Zulu Pastor Vs. Witchdoctors

MY ZULU PASTOR FRIEND KHUMALO VS. WITCHDOCTORS IN SOUTH AFRICA

by Robert R. Schwarz

( Mr. Schwarz is a retired newspaper editor who has made several trips to Africa. This is his second contribution to "Reclaiming Our Heritage ." )

( first of three  parts)

Bring up  "exorcism"  at a dinner party with friends—as I have braved on a few occasions—and count on a moment of silence followed by polite  grins of skepticism. At one of these occasions,  I waited for the usual humor and reminiscing of the movie "Rosemary's Baby" to  subside.  I then prepared my friends for my report by putting us on common ground with New Testament accounts of Christ's exorcisms, particularly that of a man out of  whom Jesus drove a legion of demons  into the bodies of a herd of swine.

I began with a scene in South Africa where, under a shade tree, a  group of six men and women  stood with clasped hands praying  for the means to build their first church. Leading them in prayer, I told my dinner guests, was  the Rev. Mandla Khumalo, an ordained Lutheran  minister trained at Concordia Theological Seminary at Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Several years ago this Zulu pastor attended an international evangelism meeting in Amsterdam, Holland, and, presumably, was led by God's grace to sit at a lunch table next to an  American pastor who became so impressed  with the religious zeal of his table partner that, upon returning home,  he prevailed  upon his congregation to sponsor  Mandla's theological education and ordination at Ft. Wayne.

As I  told my dinner guests,  much of this report comes  from interviews with my friend Mandla  and from that American pastor, the Rev. Rick Lineberger , formerly of St. Peter Lutheran church in  Arlington Heights, Illinois.

That day under the tree, harsh reality  was challenging the group's  faith.  No one among the handful of Mandla's followers had any money,  and they faced  two formidable enemies, both of whom competed fiercely with Mandla  for converts:  aggressive Islamists  with their  well-financed allures  and tribal witchdoctors or, sangomas, with their hypnotic hold  upon villagers.  The Islamists would later  try to assassinate the Zulu pastor with a car bomb, which, when it did explode, tossed him 30 feet from the car.  Miraculously ,  this stocky,  five-foot-four black man a survived,  only to learn later  that a hit-man contract—still in force today—was now on him.  And then there was the hate-driven envy of the sangomas that was about to  climax.

"What about?"   one of my  guests  asked. "Wasn't that  also giving your friend trouble then?"  I replied that yes, apartheid was as present in Mandla's hometown  of Middleburg (population 9,000)  as it was a few hundred miles south  in Johannesburg . His wife, Lindiwe, and young son and daughter, Muzi and Busisiwe , would see Mandla limp for years from a beating from the South Africa secret  police who unsuccessfully tried to coerce my  him to spy on his own congregation.

But nothing that prayerful  day under the tree was to diminish my friend's drive to bring the Gospel of Christ to the black people of his region.  In a gentle, sing-song voice so characteristic of  the Zulu language,  I heard the Rev. Khumalo explain during one of his sermons at St. Peter that  "our country has entered a new democracy , and the challenge from other faiths has come into our country."  He went on to say, "This means more than ever the battle is between darkness and light, the devil and God. It means eating, sleeping, walking and talking the gospel."

Uneasily, my friend recalls when, at age l6, he joined an anti-apartheid group and, in an effort to overthrow the racist government that had been oppressing black  people for decades,  he participated in riots.  According a telephone interview last April with a reporter for the Ocala (Florida ) Star Banner , the Rev. Khumalo rose to leadership in  guerrilla ranks and led the burning of government buildings.  "I did not kill any person," he was quoted, "but I was willing to kill if the opportunity was presented."

His conversion, according to the Star Banner article, came while traveling to Zambia for  church training. On  the invitation of a pastor he met while waiting at the border crossing,  the Rev. Khumalo  attended an  evangelistic crusade.  "The Holy Spirit worked faith in my heart," he said. "The preacher said Jesus Christ is the only answer to a dying world. That night as I tried to sleep, I came across a gospel tract: ' My eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord ,' and I tried to pray for the first time. I saw no wickedness, and I wept, and I cried to the Lord to save my soul. The following  day, I was going back home,  no more to join the military wing, no more to fight, but to go home."

Mandla  told his mother he was going to turn himself in to the police.  Despite her pleas not to go,  her son walked into a police station and  confessed  all to the desk sergeant. When a police lieutenant was summoned and asked Mandla the reason for  what he was  doing,  the black man told the white man: " Jesus Christ has changed my life."  The police simply let him go, according to the Rev. Lineberger.

My guests told me to get to the exorcism. "Just one more anecdote," I said.

It occurred two years after Mandla's conversion. He was  standing unannounced,  barefoot and penniless before a South African Bible school president.

"I want to go seminary here," Mandla said.

" And how do you think you will pay for this education?" the  president said.

"The money will come,''  Mandla replied.

And it did,  and the church was built.

***

( to be continued  tomorrow)