The Sudan Handbook

Religious   PRactice & belief 97

of 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, as

The 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).