THE place to begin for my vocation was my identity as a Shona, and an African Christian. I grew up in Zimbabwe, and my background is Pentecostal. My first encounter with the Church of England was after I moved from Leeds to Barnsley and followed a friend who attended a charismatic, evangelical Anglican church. I used to be welcomed beyond my expectation by a white couple who invited me back to have lunch with their family.
The Anglican liturgy was structured, however the worship and songs had some similarities with the African Pentecostalism that I had been a part of. The incumbent, Canon David Munby (now retired), used to evangelise inspirational sermons, with less repetition than I used to be used to — I cherished the sense that I used to be learning something latest. And the incontrovertible fact that the church was diverse, including people from Iran and, later, continental Africa, helped me to settle.
For the primary time, I believed that I, too, is also a priest — the vicar was reflective and was not shouting or preaching in what I believed was the expected way. I felt that I could grow as an individual and that I had found a mentor. Friends and “prophets” within the Pentecostal tradition had told me that God was calling me to ministry, particularly the teaching ministry, but, as an introvert, I didn’t fit the mould of charismatic pastors; so I couldn’t see the way it was going to occur.
WHEN I first told the priest in Barnsley that I desired to be ordained, he said that they would want to get to know me before we could talk of the priesthood.
A yr or so later, he recommended me to a vocations adviser, and I spent a discernment yr at Mirfield, where I did three part-time modules on the Leeds School of Ministry before continuing with the discernment process and being recommended for ordination.
My bishops’ advisory panel (BAP) advice suggested that the structured prayer pattern in a high-Anglo-Catholic context would help me to develop a broader rhythm of ministry, and to be more deployable in a church that sees itself as a via media.
My personal circumstances made training a challenge — my wife had secured a position to coach as a nurse at Sheffield Hallam University, but eventually a contextual training pathway emerged and I used to be one among the pioneers to follow this route within the Wakefield diocese (now a part of the diocese of Leeds). My training supervisor had also been born in Zimbabwe, and he (Father — now Bishop — Stephen Race) helped to immerse me in high churchmanship.
Learning Anglo-Catholicism was like a right-handed person learning to eat with their left hand. At first, I struggled with the ritualistic elements of it, but, little by little, I used to be formed to be a priest in God’s church.
It was hard, learning in regards to the blessed sacrament, votive candles, the statues of the saints; and the difficulty of the Virgin Mary was a challenge (we said the “Hail Mary” at the tip of all intercessory prayers). But I used to be open to learning, and, eventually, my undergraduate dissertation was on Mariology, specializing in whether Our Lady of Walsingham reflects African motherhood.
MY TRAINING was deep: I learned contextual theology, every assignment was a mirrored image; and, with time, I became higher at weaving my very own African experience into the theological text.
I used to be the one Black in my class, and it took great effort to develop a way of belonging and to thrive. Having the chance to offer a presentation on “African theology” was a serious highlight of my training — it affirmed my identity as an African Christian inside the C of E.
In addition, the preparation that I needed to do for it exposed me to a wide selection of African theologians and students. This has led me to combine the perspectives of African theology — with its emphasis on cultural issues, particularly in relation to African traditional religions and their relevance to the African diaspora — with those of Black theology, which tends to deal with the socio-political dimension of society, especially the poor, and the explanations for his or her poverty.
It would have helped me to have known that Black people have been a part of the enrichment of Christianity from the start. But I had a life-transforming experience after I was amongst those students to represent St Hild College in Bossey Ecumenical Institute. This made me realise that theology will be approached from different angles across the globe, which in turn enabled me to attempt to make sense of my experience of growing up in sub-Saharan Africa, and to grasp that an African understanding of God (Mwari in my vernacular language) is a fewtimes different from a Western one.
Though this seems obvious to some, for me it was a serious explanation for my failure to appropriate theology because it was being taught within the theological college curriculum. But I used the talents I developed to excavate my very own history growing up in Zimbabwe, studying the biographies of Bernard Mizeki, and Fr Ashley Crisps (a few of the pioneer clergy there), and particularly the best way through which they tried to make the gospel relevant to African culture.
Being with students from Latin America, North America, and Europe has helped me to see things from other people’s perspective. The perspectives of Asian Christians have shown me that there are things to be learned from other religions, reminiscent of Buddhism, which actually help me to grasp my very own faith in greater depth. I, in turn, bring to the C of E perspectives from the worldwide South.
When I first joined the Church of England, I desired to “delete” my Pentecostal experience but Fr Stephen showed me that it was a part of who I had develop into.
Learning to embrace my very own identity has been key to accepting and loving others whom I even have found to be different.
GERALD HIESTAND’s and Todd Wilson’s book The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an ancient vision challenged me to associate scholarly activity not solely with universities, but slightly to see the parish as a “mini-university” which might enable theology to be developed within the local context. This helped me to see that theological education is an integral a part of my vocation
Now, I even have the challenge of a dual position as a parish priest and a university chaplain. Sometimes the posts complement one another; but, more often, they mean that I’m required in two places at the identical time.
After a yr of working very unhealthy hours (and with a young family), I realised that I needed to re-prioritise. What I even have found helpful is to divide my day into three categories: morning, afternoon, and evening, and concentrate my work into two out of the three.
My learning at St Hild has convinced me that our spirituality has to incorporate some notions of social justice since there may be loads of Biblical evidence that God was focused on these issues. As someone influenced by liberation theology and the works of Jean Marc Ela, I think that theology ought to be developed within the struggle of parish life. If it is just within the academy or in seminaries, it risks becoming a privileged discipline for a select group, perhaps excluding those that need it most.
My hope, identical to the biblical Amos, is to be a “voice for the voiceless”: for those on the margins of society.
The Revd Dr Ericcson T. Mapfumo is Missional Priest-in Charge of Christ Church, Moldgreen, and St James’s Rawthorpe, in Leeds diocese, and Anglican Chaplain on the University of Huddersfield.
