ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS OF LIBERIA

The term evangelical is so broad and encompasses so many differing groups that often its use clarifies very little. However, as we shall see, this was not the case in Liberia. In Liberia there was a specific theology which could be called evangelical, it was simply demarcated, and so widely accepted that it could be called simply ‘Liberian theology’. Our concern here is not so much to evaluate the theology in itself as to demonstrate its socio-political effect. We will mention the major bodies which promoted this theology, and then discuss the theology under six convenient headings.

The Association of Evangelicals of Liberia (AEL) began life as the Liberian Evangelical Fellowship (LEF) in 1964. It was set up by and consisted of missionaries for the most part and after the 1980 coup, a good many of these missionaries left the country. Moreover, in 1980 the LEF president was Bishop Dixon of the Christ Pentecostal Church who, in the early 1980s, had problems in his own church, so the LEF effectively died in 1981. Only in 1988 did Dixon convene a meeting, to address two issues: the ‘Muslim threat’, after it was perceived that the Muslim director of Liberian broadcasting was set on replacing Christian with Muslim broadcasts, and the growing tension between government and the church.