The Missional Church in a Secular World: A Response to the Rise of Secularism in Africa

Abstract

This article focuses on the missional response to the rise of secularism and its manifestations in contemporary Africa. Due to globalization and urbanization, Africa has had a radical social-economic, cultural, and religious shift. Globalization has led to the spread of secularism, a set of beliefs and ways of life that disdain or denounce all forms of religious faith and worship, aiming at completely eradicating all spiritual components from society. It manifests in different dimensions such as materialism, relativism, atheism, pluralism, nominalism, and many others, also called circular humanism. Yet, the church is the people God has called from the world to Himself and sent them to the world (missional role) to reconcile it to Himself. This study examines the broader manifestations of secularism and the appropriate missional response of the church. As technology and humans advance through the capacity to accomplish huge tasks, there’s a tendency of human self-dependence, which creates a society that attributes nothing to God but to self, eventually making God irrelevant. As technology and skilled labor continue to increase, faith in God and religion seemingly become more irrelevant. Therefore, the missional response of the church involves reclaiming true reverence and worship of God.