Martinus (Inus) L. Daneel – Bishop Moses Daneel – Muchakata – Co-Creating African Earthkeeper.

Martinus (Inus) Daneel has been named Bishop Moses Daneel by the Association of African Earthkeeping Churches (AAEC) and Muchakata by the Association of Zimbabwean Traditional Ecologists (AZTREC).[1]  His life is a study in solidarity.  Born and raised in a white missionary family in Zimbabwe, his heart was always with its people and their troubles.  I got to know Inus in the 1980’s when I was finishing my studies in theology at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and eventually ended up being a junior lecturer with an office adjoining his on the University campus.  Those were difficult days in Zimbabwe as well as in Apartheid South Africa.  Our theology faculty at UNISA was academically connected to the liberation movements in both countries.  Many of our students were political prisoners.  We often mused about “informants” in our faculty when the South African security police took interest in our activities.  Inus was deeply involved in Zimbabwe during its second Chimurenga (Struggle for liberation) war which finally ended with elections in 1980.  This was not a comfortable position to be in as he was often placed in the midst of the many internal tensions within Zimbabwe. In the introduction to his book Guerilla Snuff he wrote, “…the story of liberation was writing me. At times it cast me out to suffer despair on the margin of both black and white worlds.”[2]  Living within this unbearable tension Inus was a bridge builder among different factions particularly through his work at bringing people together for the integrity of creation.

In the early 1980’s he became a member of Association of Zimbabwean Traditional Ecologists (AZTREC, first known as the Association of Zimbabwe Spirit Mediums AZM). As director of the Zimbabwe Institute of Religious Research and Conservation Trust (ZIRRCON) he brought together the AZTREC community and the newly founded Association of African Earthkeeping Churches.  Yet again he found himself in a difficult tension between the traditional African religious leaders and those of the Christian churches he was working with.  Yet, he understood that the task of earth repair was too important not to take on the challenge and work on bridging the differences.  He did all this while teaching in the Department of Science of Religion and Missiology at UNISA and publishing intriguing papers on African traditional religion in Zimbabwe and the emergence of new indigenous Christian movements.  At that time David Bosch was head of the department and Inus taught various courses while bringing awareness and advocacy to the faculty for the struggles of the Zimbabwean people as well as a passion for theological education of the Africa Initiated Church leaders.

Inus loved nature, the African bush, the Zambesi River teaming with fish, crocodiles, and hippos, but above all he loved the people of Zimbabwe and was deeply concerned with both their physical and spiritual needs.  With the inability of traditional Western Christian churches to properly engage traditional African culture and to respect African leadership many Africa Initiated (Indigenous) Churches (AIC’s) started to emerge in the early 20^th century particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.  As a theologian and missiologist, Inus was concerned with providing theological education and biblical literacy to the leadership of these emerging new Christian movements.  It was the time of the flourishing of Theological Education by Extension and Inus played an important part in this process in Zimbabwe.  As an ecologist, deeply aware of the looming climate crisis, Inus was also aware how the “cry of the earth” is also reflected in “the cry of the poor,” an insight way ahead of Leonardo Boff’s book that made that connection.  

In his award-winning book “Guerilla Snuff” (1995) he describes how the struggle after the war had to continue for the integrity of the land.[3]  This was a struggle and a war to be waged by the ex-combatants and their spiritual leaders to save the land from erosion, over-population, and deforestation.  His concern was expressed through efforts to integrate the return of the traditional lands, alienated from the people through colonization, with sustainable ecological practices inspired by both traditional African religion and indigenous forms of African Christianity.

Inus was a deeply creative and adventurous man.  With his Shona friends he walked traditional paths and joined the ritual hunt, but his imagination inspired new trails of healing.  Guerilla Snuff, in his own words was “neither a conventional history nor fiction.”[4]  For Inus, this creative narrative had to cut a new path through the Zimbabwean bush as a contemporary myth-encased history for the ordinary people of Zimbabwe as they gather under the muchakata tree (Parinari curatellifolia).  In a very real way this was a deeply intellectual and spiritual book that intentionally did not bow to the limitations of Western academia.  Inus was an outstanding academic as attested in his many publications, his work at UNISA over 16 years, his status at Free University in Amsterdam and the University of Leiden, his research fellowships at The University of Zimbabwe and Harvard, and his long association with the African Studies Centre as well as the Centre for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University.  Nevertheless, his heart was always in activism for the good of God’s people and God’s earth.

Inus was a committed ecumenist in the widest sense of that term.  He was particularly interested in fostering ecumenism among the African Independent churches but also expanded that focus to an interfaith ecumenism in aid of supporting ecologically sustainable practices and healing of the land in Zimbabwe.  As a visionary builder of institutions, he founded two organizations.  One, founded in 1972, was Fambidzano yemaKereke avaTema which was established as a cooperative of black independent churches.  Their primary concern was cooperation in Theological Education by Extension.  The other organization ZIRRCON, founded in 1988, was a religiously based earthkeeping institution. It expanded ecumenism to the practitioners of traditional African religion including: “chiefs, tribal elders, headmen, and senior spirit mediums” as well as Christian churches.  These two religious groups were structured into different units within ZIRRCON.[5]  This ultimately created a massive movement for earth repair in Zimbabwe that consisted of over two million adherents.[6]  Behind these actions was a process of deep reflection on the nature of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue and cooperation.  The theological inspiration for this grew out of Inus’ friendship with Jerald D. Gort’s work on theology of religions.  In Zimbabwe Inus endeavoured to practice the insights developed in Gort’s concept of “liberative ecumenism” which provided the vision for the massive movement for the good of God’s creation that emerged.

In reviews of Inus’ books there is a common theme of critique that goes to his identity as a white man working in a black African context in both his field work and his advocacy.  So, for example, Norma Kriger, in her positive review of Guerilla Snuff mentions this inevitable tension arising out of identity.[7]  In David Field’s positive review of the Two Volume African Earthkeepers series, he comments on questions around Inus’ potential influence on some of the rituals developed as part of the work of the African Initiated Churches in ecological activism and reforestation of Zimbabwe.[8]  The implication was that somehow, as an outsider, it was inappropriate for a white man to help shape a response to the challenges of the churches and people of Zimbabwe.  In places so deeply shaped by British colonialism and its development of racism and colonial exploitation, questions of racial hierarchy and use of power are inevitable.  Of course, Inus’ extensive work on observing and describing the churches in Zimbabwe and his profound understanding of the traditional African Mwari cult situated in the Matobo Hills (earlier known as the Matopo Hills), carry, of necessity, limitation as an etic (outsider) view.  The colonial past always looms over such work.  Nevertheless, it is my opinion that Inus was something much more than an “outsider.”  His adoption as a “son” of the Gumbo people and honorific adoption as a bishop, and his indigenous facility with the Shona language suggests a more complex relationship.  There is an “etic” dimension to his work, particularly in his theological formation, but it is moderated by a good measure of “emic” (insider) understanding and a passion to bring these worlds into mutual dialogue for the good of God’s reign.  There is no doubt that Inus always remained aware of and sensitive to such tensions.  That is why an enduring theme in Inus’ writing is his own awareness of the limitations of his powers of observation and description.  In his fascinating 1983 paper on “Communication and Liberation in African Independent Churches” published in the Journal Missionalia, he writes, “My own observations in this field understandably remain those of an ‘alien participant’ and are therefore of a preliminary nature, aimed at the discernment and description of relevant trends rather than at conclusive definition.”[9]  Likewise, he completes this exhaustive paper (37 pages long) in the same spirit of humility, writing, “I realise that I have succeeded only in drawing a scant and incomplete profile…”[10]  Well versed in anthropological field work, Inus redefines the “participant observer” in his case to that of an “alien observer.”  It is perhaps this kind of humility in the midst of the Shona people that led them to adopt him as one of their own.

As I reflect on this intercultural bringing together of identities, I treasure a memory from some time perhaps in 1987, when Inus returned to UNISA after spending Easter with the Zionist church.  He told me with joy and a good serving of humour of the unexpected invitation to preach.  The crowd was so large and there was no amplification method, so the crowd was divided in two with a path between the two sides.  As a preacher he had to walk down this path and preach every few meters to address that section of the crowd who could hear him.  With a chuckle he told me that you had to take off your shoes when preaching at these events as this moment was considered to be on holy ground before God.  So, with bare feet he set out, only to discover that the ground was full of thorns.  With a twinkle in the eye he said it was hard not to let the crowd hear him swearing under his breath every time he stepped on a thorn…  Inus literally embodied the white-black, Western-African, tensions while painfully wrestling with the alienation that comes with living within such cultural and political tensions.

The two volumes of the African Earthkeepers series, published at UNISA, documents some of the important earthkeeping efforts in a Zimbabwe that was quickly being deforested as people were trying to eke out a living while piecing together sustainable African traditions profoundly impacted by the colonial era.  Volume 1 tells the story of the African religion traditionalists and Volume 2 the story of the Africa Initiated Churches.  In the introduction to Volume 2 Dana Robert writes,

Readers of this book will be drawn to the detailed descriptions of ‘earth healing’ (maporesanyika) ceremonies held by the earthkeeping churches. The ceremonies combine the classic AIC emphasis on healing with tree-planting eucharists in which communicants confess their sins against the earth. The reception of the sacrament accompanies distribution of seedlings that are planted to heal the denuded and damaged earth, often understood as the body of Christ. Since many AlCs use the eucharist as the launching point for missionary campaigns, the incorporation of environmentalism into the heart of Christian sacramental life demonstrates a holistic mission model that potentially could be applied in other parts of southern Africa.[11]

There can be no doubt about the profound impact Inus Daneel’s life work has had on the country of Zimbabwe.  Despite droughts, hunger, political upheavals, and ongoing deforestation, Zimbabwe – its people, and its churches – were being transformed for the better. Despite the contemporary disdain for creating institutions and building sustainable communal structures, it is exactly such structural work that helps to respond to the large challenges of the world.  Inus understood this and worked tirelessly at building institutions.  Institutions do not only bring meaning to a culture and society, but they also make real change possible on a macro scale.  Besides bringing together the Africa Initiated Churches in Zimbabwe, Inus also fostered the necessary theological reflection in the midst of these communities to bring awareness of their stewardship of the earth and their environment.  As he found in his research, the AIC’s were already at the forefront in Zimbabwe in building a sustainable agricultural community in the face of climate crises and the vulnerabilities of subsistence farmers in Zimbabwe.[12]  These churches had no problem building grassroot systems of agricultural education that integrated new Western scientific practices with traditional beliefs while encouraging the community as a whole to pitch in when food supplies became vulnerable.[13]  Christian faith and these practices were seamlessly stitched together.

One of the key initiatives of ZIRRCON was to encourage the planting of trees and their care to counter the fast-moving deforestation in Zimbabwe.  This intuitive indigenous knowledge that trees and the survival of people are inextricably linked, were given expression through the work of the AAEC unit within ZIRRCON.  The result was an impressive people movement that planted trees and saw it as their spiritual duty to care for these trees and to continue the movement.  Many scientists and environmentalists initially questioned this strategy claiming that these life-giving acts will hardly have an impact on the overwhelming environmental crisis.  It is enlightening to find that many years later a large scientific research study has proved these efforts of ZIRRCON right.  In July 2019, the Crowther Lab in Switzerland published a peer reviewed study in the journal Science that demonstrated the importance of reforestation as an ecological strategy.[14]

In the light of this, the development of Christian liturgical practices that brought together theological insight with an environmental social movement made all the sense in the world.  In the abridged Orbis edition of African Earthkeepers Volume, Inus recounts the tree planting liturgy led by Bishop Rueben Marinda.  Bishop Marinda (also Chief Chiwara) was the first leader of an AIC who received formal theological training from the ecumenical United Theological College in Zimbabwe.  He developed this prayer liturgy while planting trees,

Mwari Father, I have come today to plant your trees. I have come with the mutumbu tree to pay for my transgression [of earth destruction]. I place them here in your soil. You tree, I place you in this soil. Grow! Become tall, wax strong! Even if the hail from the heavens hits you, I want you to remain alive … through the coming ages. My friend whom I love, I shall come to visit often to see you. Stay right here where I plant you. Amen.[15]

This moving liturgy sacramentally integrates the importance of the Mutumbu tree with an indigenous eco-theology.  The human destruction of the earth is linked to sin while the theology is enacted ritually to make it real for the community.  In his research Inus demonstrated a deep appreciation for the integration of life and faith within the AIC’s.  Their practices go beyond prayer, and reflection, to action and prophetic promise.  Although we might assume that Inus played some role in encouraging such liturgical practices, it must also be noted that the proud independent tradition of the AIC’s and a sophisticated theologian like Bishop Marinda must be primarily credited for the theological reflection and content of these liturgies. 

In my own context in Canada, this work by indigenous Zimbabwean Christians has also been inspiring.  Through a decolonial process of listening to the Truth and Reconciliation process in Canada, traditional Christian churches have much to learn from the profound environmental awareness and accountability of Canada’s much mistreated indigenous population.  Here too we are being taught about the inextricable link between community and care for God’s earth. Among Canada’s indigenous peoples this traditional eco-spirituality is represented in the teaching of “all my relations” which includes animals, and trees, and plants as relations to be respected and cared for.  The impact of the initiatives in Zimbabwe even reached through Canada to Cuba.  At a theological consultation and reflection at the Seminario Evangélico de Theología de Matanzas, in 2012, a group of Canadian and Cuban theological students and faculty studied and considered this example of the Zimbabwean church.  In response the Seminary determined to enact its own tree-planting liturgy.   For the Seminary, this was not something that fell from the sky, but rather an addition to an ecological commitment already practiced through their large organic garden that feeds the seminary as well as many of the needy in the city of Matanzas.  In Canada a Christian public theology advocacy group published a reflection on tree-planting as a theological act in response to the Zimbabwean example.[16]  In so many ways the power of earthkeeping lives on.  Therefore, I believe that Martinus (Inus) L. Daneel was not just and “alien observer” but also Bishop Moses Daneel, Muchakata, a co-creator for the sake of the integrity of God’s creation.

By: Charles J. Fensham.  Professor of Systematic Theology, Knox College, University of Toronto.

[1] The Muchakata (wild cork) tree bears nutritious fruit that has often saved lives during famines in Zimbabwe.

[2] Daneel, M.L. 1995 Guerilla Snuff. Harare: Baobab Books, xi.

[3] Guerilla Snuff was selected as one of the 75 most influential Zimbabwean books of the 20^thcentury, https://www.bu.edu/cgcm/research-associates/m-l-daneel/

[4] Daneel, Guerilla, x-xi.

[5] Daneel, M.L. 2005. “Liberative Ecumenism at the African Grassroots.” In Daneel, M.L., Van Engen, C. & Vroom, H.M. Fullness of Life for All. Leiden: Brill, 295-327.

[6] Daneel, “Liberative Ecumenism,” 295.

[7] Kriger, N. 1997. “Mafuranhunzi Gumbo Guerilla Snuff” Review in Journal of Southern African Studies 23:4, 673-4.

[8] Field, D. 2002. “African Earthkeepers Volumes 1 & 2.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 113 Jul 2002, p 117-120. 

[9] Daneel, M.L. 1983. “Communication and Liberation in African Independent Churches.” Missionalia 11:2, 59.

[10] Daneel, “Communication,” 92.

[11] Daneel, M.L.,1999. African Earthkeepers. Volume II. Pretoria: UNISA, xvi. (This is the initial edition with full text.)

[12] Daneel, “Communication,” 72-3.

[13] Daneel, “Communication,” 73-4.

[14] See ETH Zürich news release https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2019/07/how-trees-could-save-the-climate.html

[15] Daneel, M.L. 2001. African Earthkeepers: Wholistic Interfaith Mission. New York: Orbis Books, 185. (This is the abridged edition with both volumes in one published monograph by Orbis Books).

[16] Fensham, C.J. 2013 “Imagine a Sacramental Tree Planting Conspiracy” in Living Eco Justice. Ottawa: Citizens for Public Justice, 69-75.