May 9, 2007

African Hymns

Category: Theology - Liturgical :: Permalink

Here are a couple of hymns from Africa, quoted by Philip Jenkins in his recent The New Faces of Christianity (p. 104), which I glanced through a while back in Barnes & Noble.  (Someday, I’ll have to read this one and the others in this trilogy: The Next Christendom and the brand-new God’s Continent.)

First, this one from the Transvaal:

Jesus Christ is Conqueror.
By his resurrection he overcame death itself.
By his resurrection he overcame all things.
He overcame magic.
He overcame amulets and charms.
He overcame the darkness of demon possession.
He overcame dread.
When we are with him
We also conquer.

The emphasis on Christ’s victory in the holy war against evil is even stronger in this hymn by Afua Kuma from Ghana:

If Satan troubles us,
Jesus Christ,
You who are the lion of the grassland,
You whose claws are sharp,
Will tear out his entrails
And leave them on the ground
For the flies to eat.

Posted by John Barach @ 3:58 pm | Discuss (6)

6 Responses to “African Hymns”

  1. Valerie (Kyriosity) Says:

    American hymnals can hardly bear to mention the blood of Christ, much less the blood of His enemies. I like the not-niceness of these. And the second gives new meaning to Satan’s identity as lord of the flies!

  2. Dale Callahan Says:

    And understanding what your entrails contain can also give us an understanding of what Satan is really the lord of.

  3. RevJATB Says:

    Hence the term “Beelzebub”: lord of the dung heap.

  4. gullchasedship Says:

    Yum!

    Buzz! Buzz!

  5. Gideon Strauss Says:

    Echoes of those imprecatory psalms …

  6. Philip Capra Says:

    Obviously the Africans don’t realize that we live in a post-modern age and thank God they don’t. Please don’t tell Rick Warren. He may want to ship some of his purpose driven books and contemporary praise choruses over there.

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