Tag Archives: Nobel Prize

Ethiopia’s Pentecostal Prime Minister is going to war: millions of children suffer as a result

11/22/2020 Micael Grenholm Leave a comment

We were very glad to see last year that an African Pentecostal for the second time in a row was being awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. Abiy Ahmed was motivated by his vivid, charismatic faith as he promoted peace talks and reconciliation in a nation filled with ethnic and religious conflict.

Like Denis Mukwege, I was hoping that Ahmed would show the world that the Pentecostal faith is more in line with peace and justice than war and egoism.

It is with a heavy heart that I now see that Ahmed is bringing his country into a civil war, with disastrous humanitarian consequences. The Guardian reports:

Violence in northern Ethiopia will probably drive 200,000 people into neighbouring Sudan over the coming months, UN agencies have warned, where food, shelter and medicine are urgently needed.
[…]
Fighting in the Tigray region has also left more than 2 million children in urgent need of assistance, with thousands more at risk in Sudanese refugee camps, Unicef said.

The agency is particularly worried over the possible spread of disease among the refugees, nearly half of whom are children.

Continue reading →

Nonviolence, Spirituality

The Pentecostal Faith of Abiy Ahmed

12/10/2019 Micael Grenholm 8 Comments

Today, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed receives his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. We’re very excited here at Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice since this is the second time in a row that a Pentecostal is being awarded this prestigious prize.

Some have the impression that Ahmed is hiding his Pentecostal faith for diplomatic reasons: his nation is divided among both ethnic and religious lines. I recently spoke to Dr Jörg Haustein at Cambridge University who is an expert on Ethiopian Pentecostalism. He told me this wasn’t exactly the case.

Bildresultat för jörg haustein — Dr. Jörg Haustein

“I don’t think he de-emphasizes his Pentecostal faith, but he’s very aware of which audience he is speaking to”, Dr. Haustein says. “There are videos on YouTube, not put up by him but by others, where he’s very Pentecostal in his rhetoric. He knows how to employ his faith in a more plural religiously appealing manner, but it’s also empowering him in the bold things that he’s done. He actually feels that he’s doing God’s work, and that this is what he needs to be doing at this time.”

Ahmed is actually not the first Pentecostal Prime Minister of Ethiopia, his predecessor Hailemariam Desalegn was a Oneness Pentecostal. Dr. Haustein has previously researched his faith and rise to power. I ask him how Pentecostals ended up as top politicians in the country. Continue reading The Pentecostal Faith of Abiy Ahmed →

Nonviolence

Religion Causes More Peace Than War

11/27/2019 Micael Grenholm 1 Comment

Article published in the Christian Post:

Once again, the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to a religious person: the Ethiopian Prime Minister and Pentecostal Christian Abiy Ahmed. I write “once again” because if you exclude the occasions when the Peace Prize has gone to organizations, only about four percent of recipients have been atheists. Monks like the Dalai Lama, archbishops like Desmond Tutu, pastors like Martin Luther King Jr., and religiously driven activists such as Malala Yousafzai and Denis Mukwege dominate the list of Nobel peacemakers. 80 percent of them are Christians.

This is in sharp contrast to the idea that religion only brings war and misery. Such thinking was popularized after 9/11 by atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. They believed that “religion poisons everything” and that a world without religious beliefs would have been much better.

And sure, many horrors have happened in the name of religion. One of last year’s Nobel laurates, Nadia Murad, has testified to the horrific repression that the islamic extremism of ISIS brings. Still, Murad herself is motivated by her Yazidic faith.

When Alan Axelson’s and Charles Philipp’s ambitious work “Encyclopedia of Wars” gathered information on 1,763 historical wars, only seven percent of them could be categorized as religiously motivated. Few, if any, of the most destructive conflicts that we have seen in modern times (such as the First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War and the Second Congo War) have been caused by religion.

How, then, can people claim that religion “poisons everything” with war and oppression?

For my answer to this last question, as well as some thought on atheisticly motivated violence, read the rest of the article in the Christian Post.

Micael Grenholm is editor-in-chief for PCPJ.

Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Nonviolence

Yet Another African Pentecostal Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

10/14/2019 Micael Grenholm 3 Comments

Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, is this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Just like Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege who was one of last year’s laurates, Ahmed is a Pentecostal.

Though son of a Muslim father and Orthodox mother, Ahmed himself is part of the Full Gospel Believers’ Church. His Jesus-centered faith has committed him to promoting peace and reconciliation in a region plauged by ethnic and religious division.

As the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committe motivated their choice, they emphasized Ahmed’s accomplishments in the Ethiopian-Eritrean peace process:

When Abiy Ahmed became Prime Minister in April 2018, he made it clear that he wished to resume peace talks with Eritrea. In close cooperation with Isaias Afwerki, the President of Eritrea, Abiy Ahmed quickly worked out the principles of a peace agreement to end the long “no peace, no war” stalemate between the two countries.

While this clearly is Ahmed’s greatest achievement, it was not his first. A year ago he managed to reconcile the two branches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which split in 1991 due to political reasons. Before that, he reconciled Muslims and Christians in his hometown of Beshasha.

According to Swedish Pentecostal leader Pelle Hörnmark, Ahmed has an active Pentecostal faith with regular Bible study and prayer. However, as does not talk much about it publicly as he feels like that can be a stepping stone in his mission for reconciliation. He emphasizes being Ethiopian, rather than Christian.

It is clear, however, that this passion for peace and unity stems from him following the One who said “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9) and “who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18).

Micael Grenholm is editor-in-chief for PCPJ.

Gender Equality, Nonviolence, Spirituality

Pentecostal Nobel Prize Laureate Denis Mukwege is “Accepted in All Camps”

12/10/2018 Micael Grenholm 2 Comments

Dr. Denis Mukwege, Congolese gynecologist who receives his Nobel Peace Prize today, proclaimed in 2015 when he was preaching at a Swedish Pentecostal conference: ”The Panzi hospital is a fruit of your prayers!” A Pentecostal himself who occasionally pastors a local church in Bukavu, dr. Mukwege has repeatedly thanked the Swedish Pentecostal movement for supporting him.

This support goes way back and have had multiple layers. We have talked to Maria Bard at PMU, the Swedish Pentecostal Mission’s development cooperation organization, about what this bond between their organization and Panzi has looked like, as well as her personal meetings with and impressions of Mukwege himself.

What has the Swedish Pentecostal movement done to support Mukwege?

– First of all, Denis Mukwege’s father was a pastor in the Congolese Pentecostal movement CEPAC, which was founded by Swedish missionaries in 1921. Swedish Pentecostal churches funded parts of Mukwege’s medical education. Initially, he worked on a hospital called Lemera which was founded by Pentecostals. It was one of the biggest and most well-functioning hospitals in the region. Many Swedish Pentecostal missionaries have been treated and born there. It was destroyed as the First Congo War broke out.

– There was a lot of discussion on whether the Lemera Hospital should be rebuilt or if a new hospital should be constructed. Due to the recent genocide in Rwanda, there was a lot of need in the Congolese province of South Kivu. In addition to grants from elsewhere, the director of PMU at the time, Roland Stenlund, convinced the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to help financing the establishment of a new hospital, led by Dr. Mukwege. The Panzi Hospital. Continue reading Pentecostal Nobel Prize Laureate Denis Mukwege is “Accepted in All Camps” →

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