A Disruptive Ecclesial Economy
Anicka Fast has recently published, “Let us “also work with our hands, so that the Lord’s work may be furthered”: A disruptive ecclesial economy at Kafumba, 1922-1943,” in the Mennonite Quarterly Review 93, no. 4 (October 2019): 437-472. She describes how Aaron and Ernestina Janzen, American Mennonite Brethren missionaries, resigned from the Congo Inland Mission in 1920 in order to begin independent work at Kafumba. A lack of financial support from their Mennonite Brethren Conference led them to undertake significant self-supporting activities, including the production of palm oil, coffee, and food crops. Historians have disagreed about whether this episode of independent, self-supporting mission—which ended after the conference takeover in 1943—should be interpreted as an all-too-brief moment of gospel equality and economic sharing, or as an unfortunate derailment into a colonialist, station-centered pattern of ministry. Fast’s essay offers the first detailed analysis of the ecclesial economy of Kafumba prior to 1943 based on primary sources. It demonstrates that the experiences of church shared by the Janzens and Congolese believers played a crucial role in shaping the development of this economy over time. Though marked by a degree of paternalism and racial separation, the Kafumba economy followed a disruptive logic by providing a refuge to Congolese young people from the most exploitative and abusive aspects of the palm oil industry that dominated the region.