The Masai Creed
October 29, 2009 • Comments on Culture •
This is a beautiful expression of the Christian faith from an African perspective. This creed was composed in 1960 by the Masai people of East Africa in collaboration with missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The creed attempts to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the Masai culture. Jaroslav Pelikan, a modern scholars of creeds and their history, considers the Masai Creed to be an excellent example of the bringing together of universal faith and local experience. It speaks wonderfully to us today.
We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man and wanted Man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the Earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.
We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.
6 Comments, Comment or Ping
William Guice
First…that is beautiful. thanks for sharing it.
Second…I knew that you had more good stuff in there. Now I’m expecting multiple posts per week.
Peace ~
William
Oct 29th, 2009
Kurt
William–thanks for the comment..and the challenge!
Kurt
Oct 29th, 2009
Dave
I love creeds! This one is beautiful.
Nov 2nd, 2009
Bill Ekhardt
That is the first I have sen of this creed. I really like it. Thank you for sharing it.
Nov 5th, 2009
Ken Chitwood
WOW, what a creed and confession. And thanks for the nod to Jaroslav Pelikan – his work needs to have more of a following (is following the right word???) in the post-modern church especially in regards to his comments on localizing and globalizing our own confessions and creeds. In particular, as a post-modern Lutheran, I believe my own faith tradition needs to take a long hard look at our creeds and confessions and see if they match our current locale and experiences. Oddly enough, it seems we aren’t taking the advice of one of our own (Pelikan).* Thanks for the post and beautiful expression of the faith that the Masai developed in their part of Christ’s kingdom on this earth.
*However, I know Pelikan converted near the end of his life to Orthodoxy. He was a long time Lutheran and influential in the Slovak Lutheran Church.
Nov 7th, 2009
Gustavo
Well, when you really look into it, it turns our the so-called Masai creed was penned by American Catholic missionary Fr. Vince Donovan in about 1967. Donovan belonged to the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. Spiritans. The Spiritan website mentions this fact http://www.spiritans.org/about/pdfs/200804.pdf
Further, it turns out the Masai Christians were not at all excited about the Spiritan misionaries´ efforts of inculturation. Highly illuminating insights from John P. Bowen, “What happened next? Vincent Donovan, thirty-five years on.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research April 1, 2009. I will highlight the following:
Father Ned Marchessault continues the work with the Masai today. “According to Ned, the present Catholic hierarchy in Tanzania, though entirely African, is not enamored of the kind of indigenization practiced by Donovan. As a result, there exists today the poignant paradox of Western missionaries encouraging inculturation and an African hierarchy rejecting it. One could say that the diocese stresses the constants while the missionaries stress the context.”
Amazingly, a section of Bowen´s article is entitled “Cultural obstacles.” That is, the obstacles the American missionaries found IN African Christianity to the American attempts at making Christianity indigenous.
“Ned’s discovery, however, was that “Africans in general and Maasai in particular want to know how it should be done. Especially when it comes to religion, because [what matters is] pleasing God or doing what God wants. They want to do church the way God wants it done and be done with it. I mean, let’s not play games with anything as important as our relationship with God!”
A new form of missionary imperialism??
))
Nov 13th, 2009
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