Dying in Service to a Dangerous Idea: Organising the Foundations of an African Jubilee Movement

A Dangerous Idea

When Christians sit down and talk about jubilee, someone is bound to say within the first five minutes, ‘Of course jubilee is an amazing idea, but it’s so unrealistic – don’t you know that there is no evidence that the Jews ever actually implemented jubilee?‘.

And therein lies the rub – jubilee is such a radical and profoundly revolutionary idea that from antiquity until today it seems to have challenged human generosity and love in every generation. And yet, whilst many failed to follow God’s calling on their generation, there have been moments where the church has, in radical obedience, managed to act in a way that approaches what jubilee is all about.

Whether engaging in the battle for the abolition of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, protesting for civil rights in the United States of America in the 1960s, standing at the core of the fight against Apartheid in South Africa or driving the Jubilee2000 movement to reduce unpayable debt in the third world, Christians have stood alongside others to risk their lives for a dangerous idea.

Could we be one of those rare generations?

A Vision of Jubilee for People and Planet

I am presently involved in bringing together a team of African thinkers and activists to collaborate on the development of an African version of Tearfund’s Restorative Economy report of 2015. ¹ The original report emerged from the belief that significant progress towards a restorative economy can be achieved if the world’s economy moves closer to the biblical principles of jubilee: environmental restoration, freedom from poverty and fair allocation of wealth. It articulated a vision of a just and sustainable global economy that works for everyone and that operates within the planet’s natural limits, and it sought to provoke discussion to help church and society pursue this further. Africa is a unique and important context and so we hope to take these broad ideas and rethink them from an African worldview to be implemented in our context.

An African Colonial Conundrum

Jubilee is particularly relevant in Africa, a continent seeking to overcome centuries of colonialism – a system deliberately designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of an elite, exploit the poor to create this wealth, divide people and plunder the earth for resources to be extracted. While we may have seen political freedom from colonialism start to emerge on the continent since the 1960s, the reality is that in most cases the system of power and control has remained – with new elites governing it. The resources extracted violently from the natural environment are still primarily being sent overseas for the benefit of those other than the local citizens, whilst the local citizens pay the social and environmental costs.

Africa is underdeveloped, crippled by poverty, divided by massive inequality within its population and hampered in its competitiveness by inequality between Africa and other regions of the world. It is in danger of losing its famed natural environment to exploration and climate change. If we are going to see change in the status quo, centuries of vicious circles of poverty and entitlement will need to be broken with some form of regular jubilee reset.

Yet the urgency to act goes far beyond the crisis of the present.

Our generation is building the foundations of what will become the African century, and the eventual results will impact not just Africa but the whole world.

A Significant African Century

By the end of this century, the world’s population will have grown by another four billion – three billion of whom will be African. Africa accounts for 16 percent of the world population now, but will make up almost half by 2100. Thirteen of the 20 biggest cities in the world will be in Africa, with the three largest world cities all being African. Imagine a time when instead of talking about the immense cities of New York, Beijing or Tokyo you will instead speak of Lagos, Kinshasa or Dar Es Salaam.

Regardless of the way Africa develops during this century, boom or bust, we are fated to greatly impact the globe purely by virtue of our demographic size and youthful energy.

If nothing changes, or Africa’s economic and environmental difficulties get worse, Africa could become a dystopian nightmare with billions of people living in the largest slums ever imagined, without dignified work, all struggling to feed themselves as the land and ecosystem they rely on collapse. The terrible images of African migrants drowning in the Mediterranean today could seem tame, as exponentially more desperate people try to escape their hellish crowded homelands to Europe and other continents. This would drive conflicts around the world, as other nations, their own populations aging and declining, try to contain half the earth’s population on a failing continent. In this type of scenario, sci-fi movies that show the global elite moving safely off earth to other planetary paradises do not seem too exaggerated.

However, another, more positive scenario is that our generation is able to find the vision and courage to build the foundations for a restored African economy that will allow our children to reap the benefits of prosperity and a healthy planet. The kairos moment we are in to discern and implement a genuinely Godly African economic model will be short – Africa’s economies are already growing quickly. We must act before Chinese or Western capitalism, both actively seeking African influence, embed new colonial systems. We must also act before climate change exceeds the 1.5 degrees centigrade that could undermine many of the earth’s ecosystems. ² We probably have less than a decade to lay the foundations and start to see real change.

However, if we are able to seize the moment and the narrative, a successful vision could pioneer the development of an entirely different type of economy, appropriate for Africa, good for people and good for the environment. An abundant Africa blessed with people, resources and a healthy environment could become a shining light to the nations and a visible sign of the glory of God manifest amongst us.

A Call to Organise

However, I have become painfully aware that no matter how Godly the vision or brilliant the ideas, if we are to have any relevance then we need to ensure that our response to jubilee goes beyond theological musings and economic theories to practical steps. The same goes for the very journal you are reading. If it does not lead to action, then you might as well stop reading now!

Still with me?

If those generations alive today – faced with environmental catastrophe, the greatest centralisation of wealth and the most significant gaps between the rich and the poor in history – are to find the courage to follow any of Jesus’ commands, then we must organise to make jubilee a reality in Africa.

A Church at the Heart of a Movement

We have all been lucky enough to have been witness to some moments of extraordinary miracle amongst us. Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations can tell us about the civil rights movement in the United States or the anti-colonial struggle in Africa and Asia; many of us will remember the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa from first-hand experience or through the national solidarity campaigns; some of us may have even been part of the Jubilee Debt campaign that saw the debts of poor nations reduced or forgiven around the turn of the Millennium.

Historically, the times when the church has actually come close to living jubilee principles have always happened through profound efforts to organise a grassroots movement. The very nature of power means that those who hold it almost never decide to give it up – it takes scores of spirit-filled sacrificial people organising at a grassroots level to turn power relationships upside down and start to move towards jubilee.

The uniqueness of many of these movements in the past was that they were broad-based movements that included different people and communities. But at the heart of them was a Christian movement sharing biblical ideas and living a witness of love that shaped the movements’ ideologies and cultures.

As imperfect as all these movements were, they have shown us that change is possible when Christians, and their allies, act with courage in the public space, and this should give us all enough hope that perhaps even we can be part of something big that will bend the arc of history a little more towards justice.

Steps into an (Un)certain Future

So if the church is to take up its role as the beating heart of a broader transformative movement, what are some of the practical ways that we can start to organise?

When Joshua and the Israelites camped on the banks of the Jordan, fearful and paralysed after the death of Moses, God told Joshua that they would soon cross over to the Promised Land (Joshua 1). Joshua in preparation called on the people to ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you’ (Joshua 3:5). After 40 years of wandering in circles, the impending moment of radical obedience and extreme action required a new level of repentance and holiness in preparation for a higher purpose.

As we prepare to cross to the metaphorical Promised Land, individuals and institutions have to very deliberately examine every idea and action to determine whether they are of God for this season or whether we are still living from past ideas or sinful thoughts, before committing ourselves to pursuing God’s call.

At the heart of this consecration process needs to be a major focus on discipling leaders at every level in our movements. The truth is that the church has often been an active promoter of colonialism and consolidator of power. If we are truly going to move from a centralising of leadership power to a movement where everyone is able to lead, as seen in the book of Acts, we need to be encouraging one another to hear God more clearly by prioritising our own formation. This begins with consecration – holiness for a purpose – as we confess and repent. But we must go deeper to a systematic focus on key issues, such as spiritual, emotional, physical, relational and financial health. Most importantly, like in the book of Acts, each leader should be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Without this consecration we may end up recreating slavery, because we still think like slaves, even though we left the captivity of Egypt many years ago. Without this work we will be unlikely to survive the rigours of movement leadership or, even worse, we could lead people in the wrong direction.

Part of the importance of discipleship is to internalise the values of the movement. Values are critical to driving a movement in that if enough people can practically live with integrity, demonstrating and speaking truth, then others will be inspired to also make the shift. As little as 10 percent of people living differently within a society can lead to a tipping point which can change the social consensus and action. ³

Colonial or authoritarian societies often use force and fear to impose values and change thought patterns by controlling social norms. ⁴ The African church today cannot be primarily motivated into action by a fear of the consequences of continental failure and collapse. And we cannot allow fear to drive us into taking the short-cut of control to deliver outcomes. Instead we must be motivated by the fear of a holy God, and the hope of his Kingdom vision, desiring to be more like him and dedicated to the calling and values he has placed on our hearts, trusting that others walking the journey with us will be similarly empowered by his Spirit.

Beyond our personal formation, we need to examine the way we design and operate our institutions.

Already tools like Church and Community Mobilisation and Self Help Groups, both used by Tearfund, are starting to include jubilee ways of thinking about power and leadership. We are seeing empowered communities setting their own agendas and organising themselves. Decision-making is decentralised to the people and communities end up serving their own agendas and not an outside master. Movements’ greatest power comes from organising at a grassroots level and the success of these tools and the structures they birth shows communities are starting to lead. This to me is hope of new organisational wineskins emerging.

Churches are also excellent at organising at national, regional and global levels. Traditionally we have organised as Councils of Churches, Evangelical Alliances and allied movement structures such as the Lausanne movement. However, as we wait expectantly for the new wine for this moment we need to start building new wineskins in this area. Our national and regional networks are brilliant at building networks and speaking prophetically into key moments, but they often struggle to inspire the ability to execute action. These networks need a major injection of resources and some redesign to ensure that they can translate their relational and theological capital into real organising power – supporting the grassroots movements to deliver real change on the ground.

One area of shift needs to be a deliberate focus on organising for impact at an institutional and city level. Cities are crucial for organising because they deliver the services that directly make a difference to people’s lives and the environment. They also operate at a scale, geographically and demographically, that makes relational ways of working possible. Increasingly cities are becoming the centre of gravity for Christian unity and organising. This trend is another new organisational wineskin that is emerging.

Institutions are able to ensure that core values and skills are sustained over a period of time. This is positive if the emerging movement’s values are incorporated into and sustained through institutions, and it is crucial for Africa as we lack efficient institutions and lack a diversity of institutions between which power can be shared. However, institutions are often a barrier to change if values are changing, and so many will need to be disrupted so they can then be realigned to the new movement values as new wineskins. The concept of discipling institutions and the complex systems that form between them requires deep work as we discern new wineskins.

Movements are ecosystems of individuals and organisations with similar values working in alignment, despite their diversity, for a particular outcome. There is no hierarchical power to coerce compliance. Unlike colonial systems, which divide and rule, at the heart of an ideal movement is relationship and equal partnership. Jubilee at its heart is about restoring relationships with God, humans and the earth. At the heart of the call of the church is the ministry of reconciliation and the restoration of relationships. When movements fail to operate out of deep relationship and equality then the Christians within them need to be constantly practicing repentance and the restoration of relationships.

Our theology primes the church to be the ideal movement builder. In addition, in Africa the church is amongst the most trusted institutions. This trust allows us to be bridge-builders and peacemakers where the ecosystem is not thriving or is collapsing. In a continent where development is being threatened by fragile states and violent conflict, any movement will only develop as far as it has capacity to build peace. Consequently, the church needs to actively create peace-building teams and mechanisms.

The church is also the most organised and widely spread institution on the African continent. This means that people from all tribes, tongues, professions and spheres of influence gather together each week, cross-fertilise ideas and are discipled together as a community. Almost any institution or sub-culture can be accessed through relational networks emerging from the church. In a world where formal power structures are increasingly siloed, the church can use its very DNA to grow connectedness in broader society.

If the church is doing discipleship well and building relationships as part of its ministry of reconciliation, then, by listening to God and listening to other leaders, it can start to create space to discern and articulate vision.

Common vision has the powerful effect of aligning different parties into a space where collaborative synergistic action is possible. But shaping nations is political and contested space and so it requires massive relational capital and wisdom to hold it together. God is giving pieces of the puzzle to different people and organisations and they need to find a space where they can place these down and collaboratively fit the pieces together until a larger picture emerges. The church needs to step into this space to serve and help bring disparate parties to a place of possible alignment. When small fires are brought together they can burn with a raging ferociousness.

The church can also play a crucial role in finding ways to tell the story of this vision. In the scriptures we have a powerful source of resonant stories that can be used to inspire, explain and unite. Stories speak to the heart and inspire greater courage than mere intellectual explanations or dry strategic plans. Stories can inspire hope and be a source of courage to overcome fear.

Different partners inspired by common stories do not always have to work together, but at the very least they need to not compete, preferably be strategically aligned and where beneficial work on joint ventures. A classic case was when Nehemiah asked people to work on distinct pieces of the Jerusalem wall, many outside of their homes (Nehemiah 3). They were inspired by a common dream and worked separately but strategically aligned and achieved their objectives in record speed.

The stories we tell will explain our vision and be infused with our values. Consequently, the stories we tell ourselves both reflect and shape who we are. With God we recreate our identity through his story to create a larger us and to help us corporately throw off the shackles of past slavery. When Joshua led the Israelites over the Jordan, before they could possess the promised land they had to spend time in Gilgal where they were circumcised – confirming their common identity as Jews, and removing the reproach of Egypt, after years of slavery and walking in the wilderness (Joshua 5:2-9).

Their common identity was essential if they were to remove the mental barriers of the past and forge the unity needed for a complex and disciplined military strategy. The forming of this identity delayed them taking the Promised Land and was extremely painful and intimate (circumcision is not an easy option!), but it was an important sacrifice.

The church can lead in creating intimate spaces and making the sacrifice of time and pain as we wrestle with our identities. Then the church can help call out the true identity of Africa – and wrestle with our identities and loyalties – allowing us to see the larger us by uniting around common values expressed in our stories.

Movements work when they are clear about their demands and plans – this allows aligned implementation even in the absence of coercive leadership.

Sadly the church often struggles with execution – and especially collaborative execution.

We must honour our stirring sermons and brilliant theology, but must also focus on formulating and delivering clear advocacy demands and concrete workable project plans. This will probably mean inviting leaders from business, politics and civil society into our planning and execution teams. We will need to shift culture and let go of some power to do this but the new skills will help deliver Kingdom objectives.

When Noah obeyed God and started building the ark, he was widely ridiculed and considered mad. Yet he persisted against the odds, and when eventually faced with the crisis of rain, all his preparation paid off and his detractors had a tragically late change of heart.

Much of movement-building is understanding what is needed in the future and then starting to prepare, even if you are ignored and ridiculed, so that when a crisis happens or the wave of the Spirit moves, you are best positioned to catch the wave and partner with what God is changing.

But operating in these cycles of preparation and change takes persistence. We hope that we will have more success than Noah, yet one cycle is rarely enough to secure our objectives. After every success or failure, preparation must begin again. Most biblical visions came to fruition over multiple generations – Moses and Joshua; Elijah and Elisha; David and Solomon. We are dreaming about building a movement to change a continent – that can only happen over multiple generations. We need to connect to the work of our spiritual mothers and fathers, persist in our own work and raise up the leaders who will complete our work once we are gone!

Dying in Service to a Dangerous Idea

A jubilee movement will disturb our comfort, destroy false idols and upend our society. To be part of this we will need to tap into a deep divine well of courage to be those in society who are willing to go beyond talking to organising a movement that will see our continent and globe changed forever. We will need to find the strength and courage to serve in obedience and sacrifice.

If we want to see a jubilee-based movement become a reality in our lifetime in Africa, it is a certainty that it will kill us!

It will kill us daily as we die to self; perhaps some will die as martyrs as we peacefully take on enemy strongholds, but definitely we will die in harness as we persist with the fight until the end of our long natural lives. Only when we are able to hand the vision over to a new generation to complete the work will we be able to truly rest in peace.

It is only when a seed falls to the ground and dies (John 12:24) that it is able to grow and produce many seeds and be part of a great harvest. By taking on this challenge, together we can find purpose and adventure in this world. By serving Jesus in this life, we will inherit eternal life with him (John 12:25).

Be strong and courageous. I hope to meet you at the frontline!

If you would like to contribute to the Restorative Economy Africa process, please go to abundant.africa, or email info@abundant.africa or miles.giljam@tearfund.org.