Christian Faith Among the Jieeng

A society that lacks moral, religious and ethical values and beliefs is like a cow without a tail. The cow lacks not only a defense or protective mechanism against flies and other parasitic insects, but also a propelling mechanism to escape other predators. Faith is like a society because it reveals individual and group values and beliefs in God, maintains varying meanings that individuals give to life, and influences how individuals and groups relate to each other in the society. The struggles amidst different life paradoxes cause tremendous shift in faith and social, cultural and religious values across different cultures. This book is both an observatory and an experiential story of mission and development of Christian faith among the Jieeng (Dinka) believers in South Sudan. The book first, revives the encounter between Christian and Jieeng (Dinka) values using personal and group approaches to different teachings about social relationships; and second, reveals believers' experiential journey of faith away from Jieeng animist worship to Christianity as a result of the exposure to different religious worldviews, the powerlessness of Jieeng animist deities or divinities, the need for alternative protection from God, and the search for personal identity during civil war in South Sudan. The author maintains that God mysteriously reveals Himself to Jieeng animist believers and wins their hearts through miracles or theophanies, which, in turn, reveal the powerlessness of animist gods, jak, whom Jieeng subsequently abandon and believe in God as an alternative means to substantiate their faith. Until the recent move of God to draw Jieeng believers and other South Sudanese ethnic communities to Himself, the indigenous people still believe in the African animist deities even after the European Christian missionaries have left Africa.