The People’s Seminary in the Global South: Reflections from Benin

Greetings from the Skagit Valley,

Gracie and I were recently in Benin, West Africa offering our Certificate in Holistic Liberation to some 70 pastors and church leaders. Our host, Segbegnon Gnonhossou (pictured below) is a professor of theology who currently lives in Seattle, where we met. He is from Benin and is so well-connected there that he was able to bring together leaders from many different denominations and organizations. He was part of our teaching team, which fits his and his wife’s calling to equip Christians in West Africa.We had a great time team-teaching with Segbegnon, Vera Ezumah (Nigerian who grew up in France, pictured below), and Gerard Bimenyimana (pictured below), who went through our training in Burundi. Jean Raeber (from Lausanne- who went through our training in Switzerland) joined us, providing prayer & moral support.

The first thing we noticed in Benin was that people dressed in their traditional African clothing– unlike many other settings in Africa where most participants are dressed in Western business suits.Our host told us this practice is fairly recent, and represents a reaction against the French colonial past, but also reflects people’s awareness that Benin was one of the major departure points for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, from the 15th to the 19th Century (Door of No-Return pictured below. See my video at the end).Our Certificate in Holistic Liberation directly addresses the charge that Christianity is a European, White man’s religion, since it was largely imposed on non-white communities by dominant, White, Western colonial powers. With the rise of Christian nationalism and White supremacy in the West, many African-origin Europeans and Africans are finding it harder to identify as Christian. Instead they are often drawn to Islam or traditional religions, which in Benin includes Vodou.

We challenged this assumption that Christianity is a White man’s religion through a series of contextual Bible studies that help people discover God as creating all humans in his image and likeness from the beginning (Genesis 1-2). 

Through a careful reading of the Lord’s call of Abram in Genesis 12 we talk about the pre-requisite of spiritually (and sometimes physically) departing homeland, identity markers, and family to be part of the universal mission to bless every family of the earth. We examine closely God’s action to raise up liberators like Moses, to lead people from slavery to freedom, a movement visible throughout the Old Testament prophetic tradition.

This movement reaches its most total fulfillment in Jesus, who invites us into his baptismal death and resurrection, to depart homeland and identity according to the flesh in order to join him in announcing and embodying the Kingdom of God, on earth as in heaven. 

The course participants were deeply moved to see how the Holy Spirit led Philip to announce the message of Jesus to the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8. It was the Ethiopian eunuch, not a European colonizer, who first brought the Gospel to Africa. This observation delighted one of the older pastors who said: “This was an unexpected gift that I’ve never heard!” 

We will follow up this topic in Module 2 with teaching on resisting racism through a study in Acts 10, where Peter breaks with his exclusivist Jewish tradition to engage with pagan, Roman Centurion Cornelius.We heard from Segbegnon that course participants in Benin felt that our training connected them to the “whole God,” enlarging their perspective away from a narrower spiritual understanding of the Christian faith.

People also commented that our holistic approach to Scripture (that included economic, social and psychological dimensions) helped expand their understanding of Jesus’ liberating message.

Our course challenged other common assumptions that create barriers for vibrant faith. People were surprised and delighted to see in example after example from Scripture that sin does not separate God from humans, who pursues sinful people with tireless love. 

Over the course of the the week our team presented critiques of the prosperity gospel, the myth of redemptive violence, and our struggle against principalities and powers– manifesting in tribalism, nationalism, materialism, and sexual violence.

Participants were also moved by our sessions on healing from father and mother wounds, trauma, rejection and shame. We could see by people’s many questions that our practical workshops on how to pray for emotional and physical healing and spiritual freedom were empowering people to step out of their comfort zones with more confidence.

They commented that our emphasis on the immediacy of God as a real presence who we can expect to visit us to inspire, call and bring physical and emotional healing was especially faith-building. We learned that one of the pastors who had me call his brother to pray for his healing from cancer had previously identified as an academically-educated cessationist.

We also heard that our Bibliodramas were effective with all participants, regardless of their level of education. People were deeply impacted as they immersed themselves in the Biblical stories.

We acted out Paul’s teaching on being raised and seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6) to demonstrate our spiritual authority to minister and pray for healing. We invite volunteers to play God the Father, Jesus and a disciple. We act out the disciple’s symbolic death in baptism, where we are subsequently raised and seated together with Christ at the right hand of the Father. 

Since the Father and Jesus are invisible now, I cover their heads so only the person playing the disciple is visible– which is how we show up as God’s representatives in the world. We then invite people needing healing to receive prayer from the person playing the disciple– and see people receiving healing from different problems there on the spot– demonstrating the teaching!

During our week there in Benin we received new invitations to offer our Certificate in Holistic Liberation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Ghana, and two new locations in Benin. 

During the following week while we were resting in France, another team of eight African trainers (pictured below) completed the five-day Module One in Solwezi, Zambia with 185 pastors and church leaders.Viviane Tessier teaching in Solwezi, Zambia