Mukhanyo Theological CollegeThe Church in Africa is currently experiencing rapid growth. In fact, some 680 million Christians—most of the Christians in the world—now reside on the African continent. The problem though is that there is very little depth to much of this recent growth. The predominant flavor in the African church consists of prosperity gospel heresy that is often mixed with African Traditional paganism. This makes for a spiritually lethal concoction and the proliferation of every manner of wild and wacky churches, typically led by self-appointed “apostles” and “prophets.” Though there are certainly many well-meaning pastors who desire to serve their churches faithfully, most are not theologically educated due to a severe lack of good theological institutions on the continent. The need therefore for quality, biblically grounded and confessionally Reformed theological education on the continent is immense. I graduated from Westminster Seminary California in 2017 and returned home to South Africa to church plant and teach theology. Today I have the privilege of serving as academic dean at Mukhanyo Theological College. “Mukhanyo” is the Ndebele word for “light,” indicating our hope to spread the light of Christ’s gospel across Africa. The school was established some thirty years ago and exists to train pastors and church leaders to serve Christ’s church in the African context. Mukhanyo is one of the few confessionally Reformed theological institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, and certainly one of the biggest Bible colleges in South Africa. We have six campuses in South Africa, and about a hundred local learning sites (situated at partner churches who facilitate our curriculum) across sub-Saharan Africa, from South Sudan to Zanzibar, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. We offer accredited Higher Certificate programs, Bachelor of Theology and Honors degrees and are in the process of developing our own Master’s degree. We also facilitate Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary’s ThM program. Currently we have some 600 students, 250 of which attend classes at our campuses, while the rest attend classes at our local learning sites. Like WSC, Mukhanyo strongly believes that in-person training is crucial in order to form pastors and church leaders. In my role as academic dean, I am responsible for, among other things, the oversight of the curriculum. I aim to ensure that the theology we teach our students is of a high standard, rooted in Scripture and the Reformed confessions. The goal is to effectively train and equip our students to faithfully minister Christ’s gospel so that the Church in Africa is healthy and flourishes, and God is glorified. I am deeply grateful for the excellent and rigorous training that I received at WSC. It has provided me with the foundation and the tools necessary for the immense task at hand here in Africa. Westminster’s focus on the original languages has instilled in me a high view of God’s Word and an instinct to always go back to the sources. The life-giving theology that I was taught, rooted in God’s Word and his covenant promises for his people has prepared me to faithfully preach and teach Christ and his gospel from all Scriptures. The care the professors took to invest in my life, their willingness to pastor, counsel and pray with me and their modelling a Christ-like life, has provided me an example to follow in caring for God’s people— and in training future pastors—here in Africa. Antonio Coppola (MDiv, 2017) is the Academic Dean of Mukhanyo Theological College and a minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian and Reformed Church of South Africa (PARCSA). He lives in Pretoria, South Africa, and is a PhD candidate at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is the author of Faithful God: An Introduction to Covenant Theology. This article is from our Fall 2025 edition of UPDATE Magazine, Local Training, Global Reach.
