The Tewahedo Church and the Western Religion

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The Tewahedo Church
The church under research in the present study is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, commonly known as Tewahedo. The church existed prior to the colonization of Africa by the Europeans. Notably, it is the largest Oriental Orthodox Church, and it is located in Ethiopia. The church began operations in the first half of the 4th Century as an administrative part of Alexandria’s Coptic Orthodox Church. However, it gained independence in 1959 when Saint Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria granted it autocephaly. The founding theological concept of the church is that Christ had one nature. The theology diverts from the widespread western belief that Christ had two natures: God and man. Accordingly, Jesus Christ retained the human and God nature after his resurrection and going to heaven. However, the church members believe in the power of Christ and the wisdom embedded in the Bible. Hence, the Tewahedo Church partly demonstrates the nature of non-Western communities to accept and reject western theological concepts.
A consideration of the origin of the Tewahedo Church reinforces the idea that Christian missionaries from Europe were not the only church planters across the globe. However, the history of the church rejects the notion that Christianity became a global religion through the charity works of missionaries who served the roles of building and providing services to communities. When one reads the article by Charumbira, the most likely conclusion they make is that missionaries who pursued socioeconomic development introduced Christianity as they served people in non-Western regions in the occupational capacities of nuns and nurses. For instance, Charumbira (241) states that “while the nuns did set up some of the first clinics and schools, they did so without the benefit of formal training or professional qualification.” He also discloses that Protestants used nurses to infiltrate and evangelize South African Jesuits and their territories. The case is different for the Tewahedo Church. The place of worship resulted from Alexander the Great seeking control and influence in sub-Saharan Africa. For this reason, administrative activities occurred at a greater rate than religious roles in the initial stages of the church. The observation suggests that Christianity existed in Africa before the onset of Europeans’ colonization of the continent. Furthermore, the genesis of the Tewahedo Church brings forth the idea that missionary was not always the basis with which Christianity spread throughout the world. The church began for administrative purposes, indicating that the people who served and worshiped in it were Roman workers assigned duties related to expanding the power of Alexander the Great beyond Europe (Dryness and Garcia-Johnson 44). In that regard, one of the theological concepts in establishing the Tewahedo Church was that Christians were given the role of multiplying wealth by fighting against and controlling non-Christians for land and other natural resources.
The church shares numerous theological principles with western churches, indicating that the locals agree with most Catholics, but not all, concepts of western Christianity. The Tewahedo Church...