Page 77 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

The Gospel Comes to Africa

He wanted unity more than purity. Unfortunately, while Augustine did not
explicitly support the Roman imperialists, he felt the church should oppose
heresy even if it meant using the power of the state to crush heretics. “The
wellspring of rural Christian enthusiasm was destroyed by these repressive
actions. In the long term, this policy against the Donatists doomed the
North African church to death” (Kealy and Shenk, 314).

Charismata

I believe that further comments about Augustine’s position on the
charismata (spiritual gifts) will be important for our study. Early in his
ministry, it appears that Augustine accepted the fact that speaking in
tongues as a sign had passed away (Hyatt, 44), but later in life he wrote
about an experience he called “jubilation” that sounds Pentecostal in
nature. Augustine says:

And for whom is such jubilation fitting if not for the ineffable
God? For He is ineffable whom one cannot express in words; and
if you cannot express Him in words, and yet you cannot remain
silent either, then what is left but to sing in jubilation, so that
your heart may rejoice without words, and your unbounded joy
may not be confined by the limits of syllables. (Expositions on the
Psalms, 32.2.1.8)

In conclusion, let me summarize by noting that Christianity began in
Jerusalem, but it spread to places like Antioch and to the West, as well
as to Egypt and other places in North Africa. Christianity was clearly
Pentecostal and missionary in nature. By the end of the fourth century,
there were churches and bishops all across North Africa. Towering
among the church fathers were people like Tertullian, Cyprian, and
Augustine, whose writings gave form to theology and defended the faith.
The growth of this church and its endurance during terrible persecution
is to be admired. However, we are perplexed by the effects of quarrels,
division, and the suppression of spiritual gifts. In fact, by the end of
the fourth century, an early church father, John Chrysostom, “said that
spiritual gifts no longer were needed” (Anderson 2004, 21). We continue
to be baffled as we later see the almost complete destruction of the
church in North Africa in the face of Islam, and we wonder how and
why this happened. We will investigate the answer to this question later
in our study.

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