| Chapter 1: | The Contribution of Rainisoalambo to the Indigenization of the Protestant Churches in Madagascar |
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Worship
In this section, I explore the preaching style that Rainisoalambo brought; his approach to liturgy, which differed from that of the missionaries who introduced the gospel to the island; and the introduction of healing ministry to the worship and community life of the churches.
In preaching, there are two aspects. The first is the content, that is, what God wants to communicate with human beings. In this sense, the content of preaching is said by the believers to be invariable and, therefore, universal and valid for all people and all cultures. The Church has kept the essentials of preaching in certain forms, including confessions of faith and creedal statements.
The second aspect is the form. This is the manner in which the message of God is told to people, that is, the mode of reasoning, logic, and examples to illustrate the message. This varies, unlike the content, with the diverse contexts and cultures.
Most literature available does not publish the preaching of Rainisoalambo. Oral history, in the form of understandings passed down to the present is the only extant witness we have to the homiletical style of the prophet. Ralaimavo Seraphin, a Lutheran pastor who descended from one of Rainisoalambo’s first iraka, shares that people were surprised by the nature and tenor of the preaching of the prophet. He was evidently direct in his preaching, and he shared an understanding of the place of charms and talismans, which are called sampy in Malagasy, with those who heard him. The missionaries did not understand why the Malagasy people would hold on to their charms because the missionaries did not understand the culture. However, Rainisoalambo did understand, and this assisted him in speaking directly to where the people were and to the understandings of their hearts. Pastor Seraphin stated that the Malagasy people could ultimately understand Rainisoalambo better than they could understand the missionaries, and he did not call on them to uproot from their cultures but, instead, to root the culture of Christianity into their very lives.13 Additionally, Rainisoalambo was said to have been fluent in the use of Malagasy proverbs and speech forms, known as ohabolana and hainteny, which made his preaching easily accessible and engaging to his hearers.14