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INTRODUCTION

The agony of the church in Sierra Leone changed the church into an active participant in the embassy personal business of the country. A intensely unenthusiastic and soul-destroying area is the information that various group action d'etats were artificial in the thoroughly instant past, all of which had a Christian as Head of State. These coups have strongly intense rather than ameliorated the sufferings of the heaps.

A follow-on consequence of the alight of clerical structures is a identical diminution in the body. The Lutheran situation, in spite of this not accurately, roughly reflects the enumerate of the art for all denominations. The decrement in political leanings could be attributed to a cipher of reasons. Although several Christians were killed, a goodish numeral migrated. This body took Sierra Leoneans to many West African countries. There is shortly in Lagos, for instance, a sizable take of Sierra Leoneans, a few of whom have no plan of reverting since they have mated to Nigerians or have been ingrained other. Those with commanding relatives fastened tickets to the western global spell the jammy too entered after victorious many transferral programs.

A markedly sober consequence of suffering in the basilica is that it was rendered prostrate to judge dissimilar priestly organizations that claimed to be Christians. It was during this spell that The Church of Jesus of the Latter Day Saints, for instance, became popular. These bodies contend upon the impecuniousness of Christians. Doctrines that secure a inviting go were pronto recognized by peak Christians who saw them as the cure to their hassle.

THE CHURCH OF SIERRA LEONE'S RESPONSE TO SUFFERING

The basilica reacted to misery in various way. There was a marvellous issue to the gospel followed by a perverse reaction, that is, the emphasis placed on the teachings of the prosperity Gospel. The rejoinder of the priestly to grief in Sierra Leone cannot be utter minus discussing its attempt in ameliorative the problem of culture during the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and an evaluation of this outcome in the latter in precise.

Response to the Gospel

The rejoinder to the Gospel importantly increased as a result of the decrease in the flesh and blood standards of the nation. Hope was wholly gone astray in the political complex and all human institutions. There was a common state of mind that the therapy to the hitches in the rustic was mystic. Credit should be specified to the Pentecostal Churches that did a lot of sermon which brought thousands to the redemptive cognition of Jesus Christ. Paradoxically, Sierra Leone was in all likelihood the initial West African nation to get the Gospel. Yet after ended two centuries, "under 12 percent of the land claims to be Christian. Very few denominations have grownup spiritually in the former cardinal age or made a indissoluble contact on the country" (Johnstone and Mandryk 2001, 564).

The economic condition teaching

The deficiency of sacred and biblically hardened leadership is a accusing dynamic in the church in Sierra Leone. The Bible colleges are too few and far relating. Most of the Pentecostal churches are on your own and the leadership are not system hardened. Most preachers are so speech prosperity (discussed in the first-year chapter) from one activist and support their congregations to escape suffering, as well as poverty, at all expenditure.

The scheme in the commonwealth did not support the picture any. Mental and general decay, united near semipolitical self-indulgence and scheme misdirection created large misery for the figure of the Sierra Leonean people in the belated 1980s. Before this period, the basilica emphatic on a highly authoritative individualized confession of its members near a temperament to day-to-day transfer one's mix to tail Jesus. The ever so elevated dismissal charge per unit of former students and miscellaneous inconvenience of jobs for the youths in comprehensive gave a intense magnetism to the prosperity evangel in Sierra Leone. Like the Nigerian situation, "the impinging of the downturn was above all unclear considering the fact that the self race had hardened unexampled monetary noise a decennary earlier" (Awoniyi 2004, 3).

Response to the war in Sierra Leone

In 1991, Sierra Leone became entangled in a courteous war rewarded by dissident terrorists, frequent of whom had fled from neighbouring Liberia's well-mannered war. The rebels shattered villages and wreaked havoc on the administrative district. Many of the churches were desolate and by a long chalk of the population was guarded to lam to Freetown, the possessions city, wherever the people swelled to over a million in a immensely short-term time. A wonderful numeral of these population became homeless or survived in refugee camps. After witnessing an uncomparable orgy of terror campaign during which at hand was wakeless pain and suffering, the churches in Sierra Leone were titled upon to organize curative of assorted kinds. The Council of Churches - a alignment of xviii Protestant denominations for the duration of Sierra Leone - has been a highest induce in coordinating the reconstruction and peacemaking pains of the clerical coalition. It partnered next to the Inter-religious Council, a chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, ready-made up of contrary sacred faiths, which was too other central concern that over time worked for peace. In reality, the Inter-religious Council is a association of the two key religions in Sierra Leone, Christianity and Islam. It was launched on April 1, 1997 beside Bishop Humper, leader of the United Methodist Church, as corporate executive. The Inter-religious Council represents 19 of the starring Christian denominations in Sierra Leone, plus the Roman Catholic Church, and the 9 through Muslim organizations in the pastoral. In muted of the unpitying massacres that occurred after the term of office was improved in March 1998, the president of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Alhaji Ahmed Tejan Kabba, was unwilling to congregate with the rebels on any expressions. But body of the Inter-religious Council encouraged the business executive to review. At the same time, religious organizations began to get out to the RUF members, offering supplies and humanist aid.

Because so umpteen saintly bodies were involved, their representatives could without risk go unarmed into the rebellious strongholds. The rebels, too, were those of Sierra Leone, and the pastoral organizations did not disown them. Support for the Inter-religious Council came from the World Conference on Religion and Peace and from the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).
Particular quotation essential be ready-made of the role of the United Methodist Church, one of the place of worship denominations that compete a primary role in the intensive term of misfortune in the land. The war halting the socio-economic life of a onetime pacifist empire. During the crisis, the United Methodist Church vie individual roles. Through the United Methodist Committee on Relief and else partners, nation in refugee camps accepted food, utilized attire and medicines. Ecumenically, whichever key priestly leadership participated in order talks. Above all, the doors of the churches in the cities remained ajar to all who yearned-for to pray and to furrow for inward peace and God's mediation in the apparently utter state in the bucolic.

A team of United Methodists who visited Sierra Leone had a first-hand fix your eyes on at the suffering and entail for assuagement in the province. They likewise discussed challenges affiliated to Christian education, evangelism, worship, situation and communication theory.

At the one one hundred and ordinal conference of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference, February 22-27, 2000, Bishop Joseph C. Humper incessant his give the name for multinational mediation in his administrative division. Humper discussed the church's perception in the context of use of Sierra Leone's troubles, and he gave conference leaders a twenty-three-point oppose. He incited the untie of two k (2,000) brood and youthful girls who were yet kidnapped and lifted attentiveness almost the delayed gait of the disarmament, demobilization, camping site and reintegration manoeuvre. The war has wasted families, communities, businesses and churches, and thousands of United Methodists are among those sorrow in the upshot. United Methodist-related schools and pedagogic centers have been destroyed, churches and goods burned, and ministers and their families nigh homeless. The time period confab conference of 2000 was deferred because of war-related atrocities that occurred Jan. 6-16, 1999.

Mention must be made of the contributions of a exceedingly spirited Christian organization, the Nehemiah Project. The Civil War in Sierra Leone left-hand a social group of boy soldiers who were traumatized or unparented family in despairing call for. The Nehemiah Project, titled after the fortune-teller who rebuilt the inner-city walls of Jerusalem against terrible opposition, is a rehabilitation task for these traumatized boys. Identifying specified people, "equipping, grooming and supporting them is one of the record central funds the priestly can make" (Stafford 2002,11). The founder, Lynn Coles, a appendage of Life Line Community Church, Avril McIntyre, Life Line's United Kingdom Co-ordinator, is quoted of axiom that "the aim of the labor is to afford attention to detail and restoration for these children, and the prospect is that they will move to feel the care of God, who can transport around great conveyance in their lives" (Hooper 1999, 7). The project of the hang over is vast.

Imagine you are ten time of life old. You see your parents brutally killed in outlook of you and consequently are befriended by fighters who say they will help you penalize your parents' loss. They feed and apparel you. You make the first move to brush their arms. They pass you a gun to carry, and they let you bushfire it erstwhile or twofold. Soon you get going to get up to his neck in the conflict. Unknown to you they have as well been slippery gunpowder into your matter. It makes you brave but it is also outstandingly addictive. You go near the fighters and study as they bestow panic into the villagers. 'These are the grouping prudent for massacre your parents,' they say. With a gun or knife in your hand, all the brokenheartedness and anger wells up, and past you cognise it you've intersecting the stripe. Now humour is on your hands too. Now think that you are called to confer healing for this child. This is the expedition of the Nehemiah Project in Sierra Leone (Hooper 1999, 6).

Ordinary Christian brothers and sisters have volunteered to career near individual humanitarian organizations. A armour in component is Children Associated next to the War, an government agency of the Archdiocese of Freetown and Bo, is in employment next to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to support former child-soldiers, who were saved from rebels who kidnapped them to combat in the country's civil war. They have succeeded in reuniting tons brood next to their families.

REFERENCE LIST

Awoniyi, H.O. 2003. Curriculum Response as Antidote to the Prosperity Gospel: a Proposal. Paper

presented at the Intellectual Forum of West Africa Theological Seminary, Lagos, Nigeria on February

5, 2004.
Hooper, Lorraine, 1999. Suckled on Gunpowder. Christianity Today, 43(13) : 6-12.
Johnstone, Patrick and Jason Mandryk. 2001. Operation World : When We Pray God Works. 21st ed.

Harrisonburg, Virginia :International Research Office.
Stafford, Tim. 2000. The First Black Liberation Movement. Christianity Today,

44(8) : 4-12.