Speaking in (your own) tongues

It’s 9am on a Sunday morning and Jorissen Street in Braamfontein is mostly deserted. In the Denhil building on the floor above a copy shop, elated chants of prayer echo out of a window on to the street below.

A white gate at the entrance holds a makeshift sign reading ‘Apostolic Faith Mission Shekinah Ministries”. Up a narrow staircase, and through a long corridor, the sounds reverberate. A female usher in traditional Nigerian dress welcomes parishioners into the space.

White plastic garden chairs form the pews in the sun-lit room. Floral lace curtains line the windows. To the front, the altar comprises red, gold and white curtains, with the words ‘priority and excellence” inscribed on to a Perspex podium. Parishioners stand along the pews clapping and singing along with the pastor and choir.

A male usher in shirt and tie walks up and down the aisle, chanting to himself throughout the service, ‘speaking in tongues” as the church’s Pastor Xavier Kraftman puts it.

Meanwhile, a church leader dances energetically in front of the altar while a worshipper turns toward a side window, cupping her face in her hands, overcome with emotion.

Charismatic Pentecostal churches like AFM Shekinah have sprung up all over the country, their brand of worship attracting a growing number of people.

Savious Kwinika attends services at a Nigerian church, Mountain of Fire. He says he goes there because they ‘cast out demons” — church-speak for exorcism — and they also ‘speak in other tongues”.

‘I am worshipping with them. There are miracles that are happening in the church,” he enthuses. He gives the example of a woman who had a haemorrhaging problem for two years who had ‘been healed”.

Professor Jurgens Hendriks, of the University of Stellenbosh’s school of theology, says about 41% of Christians in the country now attend these churches regularly.

He explains that this trend has been increasing all over Africa, and the emergence of newer African independent churches is in a sense a breakaway from a mainline Christianity seen by some as being too Westernised or European — the kind that dominated South Africa in the apartheid years.

Professor Steve de Gruchy of the school of religion and theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal agrees: ‘Traditionally, churches from north of us have a different flavour to South African churches, because of our settler and colonial history.

‘Churches from places like Kenya, Zambia and Nigeria are African-led and African-shaped,” he says.

In South Africa, the post-apartheid period has opened the country up to foreign migrants and facilitated the creation of more of these churches to cater to communities residing here.

Hendriks calls them ‘storefront churches” that start out in homes, businesses or anywhere, principally catering to indigenous communities. ‘These churches are their way of surviving in the cities. They take on the role the tribe used to play. African independent churches are playing a major role in community building.”

Freddy Chinanga, who leads the Family of God church on De Korte Street in Braamfontein, an institution founded about three decades ago in Zimbabwe, says the differences between the churches is a matter of presentation.

‘We believe we are also sent to the unschooled people,” he says when asked why a Sotho interpreter was present. ‘We want our grannies to come. We try to accommodate every-body,” he explains.

Chinanga says their ministry does not exclude people not of African descent. He says they also have churches in Britain, the United States and Australia. One Sunday of every month takes the form of an African day, where people dress in African attire. ‘We are just making a statement that, from the Cape to Cairo, we are one. It’s just an expression of our oneness before God, regardless of where we come from.”

At AFM Shekinah, although all the clergy are Nigerian, pastor Kraftman insists the church is now wholly South African.

He says his congregation’s more than 200 members are mostly South African. ‘Even if you have your background in another country, you shouldn’t fall into the trap of your own cultural identity, because it negates the identity of the local community.”

AFM Shekinah’s services are delivered in English, ‘an international language”, says Kraftman. ‘Before, people couldn’t understand our songs and our accent … but when God sends you to another place, you have to identify with the locals. The choir now sings hymns in Zulu and Sotho as well.”

Says Hendriks: ‘We call it contextualising. These churches are adaptable — that’s why they last so long.”

But different churches do have different flavours. ‘The Nigerians are aggressive, the Zimbabweans are emotional and the Congolese are musical,” the Family of God’s Chi-nanga explains.

The Sanctuaire Heritier de Promesse (French for Heirs to the Promise Sanctuary), a scion of the AFM, is one such charismatic church. Raymond Kuediatuka, a pastor in the church, said their congregation is made up mostly of Congolese people (80%), with Angolans and francophone nationals making up the rest. As a result, their services are conducted in French, with English translations. ‘Most of the congregation are refugees running away from the wars there,” Kuediatuka explains.

If he wants to worship God ‘properly, I should do it in my mother tongue”, he said, referring to the songs they belt out in Lingala, a language widely spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo and parts of Angola. ‘Each language shows the colour of each culture.”

Part of his heritage is the dancing that has been made popular by musicians like Papa Wemba, Kanda Bongo Man and others. ‘If you hear Kanda and our musicians, you will think there is no difference between us. The difference is in the meaning,” he explains.

God, says Kuediatuka, wants us ‘to express ourselves in our own cultures”.