EMQ » April–June 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 2
By Ben I. Aram and Ya Sow Lij with Gary Corwin
Editor’s Note: The January 2021 edition contained an article entitled “The Case for Denominationally Based Ministries Among Somalis” by Somali national Aweis A. Ali. The article was critical of the SIM work in that country. The following is response from SIM.
We appreciate the editor of EMQ affording us an opportunity to respond to this thought-provoking article. We have known the author for thirty-one and twenty-four years respectively and acknowledge Aweis’s long ministry experience and wide reading on Somali mission history. However, our perspective on this subject differs significantly.
Aweis seeks to make two main points: He talks of a “trendy policy” supposedly held by some mission organizations, that, as he says: “insists on not planting denominational churches among Somalis but to encourage only generic Christianity with no denominational labels and foundation,” and these, “… very rarely attempted even to call the fruits of their labour ‘churches’ identifying them instead as ‘fellowships’.”[1] Aweis goes on to argue that this so-called “generic Christianity,” “often promoted by some missionaries with interdenominational para-church organizations, keeps the Somali Christians weak and disorganized,” and that these “para-church organizations buy into this generic Christianity strategy when they could have planted Somali churches with a solid denominational identity.”[2]
From this, Aweis identifies SIM as the particular interdenominational mission that led to the downfall of the Somali Mennonite church. He states, “The MM and the SIM rift eventually healed to the demise of the nascent Somali Mennonite church. The SIM disapproval of the union between the Somali Christians and the Mennonite church took its toll on the new church, which eventually disintegrated within a few years.”[3] He does acknowledge that there are, “other factors that may have contributed to the collapse of the nascent Somali Mennonite church other than the sustained SIM opposition,” but he concludes that, “The early demise of one of the most promising denominationally based Somali churches brought discouragement to the Somali Christians who considered generic Christianity a dead-end cause.”[4]
Aweis admonishes nondenominational missions that, “It is the responsibility of interdenominational para-church organizations not to sabotage when Somali Christians decide to belong to a Bible believing denomination as happened in Mogadishu in 1966. Such sabotages did not end in 1966, they still rear their ugly heads each time a denominationally based Somali church seems viable or generic Christians decide to belong to a denominational church.”[5]
To set the record straight, SIM, along with most other inter-denominational missions, does not have any such blanket policy against the formation of churches with denominational identity and in fact has planted denominations with strong evangelical doctrinal distinctives in many lands throughout their history of more than 125 years. A couple examples of this are: ECWA, initially founded 1954 in Nigeria,[6] and the Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church, founded in 1927.[7]
While we certainly confess our mission’s church-planting record in Somalia had flaws, there is no evidence for Aweis’s claim of “sabotage,” and that SIM actively opposed the development of the Somali Mennonite church nor that this church disintegrated within a few years of 1966. In fact, the authors along with others can bear witness that this church continued holding worship meetings and had a constituted leadership structure through the 1970s and 80s, and even into the 1990s. Bender and Nissley in their 1989 article entitled, “Somali Mennonite Believers Fellowship,” in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, wrote,
The Somali Mennonite Believers Fellowship is located mostly in Mogadishu, in 1987 the capital city of Somalia. The fellowship had weekly worship services every Friday morning. The Fellowship was minimally organized with leadership given by a council chosen by the members. … The involvement of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities was initiated in 1953. Earlier the work of the Sudan Interior Mission also contributed to the Christian witness in Somalia. After 1980 several other Christian agencies became involved in relief and development programs and, by their presence in the country, gave encouragement and support to this small fellowship. … This Mogadishu fellowship was probably the only active group in the country in 1987 with predominately Somali leadership. There were no official membership lists and attendance at weekly worship services varied, in 1987, from 20 to 40. There had been slow growth in the fellowship during the 1980s.[8]
An important witness to this is Ahmed A. Haile, whom Aweis mentions as one of two prominent Somali Christians produced by protestant missions.[9] Ahmed A. Haile’s memoir, Teatime in Mogadishu, which is cited several times by Aweis, is notably silent on this point of alleged “sabotage,” and in fact he relates a very similar account of the Somali Mennonite Church meeting in Mogadishu in 1982 and following when he participated in it.[10] Ahmed does not shy away from critiquing both SIM and Mennonite Mission for other issues in his memoir, but not on a point that would be crucial if it were indeed true. In fact, as Ahmed points out it was through the SIM hospital and Christian medical workers in his hometown that he came to faith in Christ, and shortly after he professed faith in Christ, he was baptized and discipled by SIM missionaries, including John Warner and John Miller.[11] He was also instructed in Bible study with an SIM mentor to value the church and clearly expressed a high value on participation in it.[12] He became active in the Somali Believers Fellowship (a name chosen by Somali Christians themselves) in Muqdisho from 1970–73, just four years after this alleged SIM opposition to that church affiliated with the Mennonite Mission.[13] Later chapters in the book demonstrate this worshipping body continued until the outbreak of the Somali civil war in 1991.
Furthermore, Aweis contention of SIM’s sabotage is contradicted by personal communications received from three veteran SIM missionaries to Somalia. Ruth Myors, author of When the Lights Go Out: Memoir of a Missionary to Somalia (Acorn Books, 2016), arrived in Somalia with SIM from Australia in 1960. She states in her emailed response: “I cannot remember any criticism of the Mennonites from the Modrickers (leaders of SIM in Somalia at the time). As far as I am concerned, we stayed friends all along. I taught Mennonite missionaries Somali as long as I was in Africa even in Nairobi”[14]
John Warner left Australia to serve in Somalia with SIM in 1966. Significantly, he stated in his personal communication about when he, as the last SIM missionary to leave Mogadishu, left in 1974: “Before we left … we handed our contacts over to the remaining Mennonites to carry on instruction, mentoring and discipling.”[15] This action hardly represents an attitude of trying to “sabotage” the Somali Mennonite Church that was forming there.
John Miller came to Somalia with SIM from Canada in 1963 and was also a member of a Mennonite church. In his personal communication on the issue, he recounted numerous occasions in the 1960s and 1970s in Somalia when SIM and the Mennonites worked together to encourage the growth of the Somali believers. There are others mentioned through the 1980s and 1990s in Kenya and up to the present in Canada.
From the side of the witness of Eastern Mennonite Mission (EMM) Board missionaries, the emphasis seems to be the same. Omar Eby was the most prolific writer on the history of Mennonite Mission work in Somalia. In his book on the life of Merlin Groves (who was martyred for his witness in Somali), he gives several strong indications of the roles of both EMM and SIM in the life and witness of Merlin. It was actually an SIM representative who spoke at a missions conference at his school in Canada, Toronto Bible College, that first made him aware of the need for Christian witnesses in Somalia.[16]
While Merlin chose to be sent out to Somalia by the Eastern Mennonite Board (EMM),[17] he relates how he was studying the language daily at the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Mogadishu.[18] Finally, after Merlin’s death (July 1962) at the hands of a Muslim religious teacher angered by the EMMs Christian witness through schools, Eby relates how SIM missionaries helped the other EMM missionaries in a number of ways with communication and in arranging for the funeral. This is not a picture of animosity and rivalry but rather of cooperative efforts, involving various strengths and giftings between an interdenominational and a denominational mission group to witness and build up the church among a least reached people group.
In a more recently published study of the Mennonite work in Somali, the following retrospective comment is made based on interviews with several veteran EMM missionaries:
Good communication, humility, and willingness to work with people who had different perspectives and goals was vital, especially because the Somalis were observing the way in which missionaries related to one another. Fae Miller recounts that when disagreements within and between missions arose, she would hear from Somalis what others were saying or doing. She learned that the best thing she could do was simply to say, ‘There’s no greater thing than to forgive each other.’[19]
We ourselves have experienced excellent cooperation between SIM and EMM serving Somalis in both Northeastern Province of Kenya as well as in Nairobi during the 1980s and 1990s. This included both SIM and EMM working together in an organized inter-agency group (made up of representatives of three denominational and two interdenominational mission agencies) called the “Somali Discipleship Training Center.” Given the testimony of Ahmed Haile and these veteran SIM and Mennonite missionaries, the case for conscious sabotage of the Somali church affiliated with the Mennonites is simply not credible.
Denominational identity / loyalty has been a global problem, especially among Protestants, but also among Somalis. Aweis makes a strong statement claiming that “denominations are a badge of honour in Christian communities in the Somali peninsula, which is one more incentive for advocating for denominational identity.”[20] While this is not a main point of discussion we want to focus on in this response, it seems that this statement is hard to reconcile with the discussion of denominations and denominational differences based on interview research with Somali Christians in the region, published in A Reconciled Community of Suffering Disciples: Aspects of Contextual Somali Ecclesiology.[21] One quote here is telling: “The first problem is that you cannot build a Somali church into denominations. The problem of denominations is the problem of missionaries. … How can we, the Somali believers, come into unity? We cannot come into unity because we have the problem of the denominations of the missionaries.”[22]
This leads to another main argument Aweis makes which is that an attitude of financial entitlement among believers is caused by inter-denominational, but not denominational missions. He claims, “In fact, many generic Somali Christians will not regularly attend worship unless the missionaries pay them bus fares, rent subsidy, scholarship, or an employment … Somalis in the RCC and others who belong to denominational local churches do not have this entitlement problem. Generic Christianity is the problem, not the solution.”[23]
In our combined seventy plus years of experience in gospel outreach to the Somali people, we have observed this financial entitlement attitude to be a problem as much with denominational-based work as with interdenominational efforts. The key factor here is more related to strategic foundations (desire to achieve results, kingdom-building) or else a lack of training of individual missionaries, as well as their internal psychological factors such as guilt and desire to be liked. Again, Thoresen states, “… several informants claim that the loyalty of church members often is interconnected with their financial dependency on a particular Christian agency. If a church member depends on financial support from one of the agencies involved in a particular Christian fellowship, the prevailing anticipation is that support may be discontinued if they are not loyal to that particular fellowship. … The claim forwarded by several informants … indicates that such a concern exists, and that church members are loyal to different groups for this reason rather than out of theological or denominational concerns.”[24]
It pains us that our brother Aweis has made these inaccurate charges in such a public forum. Church growth in Somalia and Somaliland is difficult enough given the current cultural/political context. It is of note that the same author, Aweis, in another recently published article entitled, “A Brief History of Christian Missions in Somalia,” makes the following statement:
Despite some occasional hiccups in their relationships, the SIM and [E]MM are the best examples of Christian mission organizations cooperating in bringing the Gospel to Islamic Somalia (Haile and Shenk, 2011). This Christian spirit of cooperation has facilitated the conversion of many Somalis throughout southern Somalia.[25]
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize in line with this the importance of the complementary roles of different missions (both denominational and inter-denominational, or para-church) working together much as Paul’s missionary band worked hand in hand with local churches throughout Asia Minor and Europe. We need to build each other up and support one another in the sometimes difficult but wonderful task of bringing the gospel to those who have had least chance to hear and to facilitate the planting of strong churches among them.
Gary R. Corwin is a missiologist who served with SIM for thirty-eight years. He is a former editor of EMQ, and the author / editor of By Prayer to the Nations: A Short History of SIM (Grand Rapids: Credo Publishing), 2018.
Ben I. Aram (pseudonym) worked for twenty-two years in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia as missionary with various platforms: education, agriculture, and media. He continues to work with Somali language global digital media. He holds a MS In Range Ecology from Utah State University, 1981.
Sow Lij (pseudonym) is an adult educator and development worker. He worked for more than eighteen years in eastern Africa through cross-cultural education at multiple levels and in community development, and continues with similar work now in the diaspora community in North America. He holds a MA Intercultural Studies from Wheaton College, 1991.
NOTES
[1] Aweis A. Ali, “The Case for Denominationally Based Ministries Among Somalis,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 57, no. 1 (January 2021): 34, https://missionexus.org/the-case-for-denominationally-based-ministries-among-somalis/.
[2] Ali, “The Case for,” 34.
[3] Ali, “The Case for,” 35.
[4] Ali, “The Case for,” 35.
[5] Ali, “The Case for,” 36.
[6] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_Winning_All.
[7] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Kale_Heywet_Church.
[8] Harold S. Bender and Kenneth M. Nissley, “Somali Mennonite Believers Fellowship,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, Harold S Bender and Kenneth M. Nissley, eds. (Somali Mennonite Believers Fellowship, 1989), https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Somali_Mennonite_Believers_Fellowship&oldid=77813, accessed December 12, 2020.
[9] Ali, “The Case for,” 2021, 34.
[10] Ahmed Ali Haile and David W Shenk, Teatime in Mogadishu: My Journey as a Peace Ambassador in the World of Islam (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2011), 71, 74, 80.
[11] Haile and Shenk, Teatime, 30–34, 37–38.
[12] Haile and Shenk, Teatime, 33-37.
[13] Haile and Shenk, Teatime, 71.
[14] Ruth Myors, personal email communication, received by authors, December 9, 2020.
[15] John Warner, personal email communication, received by authors, December 13, 2020.
[16] Omar Eby, A Whisper in a Dry Land: A Biography of Merlin Grove, Martyr for Muslims in Somalia (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1968), 63.
[17] Eby, A Whisper, 63-64.
[18] Eby, A Whisper, 145.
[19] Peter M. Sensenig, Peace Clan: Mennonite Peacemaking in Somalia (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016), 21.
[20] Ali, “The Case for,” 34.
[21] Frank-Ole Thoresen, A Reconciled Community of Suffering Disciples: Aspects of a Contextual Somali Ecclesiology (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2014), 76–79.
[22] Thoresen, A Reconciled Community, 78.
[23] Ali, “The Case for,” 36.
[24] Thoresen, A Reconciled Community, 77.
[25] Aweis A. Ali, “A Brief History of Christian Missions in Somalia,” African Research Journal of Education and Social Sciences 7, no. 1 (2020), 56, http://arjess.org/social-sciences-research/a-brief-history-of-christian-missions-in-somalia.pdf or https://www.somalibiblesociety.org/a-brief-history-of-christian-missions-in-somalia/, accessed June 12, 2020.
EMQ, Volume 57, Issue 2. Copyright © 2021 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
