Religious PRactice & belief 97of foreign missionaries) and paralleled by the New Sudan Council of
Churches during the war years from 1989–2005, has played a significant
part in national affairs. There have been only a few signs of the splits
and unorthodox innovations found in many other regions of African
Christianity. On the whole, in the Christian regions of the Sudan, the
aspirational and emotional appeal of religious activity has remained
under the authority of established church organizations – though these
of course now extend into rural areas, in a way that the medieval monas-
teries established in the first phase of Christianization of the country
could never have done. Moreover, of course, the modern mission enter-
prise as a whole has aspired to bring the message of the gospels to
the people in their own languages – a sharp contrast with the prime
value placed upon the classical Arabic of the Quran in the teachings and
propagation of Islam. Further, we could note that although early Chris-
tian instruction, and Bible translation especially on the Protestant side,
tended to relegate much local belief and practice to the realm of Satan,
there has been an increasing willingness, in both Catholic and Protestant
mission endeavours, to respect existing cultural practices. The leader-
ship of virtually all churches in the Sudan is now in Sudanese hands.
Although Christianity has been the dominant public form of religious
affiliation across the south from before the 1950s, as well as in parts of
the neighbouring regions of southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, there are
very few detailed accounts of mission- or church-based communities
and the way they, like their compatriots in the Islamic regions, have had
to come to terms with older beliefs and practices in the intimacy of the
domestic sphere.
Christian teaching in practice has often been conveyed in a lingua
franca. In Sudan, colloquial Arabic has played a role which should not
be underestimated. Portions of the Bible were translated into colloquial
Sudanese Arabic in the years from 1927 to1964, and a complete New
Testament appeared in 1978. Work is ongoing at present on a version in
Juba Arabic. Moreover, services and sermons across the country are often
translated into colloquial Arabic side-by-side with a local language, asThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors congregations^ are^ now^ very^ often^ mixed.
(www.riftvalley.net).