Zimbabwe – Art & Theology

LOOK: The Prodigal Son by Samuel Songo

Songo, Samuel_Prodigal Son — Samuel Songo (Rhodesian, 1929–ca. 1977), *The Prodigal Son*, 1954. Soapstone, h. 26 cm. Source: *Christliche Kunst in Afrika*, p. 254.

Samuel Songo was a Shona artist who lived and work in what is today Zimbabwe. He used a wheelchair and had only partial use of his right hand, so he worked mainly with his left, executing stone carvings, wood reliefs, and paintings on both religious and secular subjects. He was associated with the Cyrene Mission School, where he began as a student and then became an instructor. He played a significant role in advancing modern art in Zimbabwe.

To learn more about the context out of which Songo came to prominence, see “Missionaries’ Impact on the Formation of Modern Art in Zimbabwe: A Case Study of Cyrene and Serima Art Workshops” by Grace Zhou and “Ned Paterson and the Cyrene Mission Tradition” by Elizabeth Morton.

[Related post: “Down the Road” (Artful Devotion)]

LISTEN: “When I Was Distant” by Matt Moore and Matte Cassidy of City Church Music, 2018 | Performed by Salina Turner, Allison Negus, and Joel Negus, 2020

When I was distant from my Lord
Opposing his plans and ignoring his word
My stubborn desire left me at war
When I was distant from my Lord
When I was reckless on my own
Avoiding the ruin my choices had sown
A prodigal lost and far from home
When I was reckless on my own
There in the shadow of my sin
Unable to dwell with my Maker again
Ashamed and afraid and wearing thin
There in the shadow of my sin
Then came my loving Savior’s plea:
“Lay down your burdens; find rest in me;
All faint and all weary, come and see.”
Then came my loving Savior’s plea
When I was distant, God came near
Enduring the evil, the torment and fear
That beauty and wonder could appear
When I was distant, God came near

This song was part of the Digital Vespers service for Good Friday 2020 at City Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. To view the full service, click here.

Serima Mission Church door (detail) — Teak wood relief door panel carved by Cornelio Manguma, 1958, showing John the Baptist preaching repentance (upper register) and baptizing Christ (lower register). St. Mary’s Church, Serima Mission, Zimbabwe. [full door]

A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

—Isaiah 40:3–5

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

—Mark 1:1–8

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SONG: “Prepare the Way, O Zion” | Text by Frans Mikael Franzen, 1812; trans. Augustus Nelson, 1958; adapt. Charles P. Price, 1980 | Music: Then Swenska Psalmboken, 1697 | Arranged and performed by Chicago Metro Presbytery Music, on Proclaim the Bridegroom Near, 2011

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In A Tourist in Africa (1960), the British writer Evelyn Waugh describes St. Mary’s Church in Serima, Zimbabwe, as the “African Chartres.” Designed by the Swiss Catholic missionary Fr. John Groeber, it was built in 1956–66 and filled with hundreds of carvings, murals, and ecclesiastical artworks by the Shona people. To see more photos of the church and to learn more about it, visit ZimFieldGuide.com or, if you can get your hands on a copy, check out the bilingual (English-German) book Serima: Towards an African Expression of Christian Belief (Gwelo, Rhodesia: Mambo Press, 1974), edited by Albert B. Plangger and Marcel Diethelm.

Another great resource for learning about the Serima Mission, and African Christian art in general, is Christliche Kunst in Afrika by Josef Franz Thiel and Heinz Helf (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1984), whence I scanned the above photo. The text is all German, but there are hundreds of magnificent art images from all over the African continent that make this volume one of my favorites from my personal library.

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your e-mail or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Second Sunday of Advent, cycle B, click here.

Tag: Zimbabwe

Lent, Day 22

Prepare the Way (Artful Devotion)