The Sudan Interior Church North and Sudan Interior Church South have reunited to form one convention.
First constituted in 1963, the Sudan Interior Church (SIC) divided during the second Sudanese civil war from 1983 to 2005, during which more than 2 million people died and an estimated 4 million Sudanese were displaced.
Baptist congregations were founded in several Sudanese refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.
"The scattering of the church necessitated the development of a second administrative center based in Nairobi, Kenya. The installation of SIC-South was a pragmatic attempt to minister to a dispersed church divided by warring factions," said Elijah Brown, who has studied the state of the church in Sudan and who is a member of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Commission on Freedom and Justice.
Brown reported that SIC "leaders insist that the church itself was not split but administratively rearranged for a limited time frame to further effective ministry."
The reunification of the Baptist convention was achieved after a series of meetings beginning in April 2007. After a second meeting in November, a third meeting, held April 1–5, 2008, in the southern Sudanese town of Renk, resulted in unification. Ramadan Chan Liol, who was elected general secretary of the SIC at the meetings in early April of this year, described the occasion as one of "jubilation and praises to God for His goodness."
Christianity has deep roots in Sudan. Some traditions hold that the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was from what is modern-day Sudan, which encompasses the lands of several ancient kingdoms, including Kush, Darfur and three Nubian kingdoms. Christianity was the majority religion in the region from the fifth century through the 14th century before the Mamelukes (Turkish rulers in Egypt) breached Nubian defenses and established the dominance of Islam.
Baptist witness, which began in the country in 1893 through the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), a missions group, is mainly centered in the southern section of the vast country, the largest in Africa. Despite wars and conflicts, Christianity, including Baptist churches, has experienced growth. In 2000, SIC-North reported 15,000 baptized believers. In 2007, there were 21,000. In Khartoum, the country’s capital, there are 33 churches. The combined SIC comprises more than 225 churches and more than 40,000 baptized believers.
"Congregations gather in bombed-out sanctuaries, flimsy tin buildings, homes and under the open sky," according to Brown, a Texan who recently submitted a doctoral thesis to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland on "The Road to Peace: The Role of the Southern Sudanese Church in Communal Stabilization and National Reconciliation."
SIC is heavily involved in missions. These include the Boys Hope Centre in Hajj Yousuf, Khartoum, home to approximately 40 street boys ranging from age 6 to 18; Sudan Interior Aid, the development arm of SIC; and Gideon Theological College, which offers theological education and ministerial training to pastors and evangelists. These are in addition to peace building efforts and repatriation of displaced persons undertaken by SIC and other Christian churches in Sudan.
The BWA has had a long and active interest in Sudan, which accepted SIC as a member body in 2000, despite its divisions into north and south. Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the BWA, facilitated the reunification talks through a grant and recently sent U.S. $12,600 through SIM for a relief and development project, with additional amounts to be sent. One aspect of the project is assistance for 2,000 families that are living in a slum area in a displaced peoples’ camp. (BWA)
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