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Article Excerpt
Almost thirty years since his premature death cut short an outstandingly promising ministry, Byang Kato's contribution to the growth of African evangelical Christianity remains unique. His book Theological Pitfalls in Africa, translated into French as Pieges theologiques en Afrique, still provokes comment and controversy, as it has done since its publication in 1975. In recent years the Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology has published accounts of his life and work by Christina fireman (1996) and Yusufu Turaki (2001). The Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology named its chapel after him, as did the Faculte de Theologie Evangelique de Bangui its library, appropriate recognition of his role in the foundation of both institutions. The idea that he was "the founding father of modern African evangelical theology" is no exaggeration, readily justified by an appraisal of recent African church history. (1)
Byang Henry Kato was born in June 1936 into the Hahm, or Jaba, people in the Nigerian town of Kwoi in Kaduna State. His parents were adherents of Jaba traditional religion, but Byang was converted to Christ at the age of twelve in a primary school of the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). He subsequently went to Igbaja Bible College, gained British secondary school certificates by correspondence, and in 1966 was awarded a London University bachelor of divinity degree after three years of study at London Bible College. He returned to Igbaja as professor from 1966 to 1967 and, at the age of thirty-one, became general secretary of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in 1967. He undertook postgraduate studies at Dallas Theological Seminary in the early 1970s, obtaining the degrees master of sacred theology and doctor of theology. In 1973 he was appointed general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (AEAM, now the Association of Evangelicals of Africa), the second incumbent of that position and the first African to hold it. He drowned just two years later, aged thirty-nine, in a tragic and unexplained swimming accident while on vacation at the Kenyan coast.
Theology
Kato was a pioneer of modern African evangelical scholarship, the first evangelical African Christian to gain a doctoral degree in theology. His literary output was modest, comprising a number of articles, one or two pamphlets, and Theological Pitfalls in Africa, which is the published version of his doctoral thesis. Whatever one's view of it, Theological Pitfalls was a pioneering work of African evangelical theology, to "be viewed within [the] wider context of Kato's vision for a positive evangelical theological initiative in Africa." (2) Quite simply, he showed that African theological scholarship need not be the unique preserve of theological liberals, as had seemed to be the case.
In this connection Kato's swift acceptance of the notion of contextualization was particularly significant. The provenance of the word itself, first employed in 1972 by Shoki Coe in the World Council of Churches document Ministry in Context: The Third Mandate Programme of the Theological Education Fund, made it suspect to many evangelicals. (3) Kato, however, recognized its importance for the well-being of the African church and believed that it did not imply compromising any of the theological principles that he considered fundamental. His approach ensured that mainstream African evangelicalism should not become entrenched in an obscurantist and contextually irrelevant fundamentalism. Theological Pitfalls itself, as well as many of his articles, addressed some of the issues of the Africa of the 1970s and are themselves early moves toward a contextual approach.
Certainly Kato's understanding of contextualization reflected his time. His approach may not have had the theoretical basis and subtlety of those who followed, and Theological Pitfalls is, as Paul Bowers points out, "a 'maiden effort' ... his first major publication ... [an] initial contribution," rather than the "magnum opus" that might have followed, but for his early death. (4) Nevertheless, his book and articles remain exemplary in at least two respects. First, his intention was truly to contextualize the Gospel for Africans: he addressed African issues, and most of what he wrote was published in Africa. In contrast, Parratt has noted "the tendency of some African scholars to write and publish with a Western, rather than an African, audience in mind ... to publish their work exclusively in the West ... and with an eye to the plaudits of Western academics rather than to the usefulness of their work to the African church." (5) Second, Kato's theological activity aimed at a much broader African readership than just the theological cognoscenti. He avoided the trap that besets much Western theology, that of academic theologians producing works of scholarship for one another that are inaccessible to outsiders. As Kato himself said, "I am fully in favour of the ever-abiding gospel being expressed within the context of Africa, for Africans to understand." (6) His concern was for the church and the fulfillment of its calling in the world, rather than the approbation of the academy. Despite his many criticisms of Kato's work, Bediako pays gracious tribute to the essentially practical and pastoral concerns that motivated it, describing him as "practical, wise and pastorally concerned" and speaking of his "essentially practical mind." He is, says Bediako, "most helpful on issues related to the impact of Christian commitment and discipleship on what is 'considered...
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