One decade after its establishment in 1963 it had already expanded into ten units. Within two decades, from 1963 to 1983, the church experienced the increase of its synods from eight units seventeen.9 However, this increase of synods had little to do with the ability of the church to support and sustain its own activities. It is difficult to judge exactly how much the church was self-supporting, but the available documentation suggests that it was an ongoing struggle.10 A Bible study conducted by Axel Ivar Berglund on John 20:19-23 at the Lutheran Coordination Service (LCS) meeting in Arusha in 1979 reflected the growth of mission work in Tanzania, linking it with the magnitude of God's mission and the driving spirit of the missionary impulse,11 which for him was chiefly the moral goodness of Christians attained through justification by faith in Jesus Christ.12 Berglund's biblical exposition of mission showed that its chief objective was "divine liberation" of the human being from evil,13 not establishing more church institutions, dioceses, deaneries, and parishes. However, his idea of "divine liberation" was counterproductive to the context of Tanzania, for it was both too individualistic and too materially-oriented to address the deeper issues of the society.

Today the ELCT has twenty synods and seven units of common work. Altogether, these units are running more than 122 projects.14 While administrative infrastructures have increased enormously in such a short time, the level of assistance from overseas remained constant through the 1980s and was cut off in the 1990s, a situation which persists to the present.15 Even the plans for self-support from the inside have been hampered by the deteriorating economic situation of Tanzania, to say nothing of the theological reasons that result in the minimal contribution of the members to the wellbeing of the church: an excessively futuristic orientation that disregards the needs of the presents, a wholly negative attitude towards wealth that can find no use for material development, and an excessive emphasis on the institutional role of the church to the exclusion of strong personal involvement.
The expansion of global mission after the end of socialist and communist influence in Eastern Europe and Asia directed the attention of LCS members to other missionary projects outside of traditional locales in Africa.16 This marked the beginning of real pressure on the ELCT to create self-supporting and self-sustaining projects.17 For the first time, the percentage of the contribution of ELCT to her programs was recorded in the 1994 and 1995 LCS Manuals. In these years, the ELCT contributed 73% and 80% of its total budget, with a subsidy of 27% and 20% from the LCS.

When the church historian Niwagila discussed the theological implication of LCS-ELCT partnership, he complained that during LCS-ELCT meetings and roundtables the discussion heavily concentrated on the impact of the contribution of LCS members and did not reflect at all the efforts of the local church to support her activities, despite that amount accounting for four-fifths of the budget.18 He further discovered that the LCS-ELCT meetings and decisions involved only the executives and not "ordinary" Christians at the grassroots level.19 Niwagila insists that it is the role of the church to involve all members of the ELCT in decision-making about the missio Dei, so as to be faithful to the Lutheran understanding of priesthood of all believers.20 But it is not clear whether Niwagila's account of ELCT's self-reliant progress was based on hard evidence. Already with the increasingly reduced funds from LCS, each unit tried its level best to maintain historical and establish new bilateral ties with mission societies and churches abroad to support its programs.21 Yet Niwagila's argument that the church should be Christ-centered, not executive-centered, is valid insofar as the LCS support to the ELCT lacked a defined local monitoring by people who could observe the impact of social and spiritual support.

Niwagila coauthored a work with Helander, who approached the same issue from a sociological point of view. Helander analysed the dynamics of partnership between LCS and the ELCT as a reciprocating power imbalance with the LCS always looked to as the giver.22 With the failure of LCS to cater all the needs of the ELCT units that were growing disproportionately to their economic resources, both sides needed to search for new ways to maintain bilateral relations.23 Helander's preference for a balanced reciprocity over generalized reciprocity between the LCS and ELCT, not simply in material but more importantly in cultural exchange, is still appreciated today. But the problem lies in the fact that the historical legacy of missionary endeavors did not pay attention to the development of a well-grounded "contextual theology" from which the ELCT could have contributed a great deal to global theology.24 It is not enough from our side, as Helander comments, to apply "coercive power" as a defensive mechanism, in which we can always blame missionaries for not doing enough for developing our church. Rather, it is our task to realize that we do not have our own theological framework by which we ourselves could have helped our own development.25 Even the effort to indigenize the LCS in 1997 to a new institution (the Lutheran Mission Cooperation) failed to rescue the ELCT from its dependency syndrome.26

It is difficult to explain why the ELCT is still working toward becoming self-sustaining and self-supporting. Some papers of theological students at Makumira University College, the only college of the ELCT accredited for higher learning, indicate that most of the synods and units are in deep economic crisis.27 The synods have been unable to develop, recruit, and remunerate clergy and other administrative workers.28 A joint initiative of the LMC and ELCT, called the "efficiency enhancement program," discovered that most of ELCT units had managerial and financial weaknesses, which in turn handicapped the sustainability of the church. But the enhancement process itself lacked a theological framework. It was based on weak economic and development theories and while appearing to engage the entire church, it really ended up involving only the executives of the ELCT at the Head Office.29 The search to engage grassroots efforts shows some promise. Yet again, this cooperation still needs a grounded theological ethic of liberative economy which will cultivate love and solidarity among Christians to achieve the intended holistic missiological and diaconal goals.
At a membership of around 4,632,480, the ELCT has immense potential for microeconomic growth. It is certainly capable of being self-supporting. This in turn would support the further growth of the church in the setting of competition with African religious worldviews.

Theological Trends and the Future of the ELCT

The discussion of the situation above shows that, while the ELCT is still optimistic about the gradual growth of the church, there are indicators that the church might be shrinking.30 This trend is not only experienced in congregations but also in the ELCT itself as an organization, as some key speeches from the presiding bishop indicate.31 The church is not doing to its utmost to tap the opportunities available for evangelism. Ideas on how to improve the future performance of the church range from theological and administrative to sociocultural and socioeconomic.

First, the restriction of the biblical Lutheran theology of justification by faith to existentialist paradigms has undermined the equally biblical Lutheran insights into socioanthropological and sociocultural issues in the church. Such a theology has imposed two destructive dimensions on Tanzanian Christians. The idea of grace as interpreted by Luther from Psalms, Romans, and Galatians  can be misinterpreted to depict the sinner as a completely helpless agent not strictly in the matter of salvation but in all the dimensions of life in the world; the perception can linger that even after salvation the justified sinner is passive.

Another problem is the habit of forcing everything in the church to meet the standard of Western civilisation, which denigrates the incarnation of the gospel in the local context. This has caused Tanzanian theologians to be the uncritical recipients of Western theologies-or rather ideologies-which do not help the church address some of her key problems, or even reinforce them!
Moreover, the understanding of the two kingdoms by Luther and through the church history of Reformation was manipulated in the context of colonialism to insure strategic pacifism from the missionaries, with the goal of avoiding collision with their fellow colonizers. This has at a certain level promoted the irresponsibility of the clergy and practical indifference of Christians to promote sound biblical and theological interpretations for congregations.

One of the important steps for contextualization is the understanding of episcopacy, which is still not clearly understood by Tanzanian theologians even today, especially as it has been treated from an administrative and not a theological point of view. Missionaries failed at the very beginning to understand the role of a "diviner" in the community because they had clothed theology with Western civilization which tended to negate the African world view. Even the missionaries' accusation that the demand for the episcopate by Africans was not theological but sociopolitical was a sign of this misunderstanding.32 The categorization of the episcopate as a psychological construct of power-hungry indigenous people, as analysed by Fihavango in his work on Jesus and leadership, is another instance of the misunderstanding.33 Fihavango's suggestion that the servant model derived from the synoptic Gospels to counter the corruption in the ELCT actually resulted in the self-exaltation of leaders is, at this point, legitimate.34 Jesus's teaching that service is the proper exercise of power could be turned into a clerical strategy to gain power, forgetting that such power is embedded in those who have given the servant the honor of leading them. The Tanzanian context suggests a corrective to this abuse of leadership in a complementary model of holistic responsibility in the priesthood of all believers: as Kirwen described it, holistic divination is a communal responsibility, not a matter of individual personalities.35 Such leadership would strive to involve all levels of the Tanzanian church community towards sustainable evangelical and financial development. Such liberative governance would reflect the work of Jesus Christ himself, who has promised the liberation of the diseased (ptochoi) through blessings and healing processes.36

Attempts to articulate an authentically "African theology" have not always been successful. Such efforts are still controlled by a view that innocent Africa was plundered and destroyed by external forces-as if internal forces of oppression did not lay grounds for imperialists to conquer the continent! New models of development in our church should go hand in hand with the identification of sources of evil among Africans themselves rather than painting an originally "free-from-sin Africa." "African theology" can also neglect the contextual interpretation of the Bible, the living source of spirituality in African churches.37 It is only through listening to the Bible as the word of God that African theologians can hope to interpret and internalize the incarnating objectives of God in Jesus Christ.

A clear understanding of our mission development requires us to interpret and internalize the liberative role of Jesus Christ in our midst as we read in the Bible texts. Therefore at this stage it is worth mentioning the thesis of Moshi, who has carefully analysed the growth of one of the biggest synods in the ELCT.38 In discussing his results, Moshi says, "Numerical growth within the diocese has been predominantly biological."39 He continues: "This in itself is not bad; the concern is on the dwindling number of converts, though it is evident that evangelistic efforts can alter the situation."40 Moshi's study challenges the church to establish a strong base of theological research linked to the day to day life of the needs of her members. That means theological education should be taken as the primary goal for addressing the needs of the church. Theologically rooted ecclesial, missiological, and holistic diaconal activities woud allow the church in Tanzania to confront the negative impact of global secularization, Islamic resurgence, and Pentecostal indifference to social realities, and in so doing obey its calling to continue to make disciples of all nations.

Notes

1 Katiba (ELCT Constitution), Arusha (1964), 1.

2 O. A. Kasumba, "Vyama vya Kimisioni baada ya Vita Kuu ya Pili (Mission Societies after World War II)," Karne ya Kwanza ya Injili, 29-32. [See Faustin Mahali, "Becoming the Church in Tanzania," Lutheran Forum 43/1 (Spring 2009), for previous citations.]

3 Ibid., 32.

4 Katiba, Arusha (1998), 3.

5 Cf. Sahlberg, 157.

6 Katiba, 1998, 2.

7 See Katiba, 1964 and 1998. Translation from Swahili mine.

8 Katiba, 1964, 2-3 and 1998, 4-5. Translation from Swahili mine.

9 LCS Manual and Minutes, 1983.

10 LCS Manual and Minutes, 1980s and 1990s.

11 A. I. Berglund, "Exhibit 4.1.1: Four Bible Studies," in LCS Arusha 1979: Minutes and 1982 Manual of the Lutheran Coordination Service (East Africa), a Joint Instrument for Assistance to and Exchange with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (Hamburg: Secretariat LCS), 134-140.

12 Ibid., 134-140.

13 Ibid., 137.

14 http://www.lmc.or.tz/projects.html, accessed March 1, 2009.

15 LCS manuals report that from 1980 to 1986 the budget remained unchanged, while ELCT recipient units increased. Reports from 1986 onward show that the funding of the LCS to the ELCT was cut because of reduced resources from churches overseas supporting mission societies.

16 LCS Manual 1991, 158-164.

17 See ELCT document reports on "Efficiency enhancement programme," EEPRO 2000.

18 E. Helander, and W. B. Niwagila, Partnership and Power: A Quest for Reconstruction in Mission (Usa River, Tanzania: Makumira, 1996), 132.

19 Ibid., 110-111.

20 Ibid., 109-110.

21 Helander gives a comprehensive discussion of this in ibid., 61-62.

22 Ibid., 35-55.

23 Ibid., 55-57.

24 Cf. A. Mwaipopo, "Recruitment and Retention of Employees in Faith-Based Organisations: A Case Study of the Clergy in the ELCT," M.Th. Paper in Business Administration (Arusha, Tanzania: Eastern & Africa Management Institute, November 2008), 7-14.

25 Helander & Niwagila, 63-65.

26 Cf. EEPRO, 2000.

27 I have recently advised some papers with titles like "Poverty and Vocation," "The Role of the Church in Promoting Savings and Credits Cooperative Societies (SACCO)," "How Projects of the Church Can Help Alleviate Poverty," etc.

28 Mwaipopo, 37-40.

29 The report says a team from the Head Office was the main implementer through visitations, EEPRO, 2000, 4.

30 Cf. the impact of untrained clergy in Mwaipopo, 34.

31 Cf. "Mkutano wa 17 wa KKKT: Taarifa ya Mkuu wa Kanisa, Makumira, 2006 (The 17th Assembly of the ELCT: The Presiding Bishop's Speech)," Makumira, July 10-13, 2006.

32 Cf. Sundkler, Church and Community in Tanzania, 155.

33 G. M. Fihavango, Jesus and Leadership: Analysis of Rank, Status, Power and Authority as Reflected in the Synoptic Gospels from a Perspective of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) (Usa River, Arusha: Makumira, 2007), 301.

34 Ibid., 312-317.

35 Cf. the discussion on episcopacy in the first half of this article in Lutheran Forum 43/1 (Spring 2009).

36 In the gospel of Luke, which is significant for liberation theology, it is always important to separate texts which preach Palestinian hope of the reversal of fortune (healing) against texts which ethicize almsgiving from the context of the asymmetrical reciprocity of the Greco-Roman context. See F. Mahali, "The Contribution of the Church to Poverty Reduction Policies (sic) in Tanzania: A New Theological Agenda," in Society and Church in African Christianity: Papers of the Tanzanian Theological Ecumenical Colloquium, ed. Benjamin Simon (Usa River, Tanzania: Makumira, 2008), 62-64.

37 B. K. Bagonza, "Transforming the Human: African Theology of Sustainable Development in Tanzania," Doctoral Dissertation at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 20ff. From the beginning African theology has been criticized as lacking scientific rigor, hence it was suggested that it should investigate "the content of contextual (sic) religious thought-forms by which the Christian Gospel could be effectively transmitted to the African peoples." See H. Sawyer, "What is African Theology?" in Africa Theological Journal 4 (1971), 20-23.

38 N. G. Moshi, "Church Growth in the ELCT Northern Diocese," M.Th. Thesis, Tumaini University, Makumira University College, May 2006, 1-3.

39 Ibid., 100-101.

40 Ibid., 101.