Educational Media Reviews Online

African Christianity Rising is a highly informative documentary which looks at Christianity in Ghana and Zimbabwe. It does not look at Christianity in all of Africa as the title would suggest. Although the production of four discs is quite lengthy overall the major portions related to Ghana and Zimbabwe take up about 1 hour and 15 minutes each. There is significant overlap with even identical footage found in both sections.

The Ghana section discusses the recent history of Christianity in Africa. In neither section is there much coverage about native religion in a historical manner. There is some inclusion of spiritual practices which interact with Christian practices, but only as the situation exists today. It does provide a brief discussion of the changing face of Christianity on the world scale and shows how Africa figures into the projected near future of Christianity. In Ghana the work of Peter Sarpong provides some recent historical details regarding Catholicism. Mensa Otabil’s International Central Gospel Church shows an independent Christian church which has spread from Africa to many places in the world, including the United States. Zion Ministries provides the backdrop for depicting one of the traditional spiritualists. Grace Presbyterian’s deliverance ministry illustrates the interaction between traditional practices and Christianity in which many addictive issues are dealt with as a form of spirit possession. Grace Presbyterian and Calvary Christian Ministries shows more traditional western Christian practices and how they have been changed by Africa. The final portion of this section deals with how African Christianity and religion in general is different from western Christianity and what Africa might have to offer the Christian world.

The Zimbabwe section follows a similar pattern using St. James United Methodist Church, Victory Tabernacle (a Pentecostal church), and Zion Apostolic (an independent blended form of worship). Andrew Walls discusses why he began studying the history of Christianity in Africa and the ways in which charismatic Pentecostal Christian traditions interact with some representative African cultures.

The remaining two discs are extra footage, one for Ghana and one for Zimbabwe, which do not add much to the production. These discs are most useful as an indexing function which would allow portions of the story for each area to be looked at separately. Little new information is presented here, but segments of various lengths are taken with minimal extra material from the main story of the first two discs.

For Christian groups the film is an encouraging picture of the spread of Christianity in two portions of Africa. But it is clear that Africa is not a silent partner in the process. Much that would be considered foreign by many western Christians is an accepted part of African Christian practice. This film attempts to weave these strands together, showing how Christianity in Africa has been strengthened by these interactions, and how African Christianity has something to offer the global Christian world. It is also clear that in the near future a much higher percentage of Christianity’s strength will be in Africa which will make these trends mainstream for world Christian practices. Africa is no longer mission territory, but is now the source of missionaries itself. In an unusual twist, African missionaries are now re-energizing Christianity in many places once considered strongholds, including America.

For others the film provides a significantly different view of Africa than what is usually seen on major news outlets. The cities of Africa are portrayed as modern metropolises, an image that clashes with traditional rural villages. Although the film is not clear about which lifestyle predominates there is abundant evidence that Africa is a rapidly developing area of the world.

This is one of the best films I am aware of regarding recent trends in Christianity in two areas of Africa. Despite the title it does not speak for all of Africa and the title continues the misleading western idea that Africa is a homogenous whole. The film is dated with much of the footage from 1998 in Ghana and 2000 in Zimbabwe. Since then, Zimbabwe in particular has undergone an economic collapse, internal disarray, and a rebuilding stage. Shorter segments filmed in Ghana in 2006 and Zimbabwe in 2012 attempt to bridge the time gap. The film suffers from its highly repetitive nature, even in the portions from Ghana and Zimbabwe, and much of the extra material does not provide additional information. Given the length, repetition, datedness, and the way in which the material is presented which would make it interesting mostly to a Christian audience an overall rating of recommended is assigned to this film.