A church under challenge

The study is a critical analysis of the social, political and economic involvements of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. The main thesis of the dissertation is that beside its theological tradition, the social concerns of the EECMY have been fundamentally shaped by three interrelated factors. These are historical political cultural of the Ethiopian State, the socio-economic factor particularly the ever growing poverty and suffering of people, and the positivistic development paradigm of the last century. These three were informing factors in the historical development of the EECMY, and greatly influenced the involvements of the EECMY in the life of the Ethiopian society. As a consequent, especially in terms of a social responsibility of the church, intention with these three factors, the EECMY was compelled to emphasise developmentalism and humanitarianism for various reasons, and did not able to develop a systematic approach to the structural problems of the Ethiopian Society. Even though contextually and theologically the EECMY tried to respond to the above interrelated factors, by advocating wholistic ministry and integral human development, the practical implementation of the theory of wholistic ministry has been always problematic. Especially, the political dimension of a society, in other word the prophetic ministry, has got not so much emphasis in the life of the Church. There are various good reasons for this. The most important reasons, which are addressed in this research, are the internal domestic challenges and the external missiological paradigm, which has forced the EECMY to be engaged in many diversified development efforts that emphasis on developmentalism. This one sided approach, however, is to a greater degree hampering not only consciousness-raising effects and the empowerment of people expected from the churches social involvements, but also being resulted in a total dependency of the EECMY on external funds in terms of development and social activities and alienation of the local congregation from the official structure. Therefore, in the conclusion it was argued that is it necessary to modify the wholistic theology of the EECMY further in the direction of, integral human liberation. The principal reason for the vicious circle of poverty and failure of modernization in Ethiopia has to do more with the predatory political culture of the Ethiopian state, which is directly responsible for the underdevelopment and political instability in Ethiopia.