African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity [1 ed.] 9781443891592, 9781443873314

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African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity By

Joseph Ogbonnaya

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity By Joseph Ogbonnaya This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Ogbonnaya All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7331-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7331-4

Dedicated to Fr. Robert M. Doran, S.J.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword .................................................................................................... ix Professor George Gilmore Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ................................................................................................. 7 Christianity, Faith, and Culture Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 35 Contextualization: The Backdrop to Majority World Church Theology Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 51 Development of African Theology Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 65 The Significance of Black Theology to African Liberative Theologies Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 91 African Ethics: General Introduction Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 103 Globalization and African Catholicism: Towards a New Era of Evangelization Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 121 The Prospect of Humanizing Development Discourse in Africa through Christian Anthropology Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 147 Challenging the Unjust Structures of Governance and Social Malaise Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 163 Challenges to African Theology: The Question of Method

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Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 179 Dialogue between African and Western Thought Bibliography ............................................................................................ 189 Index ........................................................................................................ 207

FOREWORD

Anyone picking up Joseph Ogbonnaya’s book, African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity will have some idea of what to expect, and will find some materials that the broadly educated person already knows. But there will also be a great variety of serious awakenings. We may have some inkling of the needs and the birthings of unique, indigenous African culture and its manifestations in the dramatic dancing welcomes given to visiting popes. Ogbonnaya sets up the challenge: “The shift from a classicist to an empirical notion of culture emphasized by Bernard Lonergan forms the backdrop to the notion of culture adopted by this book.” This book takes us substantially deeper into the experience of African Catholicism. His insights and those of his many African scholarly resources remind us of the generously heroic, but ultimately condescending chauvinism of European Catholic missionaries, who imposed a classicist Eurocentric Catholic philosophy and theology upon Africa. This calls us to focus on the unique and pressing need of African Catholicism to articulate a distinctively African Catholic theology and spirituality, which, like the similar pre-Christian foundations of European Catholicism, emerge from the bedrock of the continent. They are not to be blithely transported and imposed from an alien “Eurocentric” tradition, masquerading as “philosophia perennis,” namely from a supposedly prime analogate of universal (Platonic) human nature, which is supposedly as universalist as mathematics. Early on, Ogbonnaya declares his cultural independence and originality nicely justified by Bernard Lonergan’s insistence on the importance of indigenous culture. Lonergan is clear: “I must contend that classicism is no more than the mistaken view of conceiving culture normatively and of concluding that there is just one human culture.” The needed emancipation from the Eurocentric, monochromatic and chauvinist classicist philosophical and theological Catholic tradition is effectively complemented by two weighty contemporaries passing judgment on traditional Catholic Thomistic theology. Walter Cardinal Kasper comments: “There is no doubt that the outstanding event in the Catholic theology of our century is the surmounting of neo-scholasticism.” And Karl Rahner, S.J., writes: “I also believe that one can say that neoscholastic theology and philosophy, for all their accomplishments, are

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quite passé today.” Catholics old enough to have enjoyed the pre-Vatican II “Octave of Christian Unity” may have witnessed the wonderful Catholic Eastern Rite liturgies in late January, which featured Eastern European languages and rituals—including Maronite, Chaldean and, marvelously, South Indian Syriac. St. John De Brito, S.J. (1647–1693) had become the sannyasi known as “Swami Arul Anandar.” Matteo Ricci, S.J., was the fabled “Wise Man from the West,” whose exceptionally successful inculturation of Catholicism among the Chinese led to the Chinese Rites controversy. Some may be familiar with the famous letter of Pope St. Gregory the Great telling the missionaries to England not to destroy, but to consecrate the pagan temples, after moving the animal sacrifices outside. Finally, let us note the great irony that “Gothic” architecture, now the epitome of Eurocentric Catholicism, was so named because it was barbarian/Gothic, and not properly Mediterranean/Byzantine or Romanesque. The Roman mentality, then, as in the missionary outreaches to Africa, was an ignorant and self-righteous restriction of Catholic polyphony to a Mediterranean monotone. Andrew Greeley’s wonderful book, The Catholic Imagination, is filled with examples of supposedly traditional Catholic symbolism richly inculturated from the pagan cultures of northwest Europe. As the present book notes, Pope St. John Paul II pointedly summarized the correct apostolic call: “The Church comes to bring Christ; she does not come to bring the culture of another race.” But successive seismic shocks such as the Great Western Schism, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment and the expropriating nationalisms of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe forced Italian Catholicism into an extremely defensive mindset. Students of Roman Catholic Modernism recognize just how reactionary, conservative, compulsively Thomist and ultramontane Catholicism was for centuries. Such a Catholicism had precious little time to respect its own distant traditions or the “pagan” and “barbarian” cultures of recently converted continents like Africa. Pre-Christian African culture may contribute rich cultural traditions to the ambience of world ethical sensitivity. Ogbonnaya points out that “Ubuntu (meaning humanism or humanness) is a whole complex of behavior, character, and integrity by which Africans express commonality and purpose in life. It emphasizes protection of human dignity and obligation to promote the common good of the community. It recognizes the personhood of all human beings and accords respect to others as fellow human beings on account of the common humanity of all persons.” Is such

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a pre-Christian African sensibility not a life richly consonant with the ancient Catholic tradition of the common good, the essentially communitarian nature of humankind? Ogbonnaya contrasts the individualistic Cartesian cogito, ergo sum, with an African cognatus sum, ergo sumus. While no one has recently singled out theology as critical for the cultural transformation of a continent, still Ogbonnaya notes the serious contribution which Catholic theology may make to the transformation of Africa. He has singled out “Enlightenment” and “Eurocentric” culture for marginalizing and destroying religion in the West. Africa, however, perhaps easily dismissed by such atheist culture as superstitious and religion-riddled, may, precisely because of its combination of deeply spiritual inculturated Catholic sensitivity and developing world technological culture, be able to manifest in Catholicism a truly transformative force. Ogbonnaya refers to a comment on Lonergan’s work: “the praxis of theology … is proximately the transformation of culture, of constitutive meaning as the condition of the possibility of the transformation of polities, economies, technological structures, and intersubjective communities.” Such theology can uniquely confront and triumph over the “challenges posed by the problems of social transformation, good governance and nation building.” Can Africa offer a renewal similar to the ancient Irish contribution to an exhausted European tradition, as Ireland did so many centuries ago, embodying an inculturated Celtic Catholicism, preserving Catholic truth and re-introducing it to the Europe that had originally birthed Irish Catholicism? So, even while burdened with the developmental problems of all emerging countries, Africa is graced with unique opportunities to be a Catholic exemplar, continentally a “city built on a hill.” Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., concluding “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” says of Jesus: “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring …” Does not Africa already contribute such a dayspring? Could not the indigenous spirituality of Africa contribute to a Catholic transformation of the rest of the planet? I recommend this book.

Professor George Gilmore Department of Theology Spring Hill College, Alabama

INTRODUCTION

The resurgence of Christianity as a world religion contradicts the triumph of secularism which aimed at reducing the impact of Christianity as an important institution in public policy in the global North. Secularism’s hope of spreading post-Christian societies across the world and the privatization of religion across cultures through various forms of cultural contact, including imperialism, has been unsuccessful as various Christian denominations mushroom and spread even in societies in the global North. The growth of Christianity is stunted in the global North owing to the reforms of the Enlightenment and later modernity, and the current postmodernity which carries forward modernity in whole new ways. At the same time, immigrant religious expressions keep alive the growth of Christianity in Europe and North America. Intra-ecclesial tensions in the global North arise from both cultural differences between traditional Christian doctrines and modernity, and the cultural differences among Christians from diverse cultures in the West. The questions raised are those of the appropriateness of Christianity in contemporary post-modern culture on the one hand, and what is the best way of being Christian on the other. The challenge is one of the appropriate inculturation of Christian faith in contemporary Western societies in ways that preserve individual freedom and responsibility and promote the open society characterized by cultural and religious pluralisms. A desire for a missional church recognizes multiculturalism and is committed to diversity, both in the appropriation and expression of the one Christian faith. Unlike the global North, “the ferment of Christianity,” in the global South, among the majority of world people, “the spontaneous coming into being of Christian communities among populations that had not been Christian”1 has been astronomical. The Pew Research Center’s report on Global Christianity (2010) illustrates the growth of Christianity in the global South:

1

Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity: The Gospel beyond the West (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 22.

Introduction

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Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world’s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in sub-Saharan Africa and the AsiaPacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century. The share of the population that is Christian in subSaharan Africa climbed from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010, while in the Asia-Pacific region it rose from 3% to 7%. Christianity today—unlike a century ago—is truly a global faith.2

Specifically, the report asserts: A century ago, the Global North (commonly defined as North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand) contained more than four times as many Christians as the Global South (the rest of the world). Today, the Pew Forum study finds, more than 1.3 billion Christians live in the Global South [61% of all Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America], compared with about 860 million in the Global North (39%).3

Despite the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity to the global South, intra-ecclesial tensions globally remain those of the relationship of culture to religion. The questions posed revolve around to what extent Western Christianity should be adapted to local cultures? Should we talk of Christianity in non-Western contexts or majority world Christianity? Is it appropriate to describe the shift as the emergence of global Christianity or world Christianity? 4 Should Christianity in the global South mimic 2

Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population,” December 19, 2011, 10. http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianityexec/ (accessed August 13, 2016). 3 Ibid., 13. 4 Lamin Sanneh popularized the distinction between world Christianity and global Christianity. World Christianity is Christianity taking shape in the culture of formerly non-Christian peoples, while global Christianity presupposes Western cultural Christianity as the ideal form of Christianity, and other cultures when they convert to Christianity adapt to this in the light of their various cultures. See Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 22. Philip Jenkins, who prefers global Christianity, takes the medieval form of Christianity as Christendom as the ideal and therefore writes about the Next Christendom referring to the growth of Christianity in the global South as replicating the medieval Christian example. See Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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Christianity in the global North, or can they be different in the light of the diversity of their cultures? Can Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and North Americans—the entire global community—speak of God in the same way? In the words of Kevin J. Vanhoozer, is there “One Rule to Rule Them All?”5 That this is impossible is presumably common knowledge now. Just as Christians are diverse theologically and geographically, their expression of faith has equally to be diverse. Andrew F. Walls expresses the cultural factor in contemporary theology by exposing the inadequacy of Western theology in non-Western contexts using Africa as an example: Africa is already revealing the limitations of theology as generally thought in the West. The truth is that Western models of theology are too small for Africa. Most of them reflect the worldview of the Enlightenment, and that is a small-scale worldview, one cut and shaved to fit a small-scale universe. Since most Africans live in a larger, more populated universe, with entities that are outside the Enlightenment worldview, such models of theology, cannot cope with some of the most urgent pastoral needs. They have no answers for some of the most visible desolating aspects of life— because they have no questions. They have nothing useful to say on issues involving such things as witchcraft or sorcery since they do not exist in an Enlightenment universe. Nor can Western theology usefully discuss ancestors, since the West’s does not have the family structures that raise the questions. Western theology has difficulty coping with principalities and powers, whether in relation to their grip on the universe or to Christ’s triumph over them on the cross. The reason is that it is hard for Western consciousness to treat them as other than abstractions.6

The central challenge for Christianity in the world church remains, as in the global North, one of inculturation; a plurality of models of inculturation in the light of the diversity of cultures. World Christianity dialogues with cultures of people who have converted to Christianity as they struggle to make sense of the mysteries of the Christian faith in the light of the mysteries of their traditional religious cultures. Lamin Sanneh reminds us that “Christianity from its origin was marked by serial retreat and advance as an intercultural process,” 7 and these 5 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “One Rule to Rule Them All: Theological Method in an Era of World Christianity,” in Globalizing Theology: Belief in an Era of World Christianity, edited by Craig Ott and Harold A. Netland (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 85. 6 Andrew F. Walls, “Globalization and the Study of Christian History,” Globalizing Theology: Belief in an Era of World Christianity, 75–76. 7 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 36.

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Introduction

“developments had to do with cultural shifts.” 8 The advancement of Christianity as a world religion means its involvement with various cultures. The dynamism of cultures, their interrelation with the Gospel, the institutional structures, many interpretations and ways of expression of the Christian faith is intrinsic to world Christianity. This book is devoted to examining varieties of the inculturation process in world Christianity. It understands culture broadly as common meaning upon which communities’ social order is organized. Culture in this sense is the whole life of people. It is the integrator of the filial bond holding people together and the various institutional structures—economic, technological, political and legal—that guarantee peace and survival in societies, states, and nations locally and internationally. The centrality of culture for world Christianity equally showcases the important position the scale of values occupies in world Christianity. The first four chapters give the theoretical underpinnings of culture in world Christianity. Chapter One9 is a general overview of the universal Christian approach to world cultures initially from the Western theoretical perspective. Chapter Two is the response of the majority world church to the Eurocentric view of culture and the quest for a new way of doing theology in ways cognizant of the plurality of cultures. Chapter Three instantiates such theology by tracing the history and development of African theology. Because Black Theology of South Africa, which emphasizes race amidst the struggle against the apartheid regime is often understood as opposed to theology from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa attuned more to culture and ethnicity, Chapter Four 10 relates both theologies by examining the significance of Black Theology of South Africa to African theology. The essays in Chapters Five to Eight discuss the foreground of the relationship of culture to world Christianity. They broaden the meaning of culture to include the creative institutional structures responsible for the social order in Africa. Chapter Five compares the ethical order in African traditional societies with the new moral order brought about through the intercultural process by Christianity. Chapter Six11 concretely investigates 8

Ibid, 37. 9 I published aspects of this chapter as “Towards A More Indigenous African Catholicism: Insights from Lonergan's Notion of Culture,” in The Ecumenist: A Journal of Theology, Culture and Society 51, no. 1 (2015): 17–23. 10 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Journal of Inculturation Theology 14, no. 1 (2013), 23–49. 11 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Australian eJournal of Theology 22, no. 1 (April 2015): 19–32.

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evangelization in the globalized world. Globalization brings about new sets of values that equally influence ways of proclaiming and appropriating the Good News in Africa. Chapter Seven12 seeks ways of humanizing globalization to be beneficial to most Africans. It appeals to Christian anthropology and suggests inculturating Christian anthropology with the African traditional anthropological structures manifest in Ubuntu. Chapter Eight is an appeal for the sociopolitical transformation of Africa, one that makes for good governance. For this to happen it argues for the emergence of critical culture, one that can critique the “squandermania” by the elite of Africa that perpetuates endemic corruption. Chapters Nine and Ten are devoted to the implementation and existence of cordial relationships between culture and world Christianity, manifest in the struggle for method in African theology and the dialogue of African and Western theologies. These chapters seek answers to whether the shift in the center of gravity of Christian faith from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere implies total discontinuity of Western theologies in the global South, or whether there are continuity and mutual enrichment of both theologies. The shift from a classicist to an empirical notion of culture emphasized by Bernard Lonergan forms the backdrop of the notion of culture adopted in this book. Openness to the diversity of cultural expressions of Christian faith and theology segues to continuity and not discontinuity, of mutual self-mediation of cultures and Christian faith both in the global North and in the global South. Because world Christianity is not another form of Christendom, there is actually no struggle for supremacy between European and North American Christianity and Christianities in the global South. As Lamin Sanneh reminds us: It’s hard to see how world Christianity which has become the religious reality it is today without an accompanying colonial political structure to propel it, should then be thrust forward as a crusading political ideology as Christendom. If, as is generally recognized, Christian expansion is occurring in societies marked by weak states and among impoverished populations, and where religious loyalties are stronger than political ones, then it seems fantastic to say such Christian expansion has the potential to generate structures of global political dominance in which political

12

A version of this chapter was published as part of special collection Engaging Development: Contributions to a Critical Theological and Religious Debate, subedited by Ignatius Swart and Afe Adogame in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 72, no. 4. http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/issue/view/122.

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Introduction loyalties will be stronger than religious ones. It will take a strange alchemy to bring that about.13

World Christianity must, therefore, attend to the dynamics of culture and the demands they make upon evangelization and commitment to Christian faith in contemporary globalized societies. I am grateful to Marquette University for granting me a semester research leave that made the completion of this book possible. Professor Cyril Orji painstakingly helped me cross my t's and dot my i's. Special thanks also to Professor George Gilmore, for not only writing the foreword but also for editing the initial version of this book.

13

Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 27–28.

CHAPTER ONE CHRISTIANITY, FAITH, AND CULTURE

The approaches to the study of culture prior to Vatican II could be narrowed down to an idea of culture with a capital “C,” used often with regard to so-called “high” cultures, and an idea of culture with a small “c,” referring to supposedly less reflective, sophisticated, or successful cultures. The former were civilized while the latter, often associated with popular traditional lifestyles, were savage. In this approach, indigenous cultures that differed from the high culture of empires were understood as only an early stage in civilization, a process controlled and spread by people of the high culture. This conception of culture—especially Western European culture—as civilization, justified several imperialist missions in which Christian missionary activities played a collaborative role. The Christian influence mentioned above can be understood within the purview of the relationship of religion and culture. Despite the influence of secularization and apparent disregard for transcendent being in postChristian cultures, most cultures (or the common way of life of a people) are anchored in belief in a transcendent being over and above humans. According to Christopher Dawson,1 religion influences culture and is the foundation of most cultural practices. One understands cultures by comprehending the religious values underlying them. In some cultures, the social culture is bound up with religion so that the cultures are intrinsically manifestly religious. For example, Judaism is Jewish culture bound up in their religious values. The same can equally be said of African cultures that seamlessly bind the ethical, social, economic, and cultural life of the people on a religious basis.2 In other cases like the rise of Christianity, beginning with the challenges Jesus’s preaching raised for Jewish culture and the Christian transformation of Western culture, a new religion evolved from an existing religious culture. In a similar way, Islam’s transformation of cultures and 1

Christopher Dawson, Religion and Culture (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1948). John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1992), 262. 2

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peoples across centuries provided the basis for the transformation of cultures transnationally, beyond racial and geographical limits in ways distinctly religious.3 Whether religion is transformative of cultures or is embedded in social cultures, Dawson holds it always looks beyond society to superhuman realities towards which humans offer worship. For any religion to gain a foothold in any culture, it must take root in the culture of the people. “However universal and spiritual a religion may be, it can never escape the necessity of becoming incarnated in culture and clothing itself in social institutions and traditions if it is to exert a permanent influence on human life and behavior.”4 For Dawson, religion and culture mutually influence each other. Religion explains cultural attitudes and values; culture, while being open to transformation by religion, provides religion with socio-cultural beliefs upon which religious meaning becomes manifest. Religion and culture deal with the human person, explaining the grounds of human culture and the transcendent meaning of human life. No religion can flourish without respecting the culture of the people it is evangelizing; cultures cannot have grounds for their ways of life outside transcendent religious values. Lamin Sanneh’s integration of the Gospel and culture aptly clarifies Dawson’s viewpoint above: A central and obvious fact of the gospel is that we cannot separate it from culture, which means we cannot get at the gospel pure and simple. That is no more possible than getting at the kernel of the onion without the peel. The pure gospel, stripped of all cultural entanglements, would evaporate in a vague abstraction, although if the gospel were without its own intrinsic power it would be nothing more than cultural ideology, congealing into something like “good manners, comely living, and a sense that all was well,” the kind of genial, respectable liberalism that turns the gospel into a cultural flag of convenience.5

Dawson’s position contrasts with such viewpoints that deny the transcendent aspect of religion due to its theological-anthropological quality. Feuerbach’s position that religion is purely a human affair fails to do justice to the essence of religion, which is transcendent. 6 In like manner, religion is not just “cumulative tradition” visible and observable in human history. As Wilfred Cantwell Smith argues, religion should be 3

Dawson, Religion and Culture, 53. Ibid., 54. 5 Lamin Sanneh, “The Gospel, Language and Culture: The Theological Method in Cultural Analysis,” International Review of Mission 84, 332–33 (1995): 47. 6 Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York: Prometheus Books, 1989). 4

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substituted because of the possible objectification of religion. 7 Any relationship of religion and culture must, as Paul Tillich thought, account for faith which “is the state of being ultimately concerned.”8 Tillich’s ultimate concern is God. Depending on awareness of God as the content of the ultimate concern, Tillich distinguishes between true faith and idolatrous faith on the one hand, and ontological faith and moral faith on the other. When one mistakes what is a mere preliminary concern, such as success or one’s country (among others) as the ultimate concern, one is said to have idolatrous faith. Ontological faith refers to the experience of God, while moral faith refers to the judgment of action that commands how we should live, the holiness of what ought to be.9 Faith as ultimate concern unites ontological and moral faith. 10 The content of ultimate concern is mediated by language and community. Only within a community of faith can one have content for his ultimate concern. Only in a community of language can one actualize his or her faith. This, however, does not mean the community dictates the content of faith and even replaces the ultimate concern with an institution—the church. Tillich talks about “creative faith,” which can resist the onslaught of destructive faith.11 Faith subsists within a community guided by common meaning (culture). The relationship of Christianity and culture received a sharp focus in H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic, Christ and Culture.12 Numerous challenges beset the faith and culture relationship. According to Niebuhr, the challenge of Christianity and culture lies in the dilemma of Christian belief, which is monotheistic and therefore exclusive, contrasting with societal values that tend towards tolerance of all rites and rituals, religions and creeds, and cater to the secular political, economic, and socio-cultural values advanced by diverse peoples. There is tension among Christians on what ought to be the correct Christian attitude towards faith and cultures.13 Reconciling this relationship is so crucial that significant moments of Western history bear the mark of this relationship of faith and culture. It becomes the “enduring problem” of theology and Christianity. For example,

7

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1962, 1991), 156. 8 Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), 1. 9 Ibid., 69. 10 Ibid., 72–73. 11 Ibid., 24. 12 H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951). 13 Ibid., 10.

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The Constantinian settlement, the formulation of the great creeds, the rise of the papacy, the monastic movement, Augustinian Platonism, and Thomistic Aristotelianism, the Reformation and the Renaissance, the Revival and the Enlightenment, liberalism and the Social Gospel—these represent a few of the many chapters in the history of the enduring problem. It appears in many forms as well as in all ages; as the problem of reason and revelation, of religion and science, of natural and divine law, of state and church, of nonresistance and coercion. It has come to view in such specific studies as those of the relations of Protestantism and capitalism, of Pietism and nationalism, of Puritanism and democracy, of Catholicism and Romanism or Anglicanism, of Christianity and progress.14

In the history of the West, Niebuhr distinguished five inadequate forms of the relation of Christ and culture. First, there is the opposition between Christ and culture (Christ against culture), whereby the Christian interpretation of culture is negative: Christ is opposed to human cultures because they stand opposed to what Christ teaches and what Christians value. And vice versa, culture is opposed to Christ. Tertullian, the great North African theologian, represents this position whereby Christians are enjoined to shun the world, including politics, military service, trade, etc. The radical Christianity that emerges from Christ against culture despite its contributions to the spirituality and tradition of the Church is contradictory to the reality of societal existence. This is because Christians live in society and draw from, interact, influence, and are influenced by human culture. It resulted in centuries of the dichotomy of church and world, when the church saw itself in tension with the world and society. It still rears its ugly head today among some radical Christians who stand opposed to public theologies’ engagement with human promotion. Second, there is the relation of fundamental agreement between Christ and culture in which Christ is a hero of culture, as the culmination of culture. The accommodation to and identification of Christ with culture and the selection from culture of what seems in consonance with Christ (presented in a rational form of knowledge to the enlightened) is one challenge of the Christ of culture model. It risks losing sight of the supernaturality of Jesus Christ as the Son of God raised from the dead, by relying solely on reason almost to the neglect of revelation. It can, like Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason, simplify the nature of Christ and reduce Christianity to another form of knowledge for the enlightened. The intellectualization of the faith equally is one of its strengths over a radical Christian view of culture against Christ. At least it

14

Ibid.

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finds Christ relevant to the issues of the time, the challenges and struggles of human life and institutions for the common good. The third model identifies Christ with culture but equally emphasizes the supremacy of Christ over culture. “Christ is, indeed, a Christ of culture, but he is also a Christ above culture.” 15 This relationship (the centrist Christ-above-culture model) lives out the contradictions of Christ and cultures. People who relate Christ and culture this way accept the validity of Christ (religion), but, they also recognize the authority of the secular society or culture. They recommend obedience to the church and civil authority, the two worlds within which humans live their lives. The challenge of this model in the history of Christianity is the inability to synthesize Christ and culture by paying attention to the contemporary situations of each epoch of Christianity. This relation might lapse into cultural Christianity because of the tendency to endorse a cultural appropriation of Christianity as the correct relation of Christ and culture. The fourth relationship is the dualist model that associates culture with the corruption of human nature because of the Fall (i.e., of Adam and Eve).16 Consequent to this, Christ and culture are in a paradoxical relationship. Emphasis is placed on religious reform with little interest in social, structural reform. In Pauline-inspired Christianity for instance, people are encouraged to a deep spiritual life while slavery and other forms of dehumanization like unequal social stratification are left intact. Slaves are encouraged to obey their masters and women are to be submissive to their husbands. The fifth model, the conversionist model, chooses the radical conversion of culture instead of its change, a transformation akin to a rebirth. The conversionist position is anchored in a view of the events of history in God’s action and humankind’s responses as the history of salvation. It upholds the view that creation is good both in its origin from God, and in its order instantiated in the goodness of beauty and the mutual service of creatures. 17 This position is represented in Augustine, who despite his dualism interprets Christ as the transformer of culture. Niebuhr’s typologies of the approaches to the “enduring problem” of Christ and culture remain relevant. It not only expands Ernst Troeltsch’s typology, it presents a genetic study of the Christian attitudes to culture prior to Vatican [Council] II. 18 Troeltsch’s typology deals with the 15

Ibid., 42. Gen. 2–3. 17 Ibid., 210. 18 Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of Christian Churches, vol. 1, trans. Olive Wyon (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992). 16

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Chapter One

problem of the church’s relation to the world (culture). He was concerned with how what is religious or otherworldly like Christianity, can be related to the economic, political, and social forces of the world (i.e., culture). He looked primarily at those instances, in Medieval Catholicism and in Ascetic Protestantism, where the church harmonized with the world to achieve a “unity of civilization.”19 Troeltsch’s dualism of religion as the mystical relation of the individual with the divine spirit and religion as socio-cultural, political, and economic phenomena creates tension between an abstract relationship and the concrete situations of the world. Troeltsch, therefore, created an antinomy between the sect type and the church type of being religious in his analysis of the relation of religion and society. He could not synthesize his idea of spiritual religion, the ideal of Christian eschatological utopia and the historical situation in which humans in various cultures seek to express this idea. According to D. Stephen Long, “H. Richard Niebuhr provided one of the most important and long-lasting answers to the question how theology and culture relate to each other by expanding on Troeltsch’s typology.”20 Paul Ramsay and James Gustafson equally have only praise for Niebuhr’s taxonomy.21 Ramsay reminds his critics that Niebuhr takes no stand on the typologies, but instead his taxonomy exposes the relations of faith and culture which can be seen to be at play in the contemporary explorations of the relations between Christ and culture. Some people adopt the Christ-against-culture approach with the relation of Christian faith and ideology; for example, like the condemnation of apartheid in South Africa as a heresy. Sometimes the Christ-of-culture or Christ-above-culture model is adopted, depending on the Christian attitude to the culture being proposed. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon think Niebuhr’s book obscures the Christian interpretation of culture. 22 The foremost Black Liberation theologian, James H. Cone, devotes a section of his Black systematic theology text God of the Oppressed to Niebuhr’s typology endorsing his preference for the conversionist model which he sees as

19

Duane K. Friesen, “Normative Factors in Troeltsch’s Typology of Religious Association,” Journal of Religious Ethics 3 (1975): 272. 20 D. Stephen Long, Theology and Culture: A Guide to the Discussion (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008), 62. 21 See Bruce L. Guenther, “The ‘Enduring Problem’ of Christ and Culture,” Direction 34, no. 2 (2005) for a list of other criticisms of Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. 22 Stephen Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1989), 40.

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“helpful for our examination of the issue of ideology.”23 Cone, however, faults Niebuhr’s Christology and definition of culture for not making identification with the poor his point of departure both in his Christology and in his definition of culture. Cone writes: “Although Niebuhr’s five types provide important insights into the Christ-culture problem, his presentation nevertheless is seriously weakened by his failure to make the necessary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed as their historical strivings are related to Christ’s proclamation of freedom for the captives.” 24 Following Cone’s criticism, it is clear Niebuhr’s taxonomy tends towards a monocultural interpretation of culture and is written within the context of Western culture as the one culture Christ relates to. As Geertz observes, Niebuhr’s notion of culture leaves out an important aspect of culture as one way in which people make sense of life, as a system of meaning that gives people direction in life.25 The major flaw in Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture is reflected in the title of the book. It lacks a broader understanding of Christianity and culture. It is trapped in the limited perception of culture normatively as European civilization current when it was written. It lacks the pluralistic view of culture, equally new even in the Catholic Church. As Aylward Shorter observes: The pluralistic view of culture is relatively recent, and the Catholic Church did not adopt it until the middle of the twentieth century. The first glimmerings of a pluralistic or modern view of culture to be found in a papal document, for example, date from 1944. For nearly sixteen centuries, from the late Roman times until our own, a monocultural view of the world held sway among bishops, theologians, and thinkers in the Catholic Church. It was a view not unlike the restricted “highbrow” view of culture…, but it applied to the entire human race. Culture, during these centuries, was a single, universal, normative concept.26

Qualify Shorter’s view above to read that a pluralistic view of culture is relatively recent in the modern Catholic Church. This is because the early apostolic and post-apostolic churches knew of the pluralistic nature of the Christian faith. No culture is, therefore, inferior or illegitimate as God is not partisan. Being Christian equally means being authentic in the light of one’s cultural values and when the need arises, critiquing 23

James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 81. Ibid., 82. 25 Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” Donald Cutler, ed., The Religious Situation (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1968), 641. 26 Aylward Shorter, Toward A Theology of Inculturation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 18. 24

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unwholesome elements of one’s culture opposed to the Gospel and working for reform. According to Lamin Sanneh, whose works popularized this viewpoint, Christianity, unlike Islam, expands not by diffusion but by being translatable. Its scripture is translated into other languages and it is receptive to other cultures. The success of missionary activities in Christianity is measured by the extent they permeate its host culture. They borrow elements from various cultures to express the mystery of the faith. Even while conscious of the tension between faith and culture, the missionaries see every culture as worthy of carrying the message of the Good News. In Sanneh’s apt descriptions, “Christianity was born in a cross-cultural milieu, with translation as its birthmark.”27 “There was now not one cultural center but a multiple frontier where the saving God was the new exclusive center of gravity. No one culture was any longer the exclusive standard of the redemptive power of the one God, a position that challenged the Greco-Roman world as relentlessly as it had done the Judaic world.”28 However, as Christianity became much more institutionalized, the tension between the one Gospel and a plurality of cultures gave rise to monocultural expressions of the faith. Such a monocultural classical view of culture informed the missionary enterprise in Africa. Prior to Vatican II, the Catholic Church shared in the classicist mentality arising from the cultural domination of Europeans claiming their culture to be the “world culture” with a capital “C,” charged with the responsibility of civilizing (putting an end to “barbarism,” “savagery,” “primitiveness”). Christianity eventually became identified with world culture as the Church and Empire united in “Christendom.” Consequent upon this, it was presumed that The Gospel must be proclaimed everywhere in a single, “perfect,” cultural form. Any deviation was deemed to be either a deviation or a stage of development towards the, as yet, unrealized ideal. When classical GraecoRoman philosophy came to be applied to the truths of revelation during the high Middle Ages, the immutability of the Christian cultural ideal was sealed.29

The Catholic Church adopted this classical universalistic approach to culture for sixteen centuries. Christian missionaries to Indians, Africans, and to the rest of the Third World proclaimed the Gospel as “world culture” and saw themselves as charged with the responsibility of 27

Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 49. 28 Ibid., 52. 29 Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 18.

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civilizing barbarians, savages, and primitive peoples to this culture. As Sanneh acknowledged: “attitudes of missionary superiority persisted, but often only by force of habit.”30 This inhibited their missionary activities and the churches they left behind.

Appraisal of Missionary Enterprise in Africa One must begin any appraisal of missionary activities in Africa by appreciating the heroism of the missionaries who responded to God’s call, “with ardent apostolic zeal, [and] came to share the joy of revelation.”31 The fruit of their work is evident: millions of Africans and so many formerly unmissioned territories have converted and are still converting to Christianity. Andrew Walls extols missionary activities for being responsible for the spread of the faith and making Christianity a world religion. “Missions have not been the sole agency, then, in the demographic transformation of the Christian church; but they formed the detonator of the vast explosion that it brought about.” 32 However, the nineteenth-century missionaries’ classical conception of culture as European civilization became the Achilles’ heel of African Christianity. Their paternalism bred dependency and attached Africans to the apron 30 Sanneh, Translating the Message, 57. Mention of Sanneh is important here because he argues that because missionaries promoted translation of the Scripture in native languages and researched aspects of the culture of the people, they were receptive to local cultures and actually preserved and advanced them. That may be true but the classicist attitude remained an obstacle to missionary activities and to a large extent impacted the judgments missionaries passed on the local cultures in their writings. See Lamin Sanneh, “Renewed and Empowered: The Christian Impact,” Ogbomoso Journal of Theology XV (2010): 14; Lamin Sanneh, “Christian Mission in the Pluralist Milieu: The African Experience,” Missiology XII, no. 4 (1984): 421–33. Lamin Sanneh, Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993). Tinyiko Sam Maluleke, critical of Sanneh, is curious to know whether one can distinguish the Western missionary imperialist tendencies from the work of the Western missionaries who disparaged African cultures in their various mission stations. See Tinyiko Sam Maluleke, “Black and African Theologies in the New World Order: A Time to Drink from our Own Wells,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (1996): 9. 31 Pope Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus n.113. (Subsequently, AM). http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhort ations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20111119_africae-munus_en.html. 32 Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 65.

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strings of Western Christianity. Their condemnation of indigenous African cultures as savage and heathen continues to negatively affect Christianity in Africa today. For example, Bede Jagoe, a Dominican priest working in Nigeria in the 1960s, mentions that prior to Vatican II it was not customary for missionaries to learn anything about traditional practices, which were condemned as evil and as coming from the devil. He gives an example of how “some former missionaries forbade a festival to give thanks to God for the harvest of yams since there was no blessing for this in the Roman Ritual.”33 Such condemnation of African cultures has not only given rise to syncretism, with Africans having a dual allegiance to Christianity and their traditional religions, but also the lack of integration of Christian faith with African cultural and religious values has given rise to Africans regarding Christianity as alien. The result has been the emergence of homegrown African independent churches, as well as the African anthropological crisis—the new experience of domination by external cultural forces, including religious forces, when compelled to be Christians in a manner defined by foreign cultures. Another example is drawn from Fr. Alex Chima’s experience in Malawi and equally corroborates the anthropological crisis among African Christians, one often manifested in tensions and contradictions in their spiritual lives. Although the people attended the Mass over which he presided, they also rushed away to participate, at the behest of their chief, in a rain sacrifice at the foot of a hill about four miles away. This practice, which is all too common in Africa, testifies to the need to make Christian faith and worship relevant to the people by responding to their real needs rather than on faithfulness to liturgical laws.34 Examples of how this might be done can be grasped from other missionary experiences, such as Ronald Allen’s short experience as a missionary in China (1895 to 1900 and later in 1902) and Vincent Donovan’s unique missionary experience in the Masai Kingdom, East Africa (1955 to 1973). Their practices, methods, and suggestions offer positive insight into measures towards new evangelization in Africa and other contexts and also highlight the flaws of traditional missionary enterprises. Ronald Allen realized that indigenizing Christianity was functionally efficient for the spread of the faith. He suggested that evangelization accompanies the establishment of self-propagating, selfsupporting, self-governing churches able to evangelize their neighbors 33

Bede Jagoe, “Vatican II Comes to Africa,” Worship 79, no. 6 (2005): 550. Alex Ǻ. Chima, “Africanizing the Liturgy—Where Are We Twenty Years after Vatican II?” African Ecclesiastical Review (AFER) 25 (1983): 282.

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without depending on foreign missionaries for leadership or financial support. Allen asserted: If the Church is to be indigenous it must spring up in the soil from the very first seeds planted. One or two little groups of Christians organized as Churches, with their bishops and priests, could spread all over an empire. They would be obviously and without question Native Churches. But if we establish Missions rather than Churches, two evil consequences, which we now see in greater or less degree everywhere, sterility and antagonism, inevitably arise.35

Spontaneous expansion of the church was hindered also by the missionary insistence on Christian morals, which meant the European customs they accepted as civilized and believed must be inculcated to the new converts to Christianity.36 Such demands not only disrupted the social order of most communities, they exposed converts to Christianity to ridicule and rejection by their families. Civilizing the natives, taking them away from their ways of life and cutting them off from their kith and kin, was the standard procedure for evangelization where to be Christian meant to be like the missionaries. Instead of seeking to make Europeans of African converts, Allen suggested a spontaneous expansion of the church whereby African converts to Christianity freely share the Christian faith with their neighbors, becoming missionaries to one another. This presupposes respect for the culture and patterns of life of indigenous peoples. Vincent Donovan, a missionary priest to the Masai, was very much influenced by Allen’s work. Writing several decades later about the limitations of missionary work, he urged starting afresh: There is no mistaking that missionary work is in shambles. Born in slavery, disoriented by the school system, startled by independence, and smothered in nation building—mission in East Africa has never had the chance to be true to itself. To make any sense out of mission, out of the meaning and purpose of missionary work, one has to start all over again—at the beginning.37

35 Ronald Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It, (Kindle Edition, Jawbone Digital, 2012), loc. 30. 36 Augustine S. O. Okwu, “The Weak Foundations of Missionary Evangelization in Precolonial Africa: The Case of the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria 1857–1900,” Missiology: An International Review 8, no. 1 (1980): 32. 37 Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai, (London: SCM Press, 1982), Kindle Edition, Loc. 477-485.

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Starting afresh for Donovan is starting evangelization with a deep respect for the cultures of peoples and appreciating that people have a culture from which their lives derive meaning. Recognizing a people’s culture implies that missionaries must not substitute that culture with any other. Donovan found that the very concept of mission must change. Missionaries, he says, are not sent to plant a church or to preach the church, but to tell the good news of God’s universal salvation in Christ. The Eurocentric response to the good news is not the only response to the Gospel, and each community must respond under its own culture. The new evangelization, characterized by the preaching of the Gospel to the poor and a dialogue with the cultures of peoples informed by profound respect for these cultures as vehicles for the Good News, is one most important achievement of Vatican II.

The Vatican II Stance on Culture The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) links culture to human dignity, calls for human freedom to realize the dignity of the human person, and recognizes the plurality of cultures.38 It delves into the problems of continuity and change, the preservation of traditional cultures arising from “the increased exchanges between cultures,” especially those caused by modernization. The relationship of faith and culture is expected to promote integral salvation, the Gospel instruction to Christians to be agents of social transformation by participation in the humanization of their world through culture. Gaudium et Spes recognizes the cultural and hence contextual nature of divine revelation “where God’s progressive self-communication adapted itself to the culture of different ages.”39 Vatican II’s stance is very significant for the church’s relationship to culture. First, culture is fundamental to what it means to be human. To disregard, deny, or disparage a people’s culture is to dehumanize and insult them. Each people must be free to live by the intendments of its culture, to express its unique identity. Culture, however, is not static but dynamic; it develops and is amenable to various forms of influences, both internal and external. Africans have distinct cultures that integrally harmonize their lives religiously, socio-politically, and economically, among other ways. Evangelization must take such cultures as its starting 38 The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (New York: Guild Press, 1966). Gaudium et Spes n. 52–62 is devoted to culture as well as its relationship to the faith, revelation, and the Gospel. 39 Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J., Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), 46.

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point. Second, the recognition of the plurality of cultural forms and the equality of all cultures is a paradigm shift from the classicist idea of culture to one conscious of history and the importance of particular cultures for evangelization. It reflects the Council Fathers’ rejection of the rigid traditionalism of the preparatory documents and their option for genuine aggiornamento. 40 Third, that Jesus was born and raised a Jew implies that the divine revelation took flesh in a particular human culture. His mission and ministry took place within the linguistic, historical, and cultural ambience of the Hellenistic Jews of his time influenced by Hellenistic philosophy. Jesus’s Jewishness is of an entirely different order from the post-Temple Judaism of most Jewish communities today. When Christianity eventually spread to the Greeks, it formally adopted the Greek and Hellenistic philosophy and religious cultural superstructure. As is evident from the influence of Western-oriented Christianity in subSaharan Africa, the Gospel equally became Westernized when it spread to the West. As aptly articulated by Susan Ross, “As Christianity spread across Europe, and especially as it spread into the lands that we now call England, Scotland, and Ireland, it developed its own unique regional characteristics, as it did everywhere it took root.”41 The Western Christian missionaries, mostly from some countries listed above, bequeathed to the Africans their own interpretation of the Gospel in the light of their cultures. Meanwhile, it is good to note that Christianity spread first to what is now considered North Africa and the Middle East. St. Augustine, for example, was a Romanized African.42 His mother Monica practiced indigenous local African traditions. As the Gospel spreads to Asia, the Americas, and sub-Saharan Africa, it must take unto itself the Asian and indigenous American and African cultural, religious, and philosophical superstructures. As transcultural, the Good News must become African in Africa or it will die as it did with the North African churches of the early period, which remained Roman, making it difficult for the faith to permeate the local populations of the rural tribes, the Berbers. 43 This

40

Donald R. Campion, “The Church Today,” in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (New York: Guild Press, 1966), 183–98. 41 Susan A. Ross, Anthropology: Seeking Light and Beauty (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 32. 42 Philip Jenkins’ book, The Lost History of Christianity (New York: Harper Collins 2008) chronicles the thousand-year golden age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and how it died. 43 Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 64–65.

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becomes the foundation for the incarnation or inculturation of Christian faith in African cultures.

Church and Culture after Vatican II The post-Vatican II church obviously supports the appropriation of the Christian faith in the light of the cultures of each people. Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013) acknowledges this to be the case in the first two millennia of Christian faith as people accepted the Christian faith, allowed it to grow in their own lives and passed it on in the language of their own culture.44 Pope Paul VI first used the term “African Christianity” while addressing the first Pan-African meeting of Roman Catholic Bishops at Gaba, Uganda, in 1969. Paul VI reminded the African bishops of the role of their cultures in evangelization with words that reflect Vatican II’s acknowledgement of the plurality of cultural forms for the expression of Christian faith: The expression, that is, the language and mode of manifesting this one Faith may be manifold, hence it may be original, suited to the tongue, the style, the character, the genius and the culture of the one who professes this one Faith. From this point of view, a certain pluralism is not only legitimate, but desirable.45

Similarly, Pope St. John Paul II reiterated the Church’s respect for cultures during his apostolic visit to Nigeria in 1982: “The Church comes to bring Christ; she does not come to bring the culture of another race. Evangelization aims at penetrating and elevating culture by the power of the Gospel.”46 John Paul II founded the Pontifical Council for Culture to 44

Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, n.116. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papafrancesco_esortazione -ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html (subsequently EG). Karl Rahner interpreted such appropriation as the condition for the existence of a World Church. See Karl Rahner, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 40, no. 4 (December 1979): 718, 724. 45 Paul VI, “Eucharistic Celebration at the Conclusion of the Symposium Organized by the Bishops of Africa,” n.2. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/homilies/1969/documents/hf_pvi_hom_19690731_en.html. See also Evangelii Nuntiandi, n.20 on the distinctness of the Gospel and culture and the imperative of the Gospel not being incompatible with culture of each people. 46 John Paul II, “Address of John Paul II to the Bishops of Nigeria. Lagos, Monday, 15 February, 1982, n.3.

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promote the study of Gospel and culture and the relation of Christianity to non-Christian religions.47 Because culture is now viewed as a very important medium of evangelization, theologians adopt different methodologies in the dialogue between church and culture. In the speech above, John Paul II specifically mentions “enculturation” (inculturation) as one way of incarnating the Christian faith in African cultures. One approach to the dialogue with culture favorable to many theologians and equally amenable to inculturation is Clifford Geertz’s approach to culture as meaning, reading the symbolic systems of each culture as key to evangelization.48 Carl F. Starkloff’s two-part article “Inculturation and Cultural Systems 1 and 2” in Theological Studies does a good job of showcasing this connection and theologians’ preference for Clifford Geertz. 49 Starkloff adopts Pedro Arrupe’s definition of inculturation with its emphasis on the transformation of culture as: The incarnation of Christian life and of the Christian message in a particular local cultural context, in such a way that the experience not only finds expression through elements proper to the culture in question (this alone would be no more than a superficial adaptation), but becomes a principle that animates, directs, and unifies a culture, transforming and remaking it so as to bring about “a new creation.”50

Starkloff understands inculturation as implying a conversation between the Gospel and cultures in an intercultural way of mutual influence. In the first part of the two-part article “Inculturation and Cultural Systems,” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/ 1982/february/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19820215_vescovi-nigeria_en.html. 47 The Pontifical Council for Culture, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/cultr/documents/rc_pc_cultr_pro_06061999_en.html. 48 See Donald C. Flatt, “Reading Symbolic Systems: Key to Evangelization and a Challenge to Modern Mission,” Missiology: An International Review 7, no. 2 (1979): 179–93; Robin Koning, “Further Clarifications of Geertz’s Account of Culture as a Resource for Theology,” Pacifica 24 (2011): 315–40; Marina True, “Static Meaning in Neutral Territory: Clifford Geertz’s Thought on Religion Applied to Christian Mission and Theology,” Missionalia 31, no. 3 (2003): 518– 41. 49 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1985). 50 Pedro Aruppe, S.J., “Letter on Inculturation,” cited by Carl F. Starkloff, “Inculturation and Cultural Systems (Part 1)” Theological Studies 55, no. 1 (1994): 69.

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Starkloff argues that the Gospel will transform societies if those who practice inculturation learn the inner workings of societies and if Christians who belong to those cultures reflect on them critically. 51 Starkloff’s profound excursus of Geertz’s semiotic cultural system situates religion as part of a cultural system alongside ideology, commonsense, and art that imparts meaning to a people’s reality.52 In this function, theology mediates faith and culture and becomes the medium of inculturation, integrating and not compartmentalizing the cultural systems. 53 In the second part of the article “Inculturation and Cultural Systems,” Starkloff proposes ways theology might “interface” with the cultural systems important for inculturation: ideologies, religion, commonsense, and art. The roles of Geertz’s principal approaches are local knowledge, thick description, and the analogy between culture and a text. Local knowledge emphasizes anthropology’s primary approach of the concreteness of particular cultural contexts as opposed to generalities of elements common to cultures. Paying enough attention to the peculiarities of each culture maintains the full distinctiveness of the culture under study, even in a comparative analysis of some other culture. Even though African cultures share much in common, local knowledge pays attention to the concreteness of each culture in the appropriation of the Christian faith. What works in Igboland (Nigeria) may have little relevance among the Akan (Ghana) and in other places. Thick description refers to the situating of particular practices within the web of meaning of the whole culture of a people. It relates particular cultural practices to the totality of meaning, to the human intentions of the people of a culture. Thick description situates the isolated aspect under study in the whole meaning-making activity of a culture; it is not just a collection of data but rather an exploration of the “meanings in human social action and life.” 54 Thick description is not just descriptive but explicative and interpretative. It implies intelligibly accounting for one’s position and establishing grounds for such a position in relation to a cultural practice. The role of culture is to integrate, not to compartmentalize. This is equally true of the work of a theology of inculturation. In the process of inculturation, certain questions call for consideration: What is culture? What is culture’s relationship to the social 51

Carl F. Starkloff, “Inculturation and Cultural Systems (Part 2),” Theological Studies 55, no. 2 (1994): 274. 52 Starkloff, “Inculturation and Cultural Systems, (Part 1),” 75. 53 Ibid., 81. 54 Robin Koning, “Clifford Geertz’s Account as a Resource for Theology,” Pacifica 23, no. 1 (2010): 46.

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life of a people? To what extent are cultures and ideologies divergent and convergent? Questions such as these have particular relevance for Africans whose lives are integrally woven together. Among them, physical illness is connected to spirituality; economic and social life is tied to religious and political conditions, etc. Geertz describes culture as a text that stands to be read by the people. The anthropologist as the reader of the text pays attention to the significance of social behavior, expressions, discourse, and symbolic acts, and seeks for the meaning a culture attempts to communicate or is communicating by those behaviors. Geertz’s specific contribution is to see culture as a text, as communicative of meanings—meanings that are not static but dynamic—and the role of the anthropologist to immerse the text within the fluidity of social action. Geertz’s interpretation of culture as mediating meaning through symbols agrees with Lonergan’s interpretation of the role of theology as a mediating of culture within a context, making every theology a contextual theology.55 As all-embracing of the human, making sense or meaning in navigating through life and passing this on to future generations, culture is essentially dynamic.

Lonergan’s Notion of Culture Culture for Lonergan emanates within the meaning-making process constitutive of each community that commonly experiences, understands, judges, and decides. 56 Lonergan writes: “Culture is a general notion. It denotes something found in every people, for in every people there is some apprehension of meaning and value in their way of life.”57 Lonergan recognizes the shift from the classical control of meaning to the modern, empirical notion of culture based on an appreciation of experience and history. The empirical or modern or anthropological notion of culture is open to other cultures and recognizes culture as the common meaning of each people. 58 The empirical notion of culture is not empiricist, 55

Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), Kindle Edition, Loc. 146. 56 Bernard Lonergan, “Dimensions of Meaning,” in Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe, S.J., and Robert M. Doran, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 234. 57 Bernard Lonergan, “Belief, Today’s Issue,” A Second Collection: Papers by J. F. Lonergan, S.J., ed. William F. J. Ryan, S.J., and Bernard J. Tyrrell, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 92. 58 Bernard Lonergan, “The Future of Christianity,” in A Second Collection, 161.

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emphasizing only the value of experience as if human knowing, objectivity, and culture are only matters of an “already out there now real”59 distrusting human reason. The empirical notion of culture, while very conscious of history and the distinctness of each people in the light of their cultures, 60 emphasizes intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility, the inner structure of the human spirit—the transcendental precepts, as important components of culture.61 This notion of culture is understood against the classicist notion, which because of the achievements of Western civilization understands other cultures and peoples in the light of the one Western culture which it interprets as the norm of culture. Lonergan specifies: I must contend that classicism is no more than the mistaken view of conceiving culture normatively and of concluding that there is just one human culture. The modern fact is that culture has to be conceived empirically, that there are many cultures, and that new distinctions are legitimate when the reasons for them are explained and the older truths are retained.62

He argues that the classicist concept of culture is static, universalistic, monolithic, univocal, restrictive, exclusive, nature-oriented, and totalistic. The empirical notion of culture, on the contrary, is dynamic, particular and local, concrete, pluralistic, polymorphic, inclusive, other-focused, and historically minded. Among his many attempts to explain the differences

59

In Method in Theology Lonergan defined intellectual conversion as debunking this exaltation of experience alone as human knowing, a view championed by empiricists. Intellectual conversion is “a radical clarification and, consequently, the elimination of an exceedingly stubborn and misleading myth concerning reality, objectivity, and human knowledge. The myth is that knowing is like looking, that objectivity is seeing what is there to be seen and not seeing what is not there, and that the real is what is out there now to be looked at.” Cf. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 238. 60 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), xi, 124, 181, 301–302. 61 See Method in Theology, 302. Education for Lonergan consists in the formation of human beings in such a way that they exist integrally by obeying the transcendental precepts: Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible, Be in love. Such integrated human existence eventually contributes to cultural transformation achieved through conversion which is “total surrender to the demands of the human spirits.” Cf. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 53. 62 Method in Theology, 124. See other classicist mistaken views of culture Lonergan elaborates in Method in Theology, 302, 326, 363.

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between these two notions of culture, I find his distinction in the paper titled “The Future of Christianity” the clearest: While classicist culture conceived itself normatively and abstractly, modern culture conceives itself empirically and concretely. It is the culture that recognizes cultural variation, difference, development, breakdown, that investigates each of the many cultures of mankind, that studies their histories, that seeks to understand what the classicist would tend to write off as strange or uncultivated or barbaric. Instead of thinking of man in terms of a nature common to all men, whether awake or asleep, geniuses or morons, saints or sinners, it attends to men in their concrete living. If it can discern common and invariant structures in human operations, it refuses to take flight from the particular to the universal, and it endeavors to meet the challenge of knowing people in all their diversity and mutability.63

Obviously, therefore, the European missionaries’ attitude to indigenous cultures is explained by the classicist culture under which they were raised and trained. Their condemnation of cultures they knew nothing about, their dismissal of those whom they evangelized as uncultured “savages,” and hence their mission to give “barbarians” culture can be understood because of the ignorance embedded in the classicist notion of culture. 64 Little wonder that in “Time and Meaning,”65 Lonergan labors to free us from the viewpoints that breed distorted notions of the other. These viewpoints include provincialism, classicism, romanticism, and abstraction. Provincialism considers others as odd strangers one cannot understand or deal with, whose way of life differs from one’s own so their way of life is foolish, lacking meaning. Such terms descriptive of others like “inscrutable oriental,” Lonergan writes, characterize such attitudes. For classicism, one size fits all. It ignores differences among people and expects every person to look, to think the same way and be united. Here Lonergan aims at pointing out differences of viewpoints and that people cannot think and act the same way or adapt to environments the same way. 63

Bernard Lonergan, “The Future of Christianity,” A Second Collection: Papers by J. F. Lonergan, S.J., ed. William F. J. Ryan, S.J., and Bernard J. Tyrrell, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 161. Writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lonergan used exclusivist language in the original. 64 Lonergan in another article, “Theology and Man’s Future,” observes that classicist culture “set up its own [culture] as the ideal and generously offered to instruct others in its own ways.” Bernard Lonergan, “Theology and Man’s Future,” A Second Collection: Papers by J. F. Lonergan, S.J., 141. 65 Bernard Lonergan, “Time and Meaning,” Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958–1964, CWL 6, ed. Robert C. Croken, Frederick E. Crowe, and Robert M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 94–121.

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Romanticism emphasizes the differences, the particular at the expense of the general view. In the romanticist viewpoint, diversity stunts commonality so everything becomes relative. It results in fragmentation. Abstraction is an attachment to the cult of the universal, of the ideal, so that one loses sight of the particular, of the concrete, of things as they exist in their particularity. By warning of these dangerous viewpoints, Lonergan aims at broadening our horizon on the concept of meaning. He hopes to help us break away from too narrow a view of meaning as merely referring to what words express. Lonergan goes about this firstly by pointing to the varieties of meaning and secondly by explaining what meaning constitutes. These varieties of meaning are distinguished: intersubjective, symbolic, incarnate, artistic, and linguistic.66 As intersubjective, meaning is intrinsic to human social life like a smile that could mean different things simultaneously. Meaning is also symbolic [like the cross] and orients our life and attitudes by the effects it evokes and patterns it sets in human thoughts and behavior. Meaning is incarnate; it is constitutive of humans. It is artistic and expresses our feelings. Meaning is linguistic, because by naming something we grasp the meaning of that thing; what the object or symbols are. So meaning is not just the words and their interpretation as the often general sense of meaning ordinarily evokes. It is broad and encompasses varieties of aspects of human life. Second, meaning is constitutive of humankind. Meaning makes humans who humans are. There would be no society without meaning. There would be no family, morals, politics, economics, and technology without meaning. Human effort to live is the struggle for meaning. Lonergan declares: “To eliminate meaning would be to eliminate all human institutions. Again to eliminate meaning would be to eliminate interpersonal relations, symbols, art, language, literature, religion, science, history, philosophy, theology … Human living, then, is something to which meaning is essential; it is incomplete without meaning; it has a constituent in the realm of meaning.”67 Even revelation will make no sense without meaning being constitutive of human life. Emptied of meaning, human life is as good as dead just as in nihilism (the negation of any meaning to human life) Nietzsche declared God dead when modernity emptied traditional life of meaning. Lonergan’s most significant contribution lies in the recognition of the shift from a classicist to an empirical notion of culture. It demands a 66 67

See also chapter 3 of Method in Theology on the varieties of meaning. “Time and Meaning,” CWL 6, 104.

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methodological shift of attitude for religion and theology’s engagement with cultures. Lonergan asserts: Just as theology has to enter into the context of modern philosophy and science, so religion has to retain its identity yet penetrate into the cultures of mankind, into the manifold fabric of everyday meaning and feeling that directs and propels the lives of men. It has to know the uses of symbol and story, the resources of its arts and of literature, the potentialities of the old and the new media of communications, the various motivations on which in any given area it can rely, the themes that in a given culture and class provide a carrying wave for the message.68

The modern notion of culture’s appreciation of the place of history and the diversity of cultural ambience is threatening to the status quo of traditional ecclesiological and theological approaches to culture that generally is classicist. The change in attitude, the shift to the empirical notion of cultural demands, is akin to the great epochal changes in history and culture like Vatican II (1962–65). For example, the concept of theology is shifting from the one universal theology, methodologically deductive, to a notion of a plurality of theologies that is inductive and respectful of the differences varying historical circumstances bring about in the lives of humans in various cultural settings.69 In the modern notion of culture, the church is concerned not only with ecumenism but also with its relation to other non-Christian religions and variants of atheism that negate religion altogether. While such shifts have been ongoing for over a century, according to Lonergan, “the massive breakthrough took place at the Second Vatican Council.”70 Concerted efforts at implementing the shift from the classicist to the modern (empirical) notion of culture in both church and theology officially achieved at the Second Vatican Council led to the emergence of indigenous Catholicism brewed in African cultures.

Inculturation after Vatican II Post-conciliar ecclesiology emphasizes the inculturation of Christian faith in indigenous cultures. In the period following the African march to political independence from colonialism up to the gradual appreciation and maturity of African theology, inculturation theology has been making inroads into African Christianity and changing the perception of Christianity as foreign. Many aspects of the faith are now understood and 68

Bernard Lonergan, “Theology and Man’s Future,” A Second Collection, 141. “Theology and Man’s Future,” A Second Collection, 138–39. 70 “The Future of Christianity,” 160. 69

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communicated in the light of African cultures. Eugene Uzukwu’s research work in some West African countries specifies how people of the West African region understand the Trinitarian doctrine through their traditional cultural religions.71 Earlier, Vincent Mulago, Charles Nyamiti, and Efoé Julien Pénoukou labored at developing a comprehensive inculturated systematic theological treatise using primarily some variation of African metaphysics based on the theory of life as vital participation.72 Not only have there been changes in forms of worship, liturgical vestments, and liturgical language, there have been efforts in various parts of Africa to adapt and inculturate the liturgy in various aspects of African socioreligious celebrations. For example, specific rites like the Zairean rite have received official approval from the Vatican. 73 Field research conducted simultaneously in 2002 in three East African countries—Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda—organized by Laurenti Magesa, offers more clues to the practice of inculturation in Africa. In Kenya respondents point to elements like singing, clapping, dancing, using drums, etc., as evidence of incorporating aspects of African custom and spirituality into liturgical celebration. They note that the shape of such Christian symbols like the crucifix, altars, and tabernacles are taking on more of an African cultural outlook. In Tanzania and Uganda, respondents understand inculturation as taking popular spirituality seriously. According to them, this means living the message of Jesus Christ or the Gospel and worshiping using specific cultural elements like the drums, and proverbs in liturgy and moral teaching. 74

The Challenges to Inculturation Amidst the achievements, myriad problems beset the inculturation of Christian faith in African cultures. Primarily, the challenges have been 71

Eugene Uzukwu, God, Spirit, and Human Wholeness: Appropriating Faith and Culture in West African Style (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012). 72 The theory of vital participation holds that God is the vital principle of life, and human beings and the cosmos derive their force from communion of life and being with God. See, James C. Okoye, CSSP. “Inculturation and Theology in Africa,” Mission Studies 14, no. 1–2 (1997): 74–75. 73 Congregation for Divine Worship, “Zairensium Dioecesium,” Notitiae 264:1988; Elochukwu E. Uzukwu, C.S.Sp, Worship as Body Language: Introduction to Christian Worship: An African Orientation (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997); “Inculturation and the Liturgy (Eucharist),” Paths of African Theology, ed. Rosino Gibellini (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 99. 74 Laurenti Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 5–76.

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attitudinal: the suspicion that inculturation represents a paganization of Christianity and the inability to link inculturation to the African quest for integral development as it responds to the challenges of modern nationhood. These concerns are not totally without merit. Uncritical adoption of African cultural values really can lead to the “paganization” of Christianity, with the risk of Christianity being replaced with African traditional religions. No human culture is perfect, and so inculturation is a give-and-take process between Christian faith and cultures that encourages the critical study of African cultures to avoid the danger of culturalism. This critical study of the Christian faith must be in tandem with the “deWesternization” of the African Christian mindset. Although advances have been made, the globalization of information technology has opened up multiple vistas of meaning often dominated by Western cultures, which appears to reverse the gains. Many African peoples are attached to Western products, lifestyles, and values spread through these modern means of communication. African cultural values are increasingly seen as too traditional and as impediments to progress and development. Various African governments are also not helping matters by neglecting rural areas; this neglect fuels urban migration, which promotes individualistic and consumerist mentalities drawn from the Western mindset. At the other extreme are educated Africans who throw away the Christian faith as foreign because the form of Christianity they are familiar with is Western. So the practice of inculturation remains very critical for the future of Christianity in Africa. The grounding of Christian faith in the culture of a people and in the authentic national identity and patriotic spirit it creates indirectly promotes the human good. Inculturation removes the dichotomy between faith and life. It contributes to the emergence of authentic humans able to hold in tension the limitation and transcendence of culture and Christian faith, of inherited constitutive meanings and the Gospel values updating and refining one’s cultural values. It also has the potential to reconcile theologians who argue for liberation theology without engaging inculturation theology, and those who argue for inculturation without liberation. 75 Theological differences arise in Africa when theologians 75

This controversy plays itself out in the dispute between African theologians of inculturation and Black theologians of South Africa on the appropriateness or not of ethnographic theology or race-based theology. See Manas Buthelezi, “Toward Indigenous Theology in South Africa,” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader, ed. Deane William Ferm (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 205–21; Desmond Tutu, “Black Theology/African Theology—Soul Mates or Antagonists?” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader, 256–64.

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engaged in the issues of culture, class, racial exploitation, oppression, and poverty, reduce theology to their own specialization without relating the issues of culture together. 76 Inculturation theology, African liberation theology, African women’s theology, and Black Theology often seem engaged in an unnecessary and unproductive tug of war.77 Understanding the intrinsic connection between inculturation and development or liberation correctly places inculturation where it can heal the “anthropological poverty”—that is, the crisis of identity arising from being mentally uprooted from their cultures that disorient Africans. 78 Caught between two cultures, neither of which they recognize as fully theirs, African Christians become involved in syncretism religiously and fail to commit to national or social development. However, if inculturation makes Christianity part of ordinary life, the Christian faith will no longer be foreign. Simultaneously, liberation and salvation in Christ will cease to be merely spiritual but will have social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions. Not only will the crisis of identity of African Christians be healed by appreciation of their cultural values, Christian love will bring about changes in the peoples’ relationships to one another and to their cultures and communities, in such a way that they will become willing to promote social justice, demand good governance, participate in national development, and effect social transformation.

The Way Forward Africans must adopt an attitudinal change towards their cultures and the Christian faith. The liberation of African Christianity from unnecessary foreign elements will focus on Christ as the Good News, and not on its foreign garments as modeled by the missionaries. Christianity will be seen for what it is: a transcultural movement that inaugurates the kingdom of God. A fundamental reorientation must disabuse Africans of negative attitudes towards African traditional religions, which many still consider 76

See Joseph Healey and Donald Sybertz, African Narrative Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 21. 77 See Emmanuel Martey, African Theology: Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993). 78 For more on “anthropological poverty,” see Joseph Ogbonnaya, “Gravissimum Educationis and African Anthropological Poverty,” in Christianity and Culture Collision: Particularities and Trends from a Global South, ed. Cyril Orji and Joseph Ogbonnaya (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 90–113.

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evil and devilish. The first step is to study African traditional religion. This study will be difficult as people suspect anyone, especially a Christian, associated with African Traditional Religion (ATR). The awkward situation here can be traced back to the ambivalent attitude that African Christians have towards African Traditional Religion. They fear, respect, and consult it in private but disparage it in public as evil. One needs a lot of courage to begin such a study from a disinterested perspective, especially because the study of African Traditional Religion is most often done from a Christian perspective to point out how the religion is the preparatio evangelica, the nurturing ground for Christianity. Such study does not allow the traditional religions to emerge and to speak for themselves. One way to divest the African mind from its phobia towards African Traditional Religion is to de-Westernize the African clergy, both Catholic priests, and ministers of the Reformed tradition, especially Pentecostals. Most Catholic priests are trained in seminaries that offer a Western-based curriculum with only a very limited place for African Traditional Religion and values. Most African Catholic priests are not predisposed to positive attitudes towards their cultures. While some Protestant clergy members are more positively disposed towards African Traditional Religions and have actually undertaken foundational scholarship on them,79 a good number of their clergy, notably Pentecostal ministers, dismiss African Traditional Religion as evil. 80 They are averse to inculturation or any form of indigenization, which they interpret as the attempt of the devil to destroy the work of the missionaries and return Africa to the enemy of humankind. Pentecostalism, which is very influential in Africa today, cannot distinguish the Christian faith from the Western garb in which it is clothed. 79

Examples include John S. Mbiti, a member of the Anglican clergy from Kenya, whose foundational works are: African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1990); Introduction to African Religion, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1991); and Bolaji Idowu, a Nigerian Methodist pastor who actually was the third indigenous leader of the Methodist Church Nigeria, from 1972 to 1984. His pioneering works in African traditional religion include: African Traditional Religion (Norwich, UK: SCM-Canterbury Press, 1974) and Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief (New York: Frederick A. Preager, 1963; Ibadan, Nigeria: Wazobia, 1994). 80 Kwabena J. Darkwa Amanor’s article “Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Ghana and the African Culture: Confrontation or Compromise?” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18 (2009) 123–40, explores the varied forms of demonization of African traditional religion by mainly Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, although mainline churches are equally involved in the conflict with African traditionalists.

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Most Pentecostal ministers reject traditional music, dances, festivities, etc. as pagan, sinful, and devilish. The African cultures, religions, and spiritualties to which the people are accustomed are jettisoned for what is Christian, dressed in Western cultural forms. This continues to make Christianity a foreign religion in the consciousness of Africans, although it is often accepted because it makes one look “civilized.” The consequence is the dual allegiance Africans pay to Christianity and to their traditional African religio-cultural spiritualties. The changes in outlook towards inculturation must begin with changes to the curriculum in seminaries, houses of formation, schools, and colleges. If and where the Church cannot effect wholesale changes, it must at least change the curricula of seminaries and houses of religious formation to reflect and appreciate African religions and cultures. When this is done, the positive values of African traditional religions and cultures will enrich the Christian faith and the Christian faith will enrich the African religions and cultures. Africans can then express their Christian faith using African images, symbols, arts, etc., without the guilt of worshipping idols. This would be an authentic incarnation of the Christian faith. Only by this, will Africans be truly and fully African and Christian simultaneously.

Conclusion Although it now seems obvious, the recognition of cultural pluralism and the respect expected for the integrity of world cultures is a great moral achievement emanating from the shift from the classicist to the empirical notion of culture. Our awareness of the mistakes of Christian missionary activities arising from the classicist notion of culture and the attendant anthropological crisis they engendered allows us to appreciate the significance of this shift for the success of mission and the mutual coexistence of peoples. However, this shift presents us with two challenges. First, we must promote widespread awareness of this shift and protect it against backsliding to the classicist mentality that inspires people to live in the modern world with a superannuated ideal of cultural superiority. Second, we must overcome fears of the implications of the historical mindedness inherent in empirical notions of culture and become open to possible changes in their horizons. The promotion of a more indigenous Catholicism demands perseverance in implementing the Vatican II notion of culture, which not only recognizes cultural pluralism but also, through other post-conciliar documents and institutions, teaches the benefits of the empirical notion of culture.

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The dialogue of faith and culture stands to benefit from the creative appropriation of the giant strides made by Vatican II. Local churches must embrace the shift from classicist to modern notions of culture and look at their cultures, which have been demonized, in new ways as God’s gifts containing unfathomable spiritual wealth they may use to respond to the Gospel. Local churches should not only critically study their cultures to promote inculturation of the Good News into all aspects of their lives but should also advance these cultures in the light of Gospel values. African theology mediates, to use Lonergan’s words, “between [African] cultural matrix and the significance and role of [Christianity] in that matrix.”81 The demand for respect of the role of various situations or historical contexts in theology is the backdrop to majority world church theology. It also further validates the significance of Lonergan’s notion of culture for world Christianity.

81

Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, Kindle Edition, Loc. 146.

CHAPTER TWO CONTEXTUALIZATION: THE BACKDROP TO MAJORITY WORLD CHURCH THEOLOGY

World Christianity is gaining traction as part of special studies in systematic theology. The upsurge in the number of conversions to Christianity in the global South and the uniquely diverse forms of appropriation, depth, and practice of the faith account for the wide interest in the prosperity of Christianity in the New World—worlds beside Europe and North America. Because it gives rise to what could be construed as different ways of being Christian, the inculturation of the Gospel in many cultural contexts might create tension between the universal and the particular churches, resulting not only in fears of relativism but accusations of cultural imperialism and domination. Because contextualization is the backdrop to theologizing, the differences in expression of the Christian faith could be resolved through a notion of culture that accepts the achievements of the classics of Christian faith, and yet is not classicist but historically and empirically acknowledges the diverse cultural contexts within which people are converted to the Christian faith and the unique forms Christianity takes because of these cultural contexts. Lonergan’s notion of culture with an emphasis on the shift from classicism to historical mindedness is able not only to bridge the gap between Christianity in the global North and the global South, but also is significant for the Majority World Church’s appropriation of the Christian faith in the light of their cultural contexts.

Development of the Term “Majority World Church” The term “Majority World Church” was coined and adopted at the 2004 Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand,1 partly 1

See A New Vision, A New Heart, A New Call, vol. 2, Lausanne Occasional Papers from the 2004 Forum for World Evangelization hosted by the Lausanne

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because “it helps to highlight the basic point that Africa, Asia, and Latin America are where the majority of the world’s Christians are now located.”2 It is another terminology to describe the two-thirds of the world where Christianity is expanding, excluding one-third of the world, the West (Europe and North America), which is experiencing a comparative shortage of growth in both conversion and practice of Christian faith.3 The term “Majority World Church” does not, however, displace the terminologies that have been used to describe the church in the global South since its emergence following the missionary enterprises there. For example, Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is described from the perspective of the Western church as “Christianity in Non-Western Contexts.” Although this term could be used simply to describe Christianity outside the Western geographic sphere, often the term implies that the Western church is the norm of Christian faith and theology, which Christianity in the global South must take as its point of departure. Such a claim to the normativity of traditional (Western) theology is “oblivious to how fully embedded in Western culture it was.” 4 “Christianity in NonWestern Contexts” is still in vogue as various universities in the West have established academic positions or centers for the study of it or “World Christianity” to study perspectives of Christianity outside the West.5 Committee for World Evangelization in Pattaya, Thailand, ed. David Claydon (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2005), 118. Statistics from various Pew Research Center studies on world Christianity indicate that Christianity is growing in the Majority World Church more than in the formerly European and North American churches. Cf. Center for the Study of Global Christianity, “Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission,” (GordonConwell Theological Seminary, June 2013). http://wwwgordonconwell.com/net community/CSGCResources/ChristianityinitsGlobalContext.pdf 2 Timothy C. Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009) Kindle Edition, Loc. 224. 3 Describing the situation of the disparity between the increase in the number of Christians in the global South on the one hand, and the decrease in the number of Christians in the global North on the other, Andrew F. Walls notes, “one has to go back many centuries to find such a huge recession in one part of the world paralleled by such a huge simultaneous accession in another.” Andrew F. Walls, “Eusebius Tries Again: Reconceiving the Study of Christian History,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 23, no. 3 (July 2000): 105. 4 Wilbert R. Shenk, “Contextual Theology: The Last Frontier,” in The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, ed. Lamin Sanneh and Joel A. Carpenter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 193. 5 See Brian Stanley, “Founding the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the NonWestern World,” in Understanding World Christianity: The Vision and Work of Andrew F. Walls, ed. William R. Burrows, Mark R. Gornik, and Janice A. McLean

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Second, Christianities in the global South were described using the rather politically charged term “Third World,” indicating they represent Christianity outside the confines of the great divide of the Eastern and the Western hemisphere involved in the Cold War. The term “Third World” is understood in various ways, from geographical to sociopolitical perspectives. Geographically, it was first used in 1952 by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy to describe countries gaining independence from their colonial masters. Sauvy used “Third World” because he saw a similarity between the countries gaining their independence from colonial powers and the Third Estate in France demanding freedom and equality during the French Revolution. Used in this way, the term had a positive meaning. Later, however, its meaning shifted. According to W. J. Grimm, “it no longer referred to the aspirations of nations hoping to develop independent governments and economies. It became a term of comparison. The ‘Third World’ was now defined in terms of the First.”6 “Third World” became a term used in international politics to describe nations according to their levels of “development” or “underdevelopment,” especially in terms of technological acquisition. The “First World” referred to the powerful capitalist nations, mostly of the West; the “Second” to the socialist countries of the East; and the “Third” to the non-aligned “underdeveloped” and “developing” countries in the rest of the world. Third World was widely used until towards the end of the twentieth century when changing political events called it into question, especially with the collapse of the Second World in 1989. Since then terms such as North/South polarities respectively are used to describe and differentiate the economically viable nations of the world from the poor underdeveloped and developing countries. “North” is used to designate the former First World and the economically viable countries and “South,” or “the underside of history” or “two-thirds world,” are used to describe the “underdeveloped” and “developing” countries. According to Virginia Fabella, “Currently Third World is used as a self-designation of peoples who have been excluded from power and the authority to shape their own lives and destiny.”7 The terminology “Third World” gained traction in theology as theologians from the developing post-colonial continents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America formed the Ecumenical Association of Third World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 51–59, for the gradual development of such centers initiated by Andrew F. Walls. 6 W. J. Grimm, “The ‘Third’ World,” America (1990): 449. 7 Virginia Fabella, “Third World,” in Dictionary of Third World Theologies, ed. Virginia Fabella and R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000), 202.

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Theologians (EATWOT). For the founding members of EATWOT, the concept of the Third World refers to the countries outside the industrialized capitalist countries of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and the socialist countries of Europe, including Russia.8 Because it describes their condition, EATWOT affirms the term “Third World” as “valid and significant for their self-identification, and maintain it for its theological and evangelical relevance as an alternative voice”9 designating their theology. It self-identifies as an association with an intent on “doing theology from the vantage point of the poor seeking liberation, the integrity of creation, gender co-responsibility, racial and ethnic equality, and interfaith dialogue for the promotion of full humanity.”10 Despite its inadequacies, I will be using the term Majority World Church specifically referring to the theologies of the Third World as the term aptly describes the concerns of Christianity in the developing parts of the world.

Common Features and Differences among Majority World Church Theologies The continents of the Majority World Church have so many things in common. First, their theologies are borne out of a new awakening (spiritual experience) 11 arising from committed action to root out their painful experience of poverty and oppression and their longing for dignity and liberation based on the victory already won by Jesus Christ. There was general agreement that the basis of Third World theologies is the struggle of the poor and oppressed against all forms of injustice and domination.12 8

“Final Statement EATWOT” Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, August 5–12, 1976 in The Emergent Gospel, ed. Sergio Torres and Virginia Fabella (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1978), 260 (henceforth, “Final Statement”). 9 Virginia Fabella, “Third World,” 202. 10 K. C. Abraham, “Editorial,” Voices from the Third World 29, no. 2 (2006): 4. 11 Especially in G. Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983). Cf. also his The Power of the Poor in History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983). 12 Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres, eds., Irruption of the Third World, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1983), xiv; J. Russell Chandran, EATWOT’s first president, says the same thing—that the Third World is “the bitter fruit of oppression” and that “it comes alive in the totality of the struggle of an oppressed people to be fully human.” In Dar es Salaam, EATWOT maintained that commitment to the liberation of the oppressed constitutes the first act of theology. In New Delhi, August 17–29, 1981, EATWOT in its Final Statement wrote: “The analysis of the situation of the Third World countries presented in reports from the various regions and continents disclosed a general agreement that poverty and

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K. C. Abraham, editor of Voices from the Third World, the journal of EATWOT, states: “The EATWOT is unique in that its members are committed to theologizing from the perspective of the poor and marginalized of this world. Integral to this task is an analysis of the social realities, especially the mechanism of oppression, be it cultural and religious.”13 Second, Majority World Church theologies are borne out of the context of injustice and oppression, a consequence of long years of colonial rule and suppression of the people of the Third World. The final Statement of EATWOT’s first conference at Dar es Salaam in Tanzania says it all: “The principal cause for the modern phenomenon of the underdevelopment of the peoples of the Third World is the systematic exploitation of their peoples and countries by the European powers.” 14 EATWOT calls for justice to prevent a reoccurrence of oppression: “We call for an active commitment to the promotion of justice and the prevention of exploitation, the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, racism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression, discrimination, and dehumanization.”15 Third, Majority World Church theologies are pluralistic. There is no one theology universally applicable to all Third World countries and peoples. It identifies with “Plural understandings of Christ and the Spirit a[s] the cornerstones of [its] engagement towards a new humanity and creation.” 16 It hopes that the development of a new vision of theology committed to the integral liberation of persons and structures will participate in the struggles of the people. This takes different forms in different regions. “In Latin America, the theology of ‘liberation’ expresses this analysis and commitment.… The study of the traditional religions and the promotion of indigenous spirituality are preoccupations of Christian groups in Asia and African countries.”17 But these theologies are bonded together by a common experience of oppression and a common dissatisfaction with the old classical theology believed to be universally applicable to all cultures and history. EATWOT is unanimous in its rejection of this brand of theology: oppression are the most glaring characteristics of the Third World: massive poverty surrounding small islands of affluence and an oppressed majority vis-à-vis a powerful elite.” #9. 13 K. C. Abraham, “Editorial,” 4. 14 EATWOT, “Final Statement,” 260. 15 Ibid., 270. 16 Diego Irarrazaval, “A New World and Our Theologies: Report by EATWOT’S President, 2001–2006,” Voices from the Third World 29, no. 2 (2006): 7. 17 EATWOT, “Final Statement,” 268.

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Chapter Two We reject as irrelevant an academic type of theology that is divorced from action. We are prepared for a radical break in epistemology, which makes commitment the first act of theology and engages in critical reflection on the praxis of the reality of the Third World.18

Fourth, Majority World Church theologies are ecclesial theologies. They maintain their common basis in the churches despite differences in belief arising from their affiliations to different denominations. EATWOT declares: “Because commitment is the first act, theology is inseparably connected with the Christian community out of which it emerges and to which it is accountable. Theology partakes of the rhythm of action, contemplation, worship, and analysis that marks the life of the people of God.”19 Despite these common elements, Majority World Church theologies differ from each other due to differences in their contexts. We shall examine briefly some in three distinct regions of EATWOT: Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Asia is the cradle of the most ancient cultures and the birthplace of all the great world religions and cultures. The peculiar complexity of her religio-cultural reality poses problems of interreligious dialogue for Christianity. Also, there are in Asia many ethnic groups and races that give the continent greater fascination. The delegates at the Fifth EATWOT conference in New Delhi stated in their 1981 report: “In Asia, we are increasingly aware of our theological task as primarily articulating the liberative potentials of the Gospel in a context that is being shaped by persons and cultures of other faiths and ideologies. Our commitment is the liberation of persons and societies.” 20 However, despite their great divergence and plurality, “the context of the great world religions provides the common starting point for Christian theology in Asia.”21 Africa is bedeviled with the problem of linguistic fragmentation because it was colonized by different colonial powers: we have French, English, Portuguese, and Arabic-speaking Africa. Specific to Africa also is what has been classified as “anthropological poverty.” According to Engelbert Mveng, “ It consists in despoiling human beings not only of what they have, but of everything that constitutes their being and essence—their 18

Ibid., 269. “Doing Theology in a Divided World: Final Statement of the Sixth EATWOT Conference,” in Doing Theology in a Divided World, ed. V. Fabella and S. Torres (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), 189. 20 J. C. Duraisingh and K. C. Abraham, “Reflections from an Asian Perspective,” in The Irruption of the Third World, ed. Sergio Torres and Virginia Fabella, 140. 21 Terranee Tiessen, “Christian Theology in the Third World: A Look at the Issues,” Didaskalia (Otterburne, Man.) 5, no. 1 (1993): 48. 19

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identity, history, ethnic roots, language, culture, faith, creativity, dignity, pride, ambitions, right to speak…” 22 Anthropological poverty has two poles: inculturation and liberation. The inculturation of Christianity means that the Gospel message must be the culture of the people if it is to be meaningful. Liberation means being involved in the social, political, and economic levels if anthropological poverty is to be overcome. This in no way implies African theology is united regarding these poles of anthropological poverty. There has always been a great divide between theologians who support inculturation (indigenization, ethnography) but disregard liberation theology (Black Theology of South Africa drawn from Black Theology of the US) and vice versa.23 However, contemporary African theology struggles with multiple issues, especially the challenges of the African Christian response to modernity’s influence on Africa’s ways of being church, including “the definition of the nature and criteria of divine revelation (in view of the proposal that this has occurred in traditional African religions), the ‘Christianness’ of the African Independent Churches, the Church’s relationship to the State and the nature of the socio-political order required by the gospel, and the identity of Christ for Africa today.”24 In Latin America, liberation is a key term at the economic, social and political levels. Latin American liberation theology sees the Christian message and teachings of Jesus Christ in the same light as emphasizing God’s readiness to liberate his people from poverty and oppression in all levels of life. The three forms of liberation theology in Latin America are: the radical form marked by its openness to Marxist social analysis and hermeneutics, the moderate form which is more pastorally inclined, and a third with emphasis on popular religiosity and a critical attitude toward both Marxism and capitalism. Each of these recognizes God’s concern for

22

Engelbert Mveng, “Third World Theology—What Theology? What Third Theology?: Evaluation by an African Delegate,” in Irruption of the Third World, 220. 23 See instances of the debate in Manas Buthelezi, “Toward Indigenous Theology in South Africa,” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 205–21; John Mbiti, “An African Views American Black Theology,” in Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966–1979, ed. Gayraud S. Wilmore and James H. Cone (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 379–84; Desmond Tutu, “Black Theology/African Theology—Soul Mates or Antagonists?” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 256–64. 24 Terranee Tiessen, “Christian Theology in the Third World: A Look at the Issues,” 47.

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the poor and emphasizes liberation characterized by a preferential option for the poor.25 Gustavo Gutierrez restated this commitment thus: One of the oldest themes in the theology of liberation is the totality and complexity of the liberation process. This theology conceives total liberation as a single process, within which it is necessary to distinguish different dimensions or levels: economic liberation, social liberation, political liberation, liberation of the human being from all manner of servitude, liberation from sin, and communion with God as the ultimate basis of a human community of brothers and sisters.26

Because of the multiplicity and plurality of Third World theologies, EATWOT does not seek to speak with one voice for the Third World to rival the classical dominant Eurocentric theology. Instead, in a spirit of openness, it allows each theology to develop in its various contexts “by strengthening the local”27 and so remain relevant for each people as they struggle for liberation.28 At its Sixth General Assembly at Johannesburg in

25

Ibid., 43. Gustavo Gutierrez, “Liberation and the Poor: The Puebla Perspective” in Third World Liberation Theologies, A Reader, ed. Deane William Ferm (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 41. 27 K. C. Abraham, “Editorial,” Voices from the Third World 29, no. 2 (2006): 4. 28 Mveng warns against any attempt by EATWOT to seek to organize Third World theologies into a monolith: “An organized group of Third World theologians can legitimately constitute no more than a locus of discussion and dialogue, based on their sometimes analogous, sometimes convergent—but always different expressions.” (See Engelbert Mveng, “Third World Theology—What Theology? What Third Theology?: Evaluation by an African Delegate,” in Irruption of the Third World, 218). For J. C. Duraisingh and K. C. Abraham, EATWOT should serve as a facilitator. “It is important for EATWOT to maintain the distinct identity of each constituent body within its fellowship. To strive toward a monolithic structure and to endeavor to speak with one voice to the world may not fully express and even smother the dynamism of the inner dialogue of fellowship. A forum such as EATWOT should facilitate participant groups to bring to the fore their specific concerns to bear on the overall task of liberation” (Ibid.). In the final analysis, EATWOT specifies the model of theology appropriate for the Third World as it sets its priorities: “Evolving a process of doing theology in and from the situation of struggle in our lands and helping to orient Christian and ministerial formation in this direction; developing a synthesis between the two trends in Third World theologies: the socio-economic and the religio-cultural both of which are essential for integral liberation; supporting the women’s struggle for equality in and through theology.” Irruption of the Third World, 73. 26

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2006, it decided to “use other avenues than international travel and meeting for better communication and sharing on an international level.”29

From Christendom to World Christianity Majority World Church theology is unflinching in its rejection of traditional Western theology because its tools and categories are inadequate for doing theology in context. Traditional theology is inadequate because it carries the baggage of claims of universality that Christianity has a central, cultural, and geographic center from which it spreads to other parts of the world; and that being Christian must model such a particular geographic and cultural context. According to Kwame Bediako, “Western theology was for so long presented in all its particulars as the theology of the Church, when in fact, it was geographically localized and culturally limited, European and Western, and not universal.”30 The claim to universality is false and reminds one of Wilbert R. Shenk’s statements: “The conceit that Western Christendom was the lens through which all of Christian history and theology was to be viewed was nothing more than a self-deluding provincialism.” 31 Such a view equally distorts the history of Christianity and its spread, which has always been cross-culturally translatable and theologically contextual. Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh emphasize translatability as one strength of Christianity, which has made it easier for its adaptability to many cultural contexts. Walls argues that the history of the spread of Christianity has always been linked essentially with the vernacular nature of Christian faith which rests on the incarnate Word translated into the segments of the life of people who receive Him. For Walls, this is a good thing which must continue if the Christian faith is to remain relevant to people: This feature means that Christian faith is repeatedly coming into creative interaction with new cultures, with different systems of tradition; that … its profoundest expressions are often local and vernacular. It also means that the demographic and geographical center of gravity of Christianity is

29

K. C. Abraham, “Editorial,” 4. Kwame Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and Experience (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 115. 31 Wilbert R. Shenk, “Challenging the Academy, Breaking Barriers,” in Understanding World Christianity: The Vision and Work of Andrew F. Walls, ed. William R. Burrows, Mark R. Gornik, and Janice A. McLean (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 37. 30

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Chapter Two subject to periodic shifts. Christians have no abiding city, no permanent sacred sites, no earthly Mecca; their new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven at the last day. Meanwhile, Christian history has been one of successive penetration of diverse cultures.32

Timothy C. Tennent agrees with Walls’ position above and reminds us that “the lifeblood of Christianity is found in its ability to translate itself across new cultural and geographic barriers and to recognize that areas that once were the mission field can, over time, become the very heart of Christian vitality, while other areas that were once at the heart can lose the faith they once espoused.” 33 Lamin Sanneh’s book, Translating the Message, equally underlines the permanent feature of translatability of the Gospel and the recognition of the place of cultural pluralism, including an appreciation of the vernacular in evangelization both initially and throughout the early history of Christianity. Sanneh defends the thesis that: From its origins, Christianity identified itself with the need to translate out of Aramaic and Hebrew, and from that position came to exert a dual force in its historical development. One part of that was the resolve to relativize its Judaic roots, with the consequence that it promoted significant aspects of those roots. The other part was the destigmatization of Gentile culture by adopting that culture as a natural extension of the life of the new religion. This action to destigmatize complemented the other action to relativize. Thus it was that the two subjects, the Judaic and the Gentile, became closely intertwined in the Christian dispensation, both crucial to the formative image of the new religion.34

This process of translatability that demands significant attention be paid to the place of history and context in the spread of the faith continued throughout the history of Christianity, culminating in the Hellenization of Christian doctrine as the faith expressed itself through the language and culture of the then-known world. Theology was not always strictly an academic discipline divorced from action. Every era and every milieu had theologized in response to the signs of their times. In the eloquent words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa: Western theology is no more universal than other brands of theology can ever hope to be. For theology can never properly claim a universality which rightly belongs only to the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ. Theology is a human activity possessing the limitations and the particularities of 32

Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, 30. Timothy C. Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity, Loc. 391. 34 Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, 1. 33

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those who are theologizing. It can speak relevantly only when it speaks to a particular, historically and spatiotemporally conditioned Christian community: and it must have the humility to accept the scandal of its particularity as well as its transience. Theology is not eternal nor can it ever hope to be perfect. There is no final theology. Of course, the true insights of each theology must have universal relevance, but theology gets distorted if it sets out from the very beginning to speak or attempt to speak universally … There must therefore of necessity be a diversity of theologies and our unity arises because ultimately we all are reflecting on the one divine activity to set [hu]mankind free from all that enslaves it.35

Erik Borgman recalls this pattern of theologizing to be the concern of the French theologian and Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu (1889– 1990), for whom theology was not a reflection or speculation on the doctrinal tradition of the church, but diverse reflections on God’s dealing with the world and with history.36 Neo-Scholastic Catholic theology put a brake on this recognition of the place of history and appreciation of the variety of cultures and languages, and limited the global focus of Christianity. 37 Little wonder that Karl Rahner, in his famous article “Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II,” proclaimed Vatican II as “the transition of the Western Church to a world Church in a way that had previously happened only once, when the Church changed from a Church of the Jews to a Church of the Gentiles.”38 He admits that this attempt of the church can only be actualized when the church “begins to act through the reciprocal influence exercised by all its components.”39 For Rahner, this implies that the Western church should not be exported to other parts of the world: “Either the Church sees and recognizes these essential differences of other cultures for which she should become a world Church and with a Pauline boldness draws the necessary consequences from this recognition, or she remains a Western 35

Desmond Tutu, “Black Theology/African Theology—Soul Mates or Antagonists?” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader, 261. 36 Erik Borgman, “Theology as the Art of Liberation: Edward Schillebeeckx's Response to the Theologies of the EATWOT,” Exchange 32, no. 2 (2003): 101. 37 Karl Rahner’s distinction of Church history into three great epochs: “First, the short period of Jewish Christianity. Second, the period of the Church in a distinct cultural region, namely, that of Hellenism and of European culture and civilization. Third, the period in which the sphere of the Church’s life is in fact the entire world,” only proves the long period Neo-Scholastic theology held sway in the Church. See, Karl Rahner, “Towards A Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 40, no. 4 (1979): 721. 38 Ibid., 723. 39 Ibid., 717.

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Church and so, in the final analysis, betrays the meaning of Vatican II.”40 Rahner counters the basic fear of relativism that often bedevils attempts at welcoming the pluralism of proclamations of the Word, the transition from the Western to the world church entails by embracing theological pluralism as enriching rather than diminishing the basic formulas of Christian faith. 41 He restates the need for changes in our way of being church if this transition is to continue: “In a true world Church some such change is necessary, since a world Church simply cannot be ruled with the sort of Roman centralism that was customary in the period of the Piuses.”42 The importance of Rahner’s interpretation of Vatican II and the need for a true world church comes to the fore in the light of the proclamations of EATWOT, coincidentally three years after the publication of Rahner’s address above. In their first conference in Dar es Salaam in August 1976, the founding members of EATWOT declared: “Theology is not neutral. In a sense, all theology is committed, conditioned notably by the sociocultural context in which it is developed.”43 Years later in their search for self-identity, as they continued to make sense of the faith in the light of their various cultural contexts, Majority World Church theologians realized that the Christianity bequeathed to them by the Western missionaries did not speak to the cultural and religious experience of their people. The pluralism of proclamation Rahner predicted has become obvious, as Majority World Church theologians are resolved not to do theology by Western Christianity’s rules. The message is clear: theology always was, always is and always will be contextual.

The Imperative of Culture: Insight from Evangelii Gaudium The Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis on the new evangelization, Evangelii Gaudium (EG), characterizes the church as “a people of many faces.”44 It recognizes that each people of God possesses its own culture and that each serves as an avenue for the expression of the Good News; these cultures are transformed by the Good News and become how the 40

Ibid., 724. Ibid., 725. 42 Ibid., 726. 43 Irruption of the Third World, 33. 44 Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013; Maryland: The Word Among Us, press edition), 88, n.115. 41

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church manifests her genuine Catholicity as well.45 Diversity of cultures in the one church is not a threat to the unity of the church.46 The Pontiff reiterates: We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as mono-cultural and monotonous. While it is true that some cultures have been closely associated with the preaching of the Gospel and the development of Christian thought, the revealed message is not identified with any of them; its content is transcultural. Hence in the evangelization of new cultures, or cultures which have not received the Christian message, it is not essential to impose a specific cultural form, no matter how beautiful or ancient it may be, together with the Gospel. The message that we proclaim always has a certain cultural dress, but we in the Church can sometimes fall into a needless hallowing of our own culture, and thus show more fanaticism than true evangelizing zeal.47

Each people must express its faith in the light of its culture, lifestyle, mode of relationship to one another, to the environment, and to God.48 In a tone characteristic of EATWOT, of the Majority World Church, Evangelii Gaudium succinctly denounces the tendency to express the faith in the often-dominant Eurocentric Christian theological paradigm: We cannot demand that peoples of every continent, in expressing their Christian faith, imitate modes of expression which European nations developed at a particular moment of their history, because the faith cannot be constricted to the limits of understanding and expression of any one culture. It is an indisputable fact that no single culture can exhaust the mystery of our redemption in Christ.49

Evangeliii Gaudium is calling for a new way of being a church, a change of attitude towards one another as a church, a new form of relationship among the people of God as “a people of many faces.” Evangelii Gaudium is calling for a transition akin to Lonergan’s call for a movement from classicism to historical mindedness evident in his notion of culture.

45

Ibid., n.116. Ibid., n.117. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., n.115. 49 EG n.118. 46

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The Significance of Lonergan’s Notion of Culture Because of the empirical notion of culture, Lonergan defines theology not universally but particularly, as mediating between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of religion in that matrix. 50 The mutual selfmediation between religion and culture mutually transforms religion, theology, and culture. The Gospel evangelizes cultures and cultures transform the Christian faith. As Pope Francis states in Evangelii Gaudium, the human person is always in a culture, as nature and culture are intimately linked. 51 “Grace supposes culture, and God’s gift becomes flesh in the culture of those who receive it.”52 Down through the ages, people have always received the faith in the light of their cultures. This equally implies expressing and articulating the Christian faith in the language of their cultures.53 Therefore, one understands the grievances of the Majority World Church face to face with the Europeanized form of Christian faith presented as the norm for all cultures. As we saw earlier, they not only rejected it, they chose an alternative epistemology with a commitment to action rather than the abstract theology they were educated in. Cyril Orji’s explanation succinctly places their situation in context: The political independence of many of the African and Asian countries (as well as Latin America) came with some sweeping cultural changes. But the theological change that ought to accompany these cultural changes has, in some cases, been slow, tepid, or nonexistent. The longing for freedom, a political yearning of many of the colonized countries before independence, also has its theological dimension. Theology became a tool for interpreting the divine character of struggle for liberation when colonized people discovered that their search for political self-determination was in like manner a search for that biblical God who takes sides with the poor and oppressed. The old (colonial) theology could not address with specificity and clarity the problem of identity that plagued the colonized.54

Majority World Church theologians yearn for a transition from a classicist to an empirical notion of culture for world Christianity. In this

50

Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, 124. EG n.115. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 116. 54 Cyril Orji, A Semiotic Approach to the Theology of Inculturation (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2015), 126. 51

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yearning lies the significance of Lonergan’s notion of culture for Majority World Church and for global Christianity.

Conclusion: Ecclesiology for the World Church Flowing naturally from Lonergan’s empirical notion of culture is his recognition of historicity. This implies a change in the conception of the human person from “the classicist ahistorical notion of the human being as constituted by an immutable human nature” 55 to the apprehension of humans as “incarnate subject[s]”56 in history, as humans in the quest for meaning. The church as people of God will, therefore, be groups of incarnate human subjects who find meaning in the Good News in the light of their cultures, as “a concrete social reality constructed around the transformed intersubjectivity of concrete persons in the world.”57 As Paul Lakeland correctly states, this implies no struggle between the classicist and a more modern approach to being church, between Western Christianity and Christianity in Majority World Church, but a call to a paradigm change, akin to a change of heart—conversion, by which we think anew our ways of being church as people of God: The change of heart, however, is not to a liberal perspective rather than a conservative one; instead, it is to the historicist recognition that the meaning of the Church is negotiated anew in each age, in encounter with the age. Hence the significance of the shift from the static notion of a “perfect society” to the dynamism of the historical People of God. This ecclesiological insight makes attention to the age normative, but does not make the insights generated in a particular age normative. What caused the demise of the classical model was not its particular judgments, some of which were and remain valuable, but its denial of history. In tying itself to a particular age it tied the hands of the gospel and denied its “productive noncontemporaneity,” to use Metz’s ugly but insightful phrase.58

55 Ormond Rush, “Unresolved Tensions within Gaudium et Spes: Agenda for a Contemporary Christian Anthropology,” in Being Human: Groundwork for a Theological Anthropology for the 21st Century, ed. David G. Kirchhoffer with Robyn Horner and Patrick McArdle (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013), 44. 56 Bernard Lonergan, “Theology in its New Context,” A Second Collection, 61. 57 Joseph A. Komonchak, “Lonergan and the Tasks of Ecclesiology,” in Creativity and Method: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan, S.J., ed. Matthew L. Lamb (Milwaukee, MI: Marquette University Press, 1981), 273. 58 Paul Lakeland, “Lumen Gentium: The Unfinished Business,” New Blackfriars 90, no. 1026 (2009): 151–52.

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Alongside Lakeland’s other proposals in the article above, besides communio ecclesiology proposed by Vatican II, John Dadosky proposes “ecclesiology of friendship” as one that fosters the relationship between Western Christianity and Christianity in non-Western contexts by accounting for the differences in the church. 59 The self-mediating (communio) and mutually self-mediating (friendship) ecclesiologies flowing from Vatican II should characterize the relationship between Western Christianity and that of the Majority World Church. The latter’s refusal to do theology only in the Western style is not a rejection of the achievements of Western theology, which remain relevant. It rejects the imposition of this form and way of being Christian as normative to excluding their acceptance of the Good News in the light of their meaning-making processes (their cultures). Both churches (if I may so designate them) will grow by mutually selfmediating each other. There is actually no struggle for supremacy here. As aptly articulated by Walbert Buhlmann: “If in profane matters we are realizing more clearly the interdependence of all in the world, this is equally true of the Churches. They need one another: The Third needs the Second for support and the Second needs the Third for renewal.”60 The Majority World Church is not contending to becoming the next Christendom in the general classicist sense. Instead, as Andrew Walls notes, what we are experiencing as the demographic and geographic shift of Christianity to the Majority World Church has been a basic feature of the spread of Christianity down the ages. The attitudinal change needed by all Christians is the transition from classicist mentality to an empirical one that recognizes that contextualization is the backdrop of all theologizing. This very quest equally grounds the development of African theology.

59

John D. Dadosky, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Re-Interpretation of Vatican II,” The Heythrop Journal 49, no. 5 (2007): 749. 60 Walbert Buhlmann, The Coming of the Third Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976), 23.

CHAPTER THREE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICAN THEOLOGY

We believe that African theology must be understood in the context of African life and culture and the creative attempt of African peoples to shape a new future that is different from the colonial past and the neocolonial present. The African situation requires a new theological methodology that is different from the approaches of the dominant theologies of the West. African theology must reject, therefore, the prefabricated ideas of North Atlantic theology by defining itself according to the struggles of the people in their resistance against the structures of domination. Our task as theologians is to create a theology that arises from and is accountable to African people. —Final Communique, Pan-African Conference of Third World Theologians1

African theology should be understood in the light of the theologies of the Third World. The theme of liberation, emphasis on the God of the poor, and a new epistemological approach that sees the world as an ongoing project that involves humankind in transformation and construction of a new world, form recurring themes. Discernment, especially of the structures of evil and sin, is very important in the understanding of Christianity. There is a preference for praxis, faith, and theological reflection. Encounter with the Lord manifest in love and concern for others is better than mere intellectual assent to the Gospel. The new ecumenism of the Third World theology is less interested in doctrinal differences that divided the church. Instead, the focus is on working together to overcome poverty, ignorance, and disease rather than emphasizing differences. Finally, Third World theologies underline the importance of the social gospel and the transformation of the human condition. This, however, does not mean disregard for the love of God, in whom alone is salvation.

1 Kofi Appiah-Kubi and Sergio Torres, eds., African Theology En Route (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 11.

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Instead of bifurcation, there is unity between love of God and love of neighbor and concern for the people. The major focus of African theology is Christianity in African religiocultural structures in ways that the mission and ministry of Jesus will make sense to African Christians. It seeks to establish an African voice in Christianity. One will question whether an African voice is lacking, since many of the early great thinkers of the church were Africans, albeit northSaharan, Romanized/Hellenized: Augustine, Origen, and Tertullian come to mind. 2 Just like other Third World theologies, African theology emphasizes the contextuality of all theologies in opposition to theology as ideology propagated by the dominant classicist theology. It seeks to articulate the African response to the incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in ways relevant to Africans; within the context of African cultures, ethics, politics, social order, economy, health, etc. African theology is engaged in an ideological critique of the theology that cares little about the condition of Africans but interests itself with issues revolving around certain historical conditions of Europe and North America. African theology seeks to assert African voices and have theology address issues specific to Africans.

Church Presence in Africa: A Historical Analysis Writing the history of the church in Africa has often followed two trajectories: (1) Simple historiography, the reconstruction of the events that led to the establishment of the church in Africa. Unfortunately, most historiography is often ideological and fans the embers of ethnocentrisms by romanticizing the missionary activities in Africa in line with stereotypes arising from anthropologies constructed out of the fables of the past about Africa. Such historiography destroys the good works of missionaries as the participation of Africans and the African experience of the missionary activity are left behind. (2) A more productive historiography probes behind the events and takes cognizance of not only the missionary activities but also the African participation in them, and their impact. According to Ogbu Kalu, this approach rejects European Christianity as the starting point of African 2

Even though these are presented as Western theologians today because of the Latin form of North African Christianity, these African theologians laid the foundation of Western theology. See Jonathan Gichaara, “Issues in African Liberation Theology,” Black Theology 3, no. 1 (2005): 75–85.

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church history. 3 Africa and its cultures constitute the starting point. Romanticism is avoided in critical historiography. Neither the Christian missionary activity nor the African worldview is painted gloriously. The limitation of mission to Africa was the missionary superiority complex and a particular interpretation of the great commission as an imperative to spread the Good News to the peoples of the “Dark Continent.” The denigration of indigenous cultures and peoples will cost Christian missionary activity dearly, and eventually catalyze the rejection of Eurocentric culture spread as Christian culture. This in no way implies that the missionary activities failed. They were and to a large extent are responsible for the present growth of Christianity in the African continent. It also does not mean that missionaries were static in their approach to mission. However, they were limited by an underlying classicist mentality that robbed them of the broadmindedness necessary to interact much more positively with the African cultures. The missionary self-criticism did not go far enough. The result is not only denominational squabbles but the split in allegiance.4 Some of the educated elite identified with Christianity; others remained in the traditional religions while disputes and discontent led to the emergence of African independent churches that mix elements of African traditional religions and elements of Christian faith, doctrines, and practices in their own unique ways. The consequence is aptly articulated by Ogbu Kalu: “Christianity has spread enormously in Africa, but the resultant church is basically weak. Christianity must be traditionalized in African culture so that the dead wood in both will be destroyed and a new form can emerge.”5

Gradual Emergence of African Theology African theology gradually evolved even from the initial disputations about the essence of mission: whether it is implanting the church, establishing the church, or saving souls. The difficulty in both positions, summed up in saving the souls of peoples of the Dark Continent, betrays ignorance of culture and civilization among Africans owing to the oneculture mentality of the Eurocentric missionary mindset. Implantation gave rise to the establishment of the church according to a specific cultural model—European-North American. 3

Ogbu U. Kalu, “Church Presence in Africa: A Historical Analysis of the Evangelical Process,” in African Theology En Route, 14. 4 F. K. Ekechi, Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland, 1857–1914 (New York: Routledge, 1974). 5 Ibid., 21.

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The theology of adaptation seeks to correct the weaknesses of implantation by a modest encounter between the established church and African community. It is the attempt to apply Christian practice to African cultures and life. The weakness of adaptation is the presupposition of implanting the church, the Western church, into Africa. It does not allow for the emergence of an African church but presumes the reality of the one church, which has then to be made to fit into African community. Adaptation is indigenizing or nativizing the church to the cultures of the peoples. The people make no contribution to making the church. The structure of the church is set; the people only must fit into the structure and apply it to their cultures. This is opposed to the incarnation approach, whereby there is an attempt by converted Christians to live the Christian life in the light of their cultures. Christ is the key here (incarnation) and his message is lived out in diverse cultures and peoples. Incarnation is the precursor to inculturation theology; equal interculturation whereby Christianity and culture benefit and mutually enhance one another. Progress being made towards critical African theology is the recognition of the imperative of context in the formulation of all theology. Universal theology does not exist. The right and necessity of African theology are imperative. According to Ngindu Mushete: “such a theology would not necessarily be based on Greek philosophy and its confreres. It would accept and value the cultural and religious experience of the African peoples, and it would attempt to reply to the questions raised by African society and its contemporary development.”6

Origins and Development of African Theology As expected, there are various accounts of the origins of African Theology. Gabriel M. Setiloane (Botswana) traces African Theology to the World Council of Churches’ meeting on mission and evangelism at Bangkok in 1972. 7 At the conference, the demand by the All African 6 Ngindu Mushete, “The History of Theology in Africa: From Polemics to Cultural Irenics,” in African Theology En Route, 30. 7 Gabriel M. Setiloane, “Where Are We in African Theology,” in African Theology En Route, 59. It is important to note that several meetings and conferences on the theme of African Christian theological thought had been taking place at various places in Africa. The publication of the anthology Des Pretres Nois S’interrogent by African priests, the various conferences sponsored by the group Presence Africaine, the 1969 All African Conference of Churches at the University of Ibadan, the efforts of the Catholic Theology Faculty of Kinshasa between 1957 and 1977, etc., in various ways laid the foundation for African theology. Cf. Bishop T.

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Conference of Churches for a moratorium on foreign assistance for selfreliance raised dust and shock in European partner churches. A more comprehensive treatment is found in Gwinyai H. Muzorewa’s The Origins and Development of African Theology. 8 Muzorewa attributes the term African Theology to Fueter, who first used it in 1956. 9 However, the origin of African Theology is connected to the wider Pan-Africanism movement traced to W. E. B. DuBois in North America. Pan-Africanism engendered the black consciousness movement that enables Africans to appreciate the black race and led to various nationalist movements that brought down colonialism in most of Africa. African nationalism is the catalyst of African theology. This is because Christians demanded African leadership of churches simultaneously as the nationalist leaders were agitating for political independence from colonialism. 10 Muzorewa contends that “African nationalism provides a general context within which theology is being done, for the central theme of nationalism gave rise to the spirit of African theology in the 1950s. African nationalism has also provided a framework within which the church in Africa has developed not only structurally but also politically.”11 The All African Conference of Churches (AACC) conference in 1963 marked the official beginning of African theology. 12 The AACC conference in Kampala envisioned African Theology as biblical theology because of the recognition of the place of scripture in African Christian faith and practice. It also sought a theology that will relate to the life and culture of Africans drawn from the texts of the Old and New Testaments, and from the African traditional religions. AACC’s desire for selfhood led to the convocation of theologians to articulate specific African theology. The 1966 symposium of theologians in Ibadan was on the theme Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs. In the introduction to the book, Bolaji Idowu lays out what can be the overriding concern of African theology:

Tshibangu, “The Task of African Theologians,” in African Theology En Route, 73– 74. 8 Gwinyai H. Muzorewa, The Origins and Development of African Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987; republished in Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000). 9 Ibid., 3. 10 Joseph Ogbonnaya, “African Liberative Theologies,” in Introducing Liberative Theologies, ed. Miguel A. De La Torre (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015), 26– 46. 11 Muzorewa, The Origins and Development of African Theology, 51. 12 Ibid., 57.

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Chapter Three The main theme before us in this symposium is “Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs.” Thus, we set ourselves the task of finding an answer to the delicate question of whether there is any correlation between the Biblical concept of God and the African concept of God, between what God has done and is doing according to Biblical record and teaching and what God has done and is doing in Africa according to African traditional beliefs. We seek to find Biblical answers to the spiritual yearnings of the hearts of Africans, what Christianity offers as the satisfaction to the urge in them towards true personal maturity and selfhood, and a corporate personality. We seek in effect, to discover in what way the Christian faith could best be presented, interpreted, and inculcated in Africa so that Africans will hear God in Jesus Christ addressing Himself immediately to them in their own native situation and particular circumstances.13

If Idowu’s assertion above holds true for African Christian theology, obviously it differs from the Western and Eastern Christian theologies. We then ask, what are the sources of African theology, what raw materials does it draw upon or consider in reflecting on the Christian faith.

Sources of African Theology 1 African Cosmology African cosmology is cyclical, based on the agricultural planting and harvesting season. It is a tripartite interdependent world, in which the Supreme Being and the major divinities inhabit the sky; patron gods or nature spirits, like mother earth, inhabit the earth. The ancestral spirits live in the underworld, otherwise called the spirit world. In addition, there also are evil spirits inhabiting the spirit world. As Stephen N. Ezeanya explains, “In the world of spirits, Africans distinguish four main categories of spiritual beings: the Supreme God, a multitude of lesser divinities and spirits, the ancestral spirits, and evil spirits.”14 Evil spirits comprise people who died in bad ways, like of dreadful disease or by accident, or who were not given proper burials; or even generic evil spirits that roam the world. The presence of evil spirits makes life on earth precarious. The sacrifices placated or harnessed the positive forces of the good spirits against the evil spirits. Also, people consult diviners and fortune tellers to be free of the witches and wizards arising 13

Bolaji Idowu, “Introduction,” in Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs, ed. Kwesi Dickson and Paul Ellingworth. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1969), 16. 14 Stephen N. Ezeanya, “Gods, Spirits and the Spirit World,” in Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs, 35.

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from the activities of the evil spirits. Spirits are so influential in African cosmology that the social order and festivities celebrate the visitation of spirits to the human world. Most diseases are attributed to the spirits. Prayers in various forms of rites and rituals and sacrifices are included in the healing process in treatment of any disease. Understanding African cosmology implies an understanding of African traditional religions as sources of African Christianity. A theology of inculturation takes traditional African religions and cultures seriously as sources of theology. African traditional religions provide theology with the concepts of God, anthropology, and morality (ethics). Africae Munus of the Second African Synod (2009) recommends the expert study of African traditional religion as beneficial for incarnating the Christian faith in Africa.15 Mercy Amba Oduyoye’s counsel is instructive: African religious beliefs and practices have provided, and continue to provide, Africa with a philosophical fountainhead for the individual’s life and for the ordering of society. African traditional religion emphasizes the common origin of all humanity. It is the source from which a person’s sense of dignity and responsibility flow. The search for security invariably begins here and for many it is also the last resort. Far from being redundant or anachronistic, African religious beliefs and practices have shown such a remarkable ability for staying relevant that Africans have a responsibility to share their basic tenets with the rest of humanity.16

Finally, the African world is a communitarian world, where the community is very important over and above the individual. Compared with the Eurocentric world view Africa faced during colonialism and missionary activities, there is not only conflict in cosmology but also conflict in the value system. Whole new societies emerged torpedoing the traditional societies, and upsetting not only the social order but also the

15 Africae Munus no. 92. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhor tations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20111119_africae-munus.html. (Subsequently, AM). Some prominent works on African traditional religions include: Bolaji Idowu, African Traditional Religion (Norwich: SCM-Canterbury Press, 1974); John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2015); John S. Mbiti, African Religions & Philosophy, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1990); Jacob Olukpona, African Traditional Religions in Contemporary Society (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1988); Aloysius Muzzanganda Lugira, African Traditional Religion, 3rd ed. (New York: Chelsea House, 2009). 16 Mercy Amba Oduyoye, “The Value of African Religious Beliefs and Practices for Christian Theology,” in African Theology En Route, 115.

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health care and religious functionaries as a new priesthood emerged over the medicine men whose gods are in retreat.

2 The Bible Even though Christians accept the Bible as the Word of God, its interpretation is influenced by a variety of worldviews. As R. S. Sugirtharajah informs us: “Western biblical scholarship over the last four hundred years has been challenged and compromised by the impact of the values of the Protestant Reformation and by the effects of the Enlightenment in defining and shaping the discipline.”17 While the dominant tendency in the churches of the global North is a liberal and contemporaneous reading of the Bible (the historical-critical method), most churches of the global South are much more conservative. Philip Jenkins aptly describes reading the Bible in Asia and Africa as opposed to Europe and North America: These include a much greater respect for the authority of scripture, especially in matters of morality; a willingness to accept the Bible as an inspired text and a tendency to literalism; a special interest in supernatural elements of scripture, such as miracles, visions, and healings; a belief in the continuing power of prophecy; and a veneration for the Old Testament, which is considered as authoritative as the New.18

The Final Communique of the Pan-African Conference of Third World Theologians states: “The Bible is the basic source of African theology because it is the primary witness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. No theology can retain its Christian identity apart from Scripture.” 19 Mbiti shows the importance of the Bible for African theology through a literature review of African scripture scholars. The Bible is used in preaching, connecting it to African heritage and contemporary life. It is also used for exhortation on ethical life. Various themes like sin, salvation, liberation, etc. are grounded in the Bible.20 In another article, Mbiti links the Bible strongly to Africa as some events in the Bible took place in Africa. He also alludes to the similarity between African culture and the 17

R. S. Sugirtharajah, Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 67. 18 Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4. 19 Final Communique, Pan-African Conference of Third World Theologians, in African Theology En Route, 81. 20 John Mbiti, “The Biblical Basis for Present Trends in African Theology,” in African Theology En Route, 83–94.

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Biblical culture of the Hebrews. The Bible resonates with Africans easily.21 N. J. Goreham agrees: “In reading the Bible, the African encounters a civilization which marches to the same rhythm as his own. The Old Testament, in particular, offers him unusual attraction in its narratives, its concrete character, and its powerful imagery.”22 This is especially more so with the Old Testament where scholars have acknowledged continuity with African life and thought.23

My Bible Tells Me So: Approaches to the Bible in Africa There are two major approaches to reading the Bible in Africa. First, there is the grassroots ordinary people’s reading (peripheral reading) that considers the Bible as the Word of God alive and active, enough as a guide for moral life and instruction on ways of day-to-day living in society. Even though written in different cultural contexts, biblical cosmology resembles African cosmology. The Bible is meaningful to ordinary people, including the unlettered, who read through biblical stories learnt in various bible instruction centers in various churches. While such reading could become fundamentalist and literal, ordinary reading of the Bible equally can distinguish direct commands and metaphors in the Bible. It is critical as 21

John Mbiti, “The Bible in African Culture,” in Paths of African Theology, ed. Rosino Gibellini (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 27–39. 22 N. J. Goreham, “Towards an African Theology,” Expository Times 86, no. 8 (1975), 234. 23 Kwesi Dickson, “Continuity and Discontinuity between the Old Testament and African Life and Thought,” in African Theology En Route, 95–108. Further on the use of the Bible in Africa, see: Ernest M Ezeogu, “Bible and Culture in African Christianity,” International Review of Mission LXXXVII.344 (1998): 25–38; Justin S. Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa,” Journal of Theology for South Africa 18 (2000): 3-18; Jeremy Punt, “The Bible, Its Status and African Christian Theologies: Foundational Document or Stumbling Block?” Religion and Theology 5, no. 3 (1998): 265–310; Nancy Haisey, “The Influence of African Scholars on Biblical Studies,” Journal of Theology for South Africa 101 (1998): 35–48; Gerald West, “The Bible as Bola: Among the Foundations of Africa’s Biblical Apprehensions,” Journal of Theology for South Africa 112 (2002): 23–37; Gerald West and Musa Dube, eds., The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Musa W Dube, Andrew M Mbuvi, and Dora R. Mbuwayesango, eds., Postcolonial Perspectives in African Biblical Interpretations (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013); Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Cape Town (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002).

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well; “they use their social-cultural resources as critical tools of reading.”24 Ordinary African readers include the poor, the marginalized, nonbiblical experts and ordinary African women who seek to make sense of the Bible in the search for solutions to the patriarchal society corroborated by the Bible. Most theologies—of African women, South African Black Theology, African Theology, Reconstruction Theology—all admit to ordinary Africans as their primary dialogue partner in theologizing and in reading the Bible. Ordinary African Christians, through their participation in African theologies, come to play an important role in African biblical scholarship.25 Ordinary African reading of the Bible is informed by the African grassroots experience, by their engagement with “life issues— such as AIDS, malaria, unemployment, hunger, etc.—of local African communities than they are by the interpretative interests of the scholarly community.”26 It is obvious, therefore, that despite the absolutization of the Bible as equal to the Word of God, ordinary Africans are equally selective and pragmatic in their use of the Bible to enhance rather than frustrate their life struggles. Ordinary readers provide the context for the academic reading of the Bible. The second approach to the Bible is the scholarly reading of the Bible by those trained in various Bible schools, seminaries and universities. Scholarly reading of the Bible is much more critical than the ordinary reading of the Bible. Through exegetical methods, African biblical scholars read the Bible in the light of African contexts to relate it to the grassroots experience of Africans. As Ukpong explains: Put differently, a protest movement is taking place for the reorientation of biblical interpretation within the academy. At bottom, it is about reclaiming the status of the Bible as word of God and classic, a guide to moral and spiritual life as well as ancient literature worth attention beyond its time.27

Scholarly reading of the Bible based on African contexts gives rise to various hermeneutical readings: contextual bible study (Gerald West), 24

Justin S. Ukpong, “Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village ed. Justin S. Ukpong, et al. (Cape Town, South Africa: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 22. 25 Gerald O. West, “Unpacking the Package That Is the Bible in African Biblical Scholarship,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village, 73. 26 Ibid., 71. 27 Ukpong, “Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings,” 10.

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feminist hermeneutics (Musa Dube), inculturation hermeneutics (Justin Ukpong) and liberation hermeneutics. Inculturation hermeneutics tries to bridge the gap between ordinary people’s reading of the bible and the academic reading using the cultural context of the people as a tool of biblical analysis. The dialogue in inculturation hermeneutics is the original meaning of the text and its meaning for the African context. The liberative trajectory of African biblical hermeneutics popularized by the Institute for the Study of the Bible South Africa “highlights the engagement and exchange between socially engaged (mainly black organic) biblical scholars and theologians and the importance of “the approach, the perspectives and concerns of the ordinary African readers of the Bible” 28 “The goal is social-cultural transformation focusing on a variety of human situations and issues”29

Relationship between Academic and Ordinary Readings The Bible remains for Africans generally the Word of God. It is one of their sources of theology and principally their primary source for interpreting their lives. The proliferation of churches and denominations with their central focus on the Bible as a guide for the conduct of life deepens the African reading of the Bible for moral and virtuous living. In various churches and denominations, reading of the Bible is not so much based on the academic historical and critical exegetical approach or literary form. Bible passages are read in the light of diverse contexts, especially African religio-cultural worldviews as guidelines and prescriptions for solving problems and directing moral actions. However, reading the Bible literally might give rise to fundamentalism on the one hand and false worship on the other. Non-literate reading of the Bible, while beneficial in the sense of promoting orality, is not helpful in the final analysis because the background of the text is not appreciated. The text is often misunderstood and misinterpreted as a rejection of African culture. This breeds intolerance, justified by referencing Jesus’s words that the Gospel should bring division in the family and society. Common in most African Christianity today is a quest for miracles, where attention is shifted from the true worship of God to hero worship of the 28

West, “Unpacking the Package That Is the Bible in African Biblical Scholarship,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village, 71. 29 Ukpong, “Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings,” 12.

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organizers of the healing services and prayer centers. Several forms of false worship abound, which are not noticed because the first commandment is not textually read and applied to its true purpose: true worship of God. The major issue at stake is one of cross-cultural engagement of the Bible with traditional African local cultures. Inability to reconcile both often leads to a negative interpretation of African culture and traditional ethics as pagan. The Bible is not holistically appropriated, resulting in tensions in individual and communal lives. Righteousness then comprises a verbal citation of biblical passages with superficial application to virtuous life. Cross-cultural ethical reading of the Bible is achieved by affirming postcolonial ethical study of the Bible as a hermeneutical method. First, as a discipline, postcolonial criticism is diverse because of the various sources like cultural studies it draws from. Second, it places biblical studies in a non-missionary and less apologetical context. Third, postcolonial biblical criticism helps situate biblical interpretation. Both can address identity-related issues. It also reads the Bible critically, deciphering varied forms of ideological interpretation of the Bible that favor colonial interests. Fourth, it remembers that both Jesus and Paul had experienced colonialism. It [postcolonial reading] reads the texts while remembering the historical contexts intersecting them. For example, application of the text of the commandments to pastoral situations brings out the rich meaning of the Decalogue for contemporary society. Each commandment is interpreted as having social and communal aspects, which is important not only for the broader society but in line with the communitarian social structure of most societies of the Third World. African reading of the Bible will benefit from this approach. It agrees with the African reading of the Bible as a text for character formation and growth in virtues. Africans look to the Bible to form their moral lives individually and as a specifically Christian community. The Bible contains not only examples of virtues but also provides exemplars in personalities whose lives testify to the heroic virtues expected of Christians. As the work of the Asian theologian Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan shows, biblical ethical virtues can be found in other cultures. Chan leads in cross-cultural theological studies. His interest as a Catholic theological ethicist “who also engages in cross-cultural dialogue within a Confucian context”30 is a pointer to the need for African moral .

30

Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan, The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes: Biblical Studies and Ethics for Real Life (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), 115.

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theologians to engage in cross-cultural dialogue in African traditional religious contexts. Chan is engaged in a cross-cultural understanding of virtue ethics that is open to the possibility of comparing theologically infused virtues with their corollaries in other religions. He asks: “Is it possible to find virtues in non-Christian communities comparable with infused theological virtues?” He responds: “Here we face the same issue that is found in the question of cultural contextualization … Although the virtues emerging from Scripture are the result of Christian faith and have God’s assistance as their source, they can still be engaged cross-culturally with non-Christian societies.”31 His Biblical Ethics in the 21st Century32 continues a similar theme. So his approach to biblical ethics is limited not only to Europe and North America but also extends to the world church.

Forms of Theology in Sub-Saharan Africa Perhaps theology in Black Africa has taken the form of either African Theology (with a focus on culture) or Black Theology of South Africa, concerned with liberation from the apartheid regime. But if this becomes the final word, one risks bypassing the theology of African traditional religion, African women’s theology, and the theology of the African independent churches. Because theology in Africa emerges out of the nationalist quest for freedom and Africanness, it is not mistaken to say that African theology is liberative. The primary source of traditional African theology, African Traditional Religion (ATR), is African traditional thought and culture that is religious. African Traditional Religion is a complete religion that supports the organization of African life and society prior to the introduction of other religions, like Islam and Christianity, into Africa. Characteristically, ATR is very accommodating and hospitable. It permeates African life structures and is often the last resort for Christians and Muslims as well when faced with the riddles of life. African Theology, or the theology of inculturation, emanates from reflection on theology and culture. Its basic demand is the cross-cultural encounter of Christianity and African culture. It agitates against imposing Western cultural forms as Christianity in Africa. It foresees the potential artificiality of such Christianity and the foreignness of Western Christianity in Africa, and supports a brand of being Christian that allows 31

Ibid., 14. Lucas Chan, S.J., Biblical Ethics in the 21st Century: Developments, Emerging Consensus, and Future Directions (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2013), 4.

32

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Africans to be Africans. As aptly articulated by Idowu: “It has become increasingly clear, and disturbingly so, that the Church has been speaking in Africa and to Africans in strange or partially understood tongues.”33 According to Idowu, the consequence is disastrous: There is no doubt that the urgent predicament of the Church in Africa today is that of the apparent foreignness of Christianity. And this, as we have pointed out, has resulted from the erroneous notion with which evangelism was bedeviled from the start. By a miscarriage of purpose the Church has succeeded in preaching to, and in teaching Africans about a strange God whom they have somehow come to identify as the God of the white man. But what has happened to the God as known to their forebears—the God who is the foundation of their traditional beliefs? He remains still with them. And so we have left them with two Gods in their hands, and thus made of them peoples of ambivalent spiritual lives.34

Black Theology of South Africa is the theology that arose in response to the apartheid regime of South Africa. It benefits from the Black Theology of the United States. Since the demise of apartheid and the emergence of majority rule in 1994, the tension between African Theology of inculturation and Black Theology of South Africa is no longer prevalent. We can speak of African Theology, remembering the different nuances in different African countries of the theology that seeks to make Christianity relevant to the cultural, political, economic, social, religious, and personal and environmental needs of African peoples. The significance of Black Theology to African theological experience remains indispensable. Black Theology of South Africa, just like Majority World Church theology, is contextual theology, taking seriously the historical situation in theologizing. It is an instance of the positive influence of a North American theology in developing an aspect of African Theology, a development that foreshadows the significance of Lonergan’s theology for African Theology. It equally validates cross-cultural currents in theology and intercultural collaboration in theology. This is our concern in the next chapter.

33 34

Bolaji Idowu, “Introduction,” in Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs, 9. Ibid., 13.

CHAPTER FOUR THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLACK THEOLOGY TO AFRICAN LIBERATIVE THEOLOGIES

Black Theology of South Africa was instrumental for freedom from apartheid. However, the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the election of a democratic black majority government in 1994 gives the impression that Black Theology is no longer needed in South Africa, without thinking of drawing lessons from the riches of its spirituality for liberation theology in other parts of Africa. The tendency has been to think of African Theology in evolutionary terms, as constantly changing according to the socio-economic and political exigencies of Africa. Some authors think of African Theology as progressing from inculturation, liberation, and black theologies. These formerly prominent theologies in Africa, the authors argue, have been replaced. They think to be preferred now is a reconciliation and/or reconstruction theology that facilitates peace and justice among people recovering from violence and war, besides reconstructing African nations emerging from political independence.1 The reason for this position is not far-fetched. Black Theology’s concentration on race, especially against “racist America” where various forms of white privilege and supremacist ideologies undergird the social structure benefiting people of white skin color over other minorities, appears not to be the focus in an Africa dominated by black people. According to the argument, not racism but ethnicity is the problem in most of Africa and therefore Black Theology appears to be irrelevant to the subSaharan African peoples. This may not be true, as the case of Darfur in Sudan indicates the racial tension between Arab (fair-skinned) Africans and the darker peoples of Fur. Racism equally appears in diverse ways, albeit mentally, as the elite adopt the attitudes of the colonial masters in the treatment and handling of fellow Africans whom they govern. The 1

See Julius Mutugi Gathogo, “A Survey on an African Theology of Reconstruction (ATOR),” Swedish Missiological Themes 95, no. 2 (2007) 124–48; J. J. Carney, “Roads to Reconciliation: An Emerging Paradigm of African Theology,” Modern Theology 26, no. 4 (2010): 549–69.

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dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa has not brought an end to racial tensions. The question remains: is Black Theology now irrelevant in Africa? If not, of what relevance is it for continuing the quest for the liberation of African peoples? Instead of doing liberation theology only, given Latin American liberation theology, should not African liberation theology draw from the experiences of liberty from the creative genius of Black Theology in South Africa, learned from embracing the Black Theology of America? Sub-Saharan Africa needs to stand up against various structures of sin arising from misrule, degradation, and exploitation that subjugate them. This implies being free religiously, economically, politically, psychologically, sexually, and culturally. African peoples must shake off the stereotypical patronizing attitude towards Africans as people who constantly need help and as a dependent race. Such an attitude is a characteristic of racism. Black Theology of America was instrumental in the formation of movements that led to the freedom of South Africa.2 In the same way, the spirit of those movements must be transferred to other parts of Africa, towards the healing of the anthropological poverty of Africans. This, I hope, will strengthen the civil society to demand changes in the unjust structures of governance that keep Africans poor. Unfortunately, however, just as white Catholic theology omitted and ignored Black Theology, theology in most of sub-Saharan Africa equally omits and ignores Black Theology. As already noted, African Theology is engaged in an ideological war with Black Theology, which it erroneously interprets as too political and violent and therefore unchristian. The theology of inculturation was preferred, as if one can do any meaningful inculturation without engaging the socio-economic and political ambience of a people’s cultural life. In the same way, some proponents of Black Theology of South Africa dismissed the theology of inculturation as theology arising from colonial-inspired ethnographic studies and therefore not of any use in the struggle for the liberation of South Africans from the apartheid regime. For example, Manas Buthelezi thinks African Theology diverges completely from Black Theology of South Africa because it is not concerned with politics and the liberation of people.3 Desmond Tutu, while agreeing with Buthelezi, thinks both form part of the one African Theology that is multi-faceted. An alternative paradigm, akin to Tutu’s 2

Mokgethi Motlhabi, “Phases of Black Theology in South Africa: A Historical Review,” Religion and Theology 16 (2009): 162–80. 3 Manas Buthelezi, “Toward Indigenous Theology in South Africa,” in Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader, ed. Deane William Ferm (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 205–21.

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position above, is needed to harmonize the relationship between the dominant liberative theologies in Africa: inculturation and liberation (black) theologies. To do this, we must understand the Black Theology of the United States, its influence on Black Theology in South Africa, and implications for African liberative theologies.

Black Theology of the United States James Cone’s article “God and Suffering: Calling the Oppressors to Account”4 sums up the emergence of Black Theology against the centuries of oppression of Black people in America, dating to their enslavement. This theology passes through the contours of diverse responses to the dehumanization of Blacks: the dialectics of accommodation and fight for freedom; the choice between achieving equal rights for Blacks in America nonviolently or violently. The former is represented in Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violent civil rights demonstrations and the latter in the open rejection of racism and white racist manipulations and supremacy that gave rise to the emergence of Black Power movements and Black Theology of America. Cone, the foremost representative of the latter approach to Black Theology, succinctly describes Black power in his widely-read books as furthering the emancipation of Blacks. According to him: “Black power means black freedom, black self-determination, wherein black people no longer view themselves as without human dignity but as men, human beings with the ability to carve out their own destiny.”5 Black power seeks to recover one thing: the dignity of Blacks as humans in equal terms no less than Whites. It is a restatement of the fact that they are not subhuman or inferior or lazy. It means Blacks must not retreat and accept their inhuman situation as inferior, but struggle to showcase their freedom and equality as humans. Cone asserts: “In reality, then, accommodation or protest seems to be the only option for the black man. For three hundred years he accommodated, thereby giving credence to his own enslavement.”6 To accommodate means Blacks must remain in perpetual bondage, waiting for the love of the White man to be extended to them. He must protest if he wants to be free; to hold her own, to live like a human. Protest enables her to recognize the difference between theoretical equality and equality in practice, where she takes her place in the 4

James H. Cone, “God and Suffering: Calling the Oppressors to Account,” Anglican Theological Review 90, no. 4 (2008): 701–12. 5 James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 6. 6 Ibid., 26.

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community of nations as an equal human. “Black Power means that black people will cease trying to articulate rationally the political advantages and moral rightness of human freedom, since the dignity of man is a selfevident religious, philosophical, and political truth, without which human community is impossible.”7 Black Theology emerges within the context of the Black Power movement as Black people openly reject the racism inherent in the White church. According to Cone: Black liberation theology emerged out of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements as Black ministers and theologians sought to reconcile blackness with the gospel in a world where the public meaning of Christianity was identified with whiteness. Is Christianity a White religion as Malcolm X claimed and as Black invisibility in White theology suggested? If authentic Christianity is not alien to blackness, how do we demonstrate that theologically in a religious environment where Black is associated with the devil and White with the angels? If the true gospel of Jesus affirms the liberative presence of blackness and identifies whiteness as a symbol of the demonic, what is the theological status of White churches? Can churches and theologies be racist and Christian at the same time? These questions initiated the development of Black liberation theology.8

Black liberation theology creatively develops a new way of theologizing based on the praxis of Black people suffering exclusion, oppression, and marginalization in a country where they are segregated based on the color of their skin. Black Theology is not fooled by the claim of theology to be universal arising from the eternal and unbroken Christian tradition, the Gospel of Jesus Christ applicable to all peoples and all times. Instead, Black Theology of liberation, through analysis of the social structure of America enmeshed in inequality against Blacks and White privilege, emphasizes the particularity and contextuality of theologizing including the Christian traditions. And so, theology begins by reflecting upon and addressing the evil of racism, as one cannot be a Christian and a racist simultaneously. In response to his critics, especially White theologians who felt he was too influenced by Malcom X and Black Power challenging his interpretation of biblical faith and Black religion, Cone in God of the Oppressed “sought to deepen [his] conviction that the God of biblical faith and black religion is best known as the Liberator of the

7

Ibid. James H. Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” Theological Studies 61 (2000): 732.

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oppressed from bondage.” 9 Cone emphasizes, to the surprise of the dominant classical theology, the contextual nature of all theologizing saying that “theology is always done for particular times and places and addressed to a specific audience.”10 In the light of God’s historical role of being on the side of the oppressed, Cone indigenized Jesus as black literally and symbolically. Jesus is black literally because he identifies with the marginalized Black people of America, becoming one with them, not just culturally and because of the psychological need of Black people, but because it is only within the context of Christ becoming one with the oppressed that God’s revelation will be meaningful to the suffering of Black people as they endure various forms of humiliation and pain, including the terror of extrajudicial killing (lynching) and murder of thousands of blacks in various American cities in the consciousness that Christ is with Blacks as they undergo these torturous experiences. Cone writes: The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other … the lynching tree frees the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. When we see the crucifixion as a first-century lynching, we are confronted by the reenactment of Christ’s suffering in the blood-soaked history of African Americans… Yet the lynching tree also needs the cross, without which it becomes simply an abomination. It is the cross that points in the direction of hope, the confidence that there is a dimension to life beyond the reach of the oppressor.11

Little wonder that in their suffering, Blacks composed and sang the spirituals in which they testify against slavery and pray to God, who alone has the power to liberate them. From their experiences of suffering, the slaves identified with Jesus’s suffering. The Christian faith makes sense to them. Shawn Copeland’s apt description captures the dynamics well: “The enslaved folk knew what it meant to suffer, and in Jesus’s suffering and death they recognized their own experience.”12 Cone’s point is that since God identifies with the poor, any theology that fails to consider the condition of the oppressed Black people is not 9

James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), ix. James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), xxi; God of the Oppressed, 126. 11 James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 161. 12 Shawn Copeland, “The Black Jesus of Detroit: Reflections on Black Power and the (White) American Christ,” in Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do? ed. George Yancy (London: Routledge, 2012), 184. 10

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theological. He explains: “My point is that God came, and continues to come, to those who are poor and helpless, for the purpose of setting them free. And since the people of color are his elected poor in America, any interpretation of God that ignores black oppression cannot be Christian theology.” 13 Black Theology emerges from the realization of God’s abiding liberative presence in the lives of enslaved Blacks in America. The need to replace the “White” god on the side of their oppressors (as the Blacks had been indoctrinated to believe God is on the side of their masters and they have only to be obedient) makes it imperative to formulate the hermeneutic language of the Black God that agrees with the experience of Black Americans. According to Diana L. Hayes, To speak the truth from the Black perspective is to return to the sources of Black theology: the Black experience as expressed and witnessed in the history and culture of an oppressed but undefeated people. It is to return to the symbols that have arisen from that experience: God the Omnipresent Father who has revealed love for the oppressed in the Incarnation of the Son, Jesus Christ, and in his acts of liberation throughout human history.14

Black Theology finds a home in various African American churches, including the Catholic Church. While calling for the practice of communion ecclesiology by which the church is a community, Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., describes the racism in Christian churches resulting in the relegation of Blacks to the back pews of the church and the neglect of Blacks in Catholic churches, including utter disregard of Black liberation theology of America, while the Catholic Church in America embraces Latin American liberation theology and its preferential option for the poor. 15 Although Black Protestant Christians formed Black Christian churches, Black Catholics resisted the formation of separate parishes but instead formed organizations to promote the values of their communities [and through these], “combated the mistreatment of Blacks within Church and society. Finally, they struggled for inclusion by active participation within the mission and ministries of the Church as religious women, ordained men, and active laity.”16

13

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 126. Diana L. Hayes, “James Cone's Hermeneutic of Language and Black Theology,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000), 622. 15 Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., “Communion Ecclesiology and Black Liberation Theology,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 672–99. 16 Ibid., 680. 14

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Black Catholic Theology At issue for Black Theology is the lack of critical assessment of racism in the structure of American society. Even religious institutions like Christianity fail to provide leadership, to point society in the right direction towards uprooting racism from the fabric of American society. Acknowledgement of this omission by the foremost Catholic theological journal in North America led Theological Studies to dedicate its 2000 edition to race in America. As the editor of the journal, Michael A. Fahey, confessed: “After long silence, Theological Studies has begun to make amends for its shameful avoidance of the evil of racism in the United States.”17 Scholarly articles from leading African American theologians in this special edition of the journal prove not only the early existence of Black Catholic communities but also the trials and triumphs of Black Catholic theology. Cyprian Davis, the renowned African American church historian, confirms the existence of Black Catholic theology alongside Black Theology. Davis notes the racial prejudice against people of color, especially Blacks, in the Catholic Church and the attempts by Black Catholic communities to address that through congresses.18 According to Copeland, The congresses discussed political and economic, social and religious issues of national and international scope: civil rights at home, the abolition of slavery in Brazil, the back to Africa movement, just and equal treatment in church and society. There were repeated calls for an end to discrimination in the building trades, the rental and sale of housing, employment, and trade union and labor practices. They advocated for increased opportunities for cultural development, manual training, and education in all disciplines of learning and at all levels.19

These congresses set forth the outline of Black Catholic theology: being Black and fully Catholic. As Davis notes, “One aspect, in particular, is that sense of being conformed to Christ—we have become brothers and sisters with Jesus Christ.” 20 Cone, however, challenges Black Catholic 17

Michael A. Fahey, “From the Editor’s Desk,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 5. 18 Cyprian Davis, O.S.B, “Black Catholic Theology: A Historical Perspective,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 660–62. 19 Shawn Copeland, “Tradition and the Traditions of African American Catholicism,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 638. 20 Ibid., 662.

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theologians to do more to protest against the Christian tradition as inherently White and therefore basically negative about the blackness of Black theology.21 Cone is irked by the conspiracy of silence of White theologians in the face of racism. He observes this to be the case equally in the Catholic Church, and wonders what is wrong with the Catholic idea of justice for the poor that makes it pay less attention to issues of racism in America, while focusing attention on poverty in other parts of the world. 22 This silence, Cone notes, has been a pattern and indirectly an endorsement of the White supremacist stance that perpetuates oppression, enslavement, and ethnocentrism.23 While the U.S. Catholic episcopal conference had issued a pastoral letter on racism and various regional bishops and dioceses had equally written on racism, Bryan Massingale’s study of these documents over a period of a decade uncovers the absence of “an examination or critique of the underlying cultural beliefs or myths that facilitate, engender, and legitimate racial bias.” 24 Although racism is embedded in the very structure of American society, and discussions about it “engage us at a gut level, stirring up fears and anxieties of which we are often unaware,”25 Massingale observes that except for a few of the American bishops (two out of the many he studied), the official attitude of the Catholic Church in America towards racism fails to emphasize the institutional nature of racism that pervades the ethos (structural and systemic) of American society, limiting it to personal sin or failure of individual Americans to appreciate cultural diversity. Massingale contends, “The U.S. bishops’ teaching is far more willing to condemn racism when it’s a matter of blatant acts of prejudice or discrimination perpetrated by an individual or group of individuals … It’s much more reticent in critiquing a social system that perpetrates racial inequality on automatic pilot.” 26 Such 21

James H. Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 731–47. 22 James H. Cone, “A Theological Challenge to the American Catholic Church,” cited in Bryan N. Massingale, “James Cone and Recent Catholic Episcopal Teaching On Racism,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 700. 23 James H. Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000), 732. 24 Ibid., 706. 25 Bryan N. Massingale, “Race, Racism Engage us at Gut Level,” National Catholic Reporter, April 4, 2008, 5. 26 Bryan N. Massingale, “Are You A Social Sinner?” U.S. Catholic—February 2005, 21.

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teaching, Massingale asserts, “is superficial in its social analysis of racism; deficient in its theological interpretation of racism’s sinfulness; naïve in its reliance upon moral suasion; blind to its own deep complicity in the ideology of White supremacy; and unconscious of how the Church's bondage to the culture of White supremacy compromises its teaching and identity.”27 The inability of American society to notice how racism is embedded in the structure of the society is because over time racism has become internalized into the American ethos in such a way it becomes almost the normal course of life. White supremacists, in Jon Nilson’s words, “create and maintain the illusion of whiteness not just as skin color, but as the way of life that constitutes the standard for humanity at its best.” 28 As Massingale reminds us, America suffers from “unconscious racism.” 29 This is a situation whereby “whiteness”—body, art, music, culture, etc., is taken for granted as American, as “Catholic.” Consequent upon this phenomenon, Massingale argues that the Catholic Church in America is unconsciously a “white racist institution.”30 Copeland shares Massingale’s view above about the institutionalization of racism in the fabric of American society and observes that it is so systemic it subverts Christian spirituality: White racist supremacy never relies on the isolated choices or actions of a few individual white men; rather, it is structured or institutionalized. It goes well beyond prejudice or even bigotry and binds attitudes or feelings of superiority to putatively legitimate and commonly sanctioned exercises of power. Moreover, in its very idolatry, white racist supremacy seeks to undermine spirituality, to subvert the place of the Divine, the Transcendent in lived human life.31

The neglect of Black liberation theology by mainstream North American White theologians, and preference for and exclusive attention to Latin American liberation theology, is so obvious it is shameful. It gives 27

Bryan Massingale, “James Cone and Recent Catholic Episcopal Teaching on Racism,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 726. 28 Jon Nilson, “James Baldwin’s Challenge to Catholic Theologians and the Church,” Theological Studies 74, no. 4 (2013): 890. 29 Bryan N. Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), 26–30. 30 Ibid., 80; Massingale, “Has the Silence Been Broken? Catholic Theological Ethics and Racial Justice,” Theological Studies 75, no. 1 (2014): 142. 31 M. Shawn Copeland, “Racism and the Vocation of the Theologian,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 2, no. 1, (2002): 16.

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credence to Massingale’s position of the pervasiveness of racism in the unconsciousness of American life to an extent it is almost irremediable because it has become assumed as normal in America to look down upon anything black. This neglect is the theme of Jon Nilson’s book Hearing Past the Pain.32 Nilson’s four-chapter book is a call to action by White Catholic theologians on the need for Black Theology. The author, a White Catholic theologian, courageously challenges classic universalistic theology on the most important but often ignored subject matter at the heart of the matrix of theology in America—RACISM. Nilson’s research confirms that the three types of racism—scientific, institutional, and individual—are entrenched in Catholic theology in America by “omission and inattention.” First, major Catholic theologians, journals, associations, etc., marginalize Black Theology and/or do not notice it. Second, institutions, government bureaucracies, and Catholic universities neglect Black Theology, and third, racism implies the White privilege whiteness confers on those with that skin color in the social structure of America. This invariably means ignoring Black religious experience and disregarding Black Theology. Convinced racism is not just ethically wrong but inherently contradictory to the Christian faith, Nilson demands condemnation of racism as heretical.33 One cannot, therefore, be a Catholic theologian and ignore or dismiss Black Theology, which arises from the experience of suffering and exclusion and the marginalization of Blacks in America. Nilson’s book offers a lucid rebuttal to the excuses we make to dismiss Black Theology, especially seeing it as exclusively written for Black Christians. Since every theology is contextual and responds to a divergent matrix, Black Theology does not exclude other theologies but calls for a fundamental change of theologizing in America towards facing the challenge of racism in the American sociocultural context. Reading Nilson’s Hearing Past the Pain, I find answers to some difficulties I had

32

Jon Nilson, Hearing Past the Pain: Why White Catholic Theologians Need Black Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 2007). 33 Nilson’s position here accords with the fundamental question underlying Cone’s theological enterprise. According to him: “(1) Is it possible to be racist and Christian at the same time? As a Black Christian, this is the question I struggle with deeply. That was why I wrote Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970) and all the other books and articles that followed.” James H. Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 735.

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the first time I read James Cone’s books on Black theology. 34 Written from the experience of the author’s conversion, Hearing Past the Pain opens the reader to the experience of conversion and a better understanding of American society beyond the prevailing ideological blocks that cause the wish to live in an American society that does not exist. In a 2013 article in Theological Studies, Nilson goes further by using Terror Management Theory (TMT) to buttress James Baldwin’s thesis that White supremacy is founded in the White’s fear of mortality. White supremacists need Blacks to justify their illusion of being superhuman. Nilson argues that James Baldwin’s thesis challenges the Catholic Church, not only to change its view of racism only as a sin but to upgrade its condemnation by declaring racism as contrary to the Gospel, and therefore do more to move Catholics to see racism as contrary to their faith.35 Being Black and being Catholic in America is to expose oneself to being doubly marginalized and misunderstood in the mainstream Christian faith. Cone states the dilemma of Black Catholic theologians as caught between White Catholic theology and Black African American communities, both of which are suspicious and misunderstand Black Catholics: “the Catholic Church ignores the cultural gifts of Black folk and the African American community ignores the Catholic presence in its midst.”36 White segregationist attitudes and racism forced Black Protestant Christians to form independent African churches. These communities serve as the voice for voiceless African Americans: advocating for justice and inclusion in American societies; protesting injustices and police brutalities; providing comfort, succor, counseling, and healing to psychologically wounded African Americans, and serving as the springboard of solidarity against the changes and chances oppression, marginalization, segregation, and racism bring upon the community. The Black Catholic Church and theology appear left out of the equation. They are looked down upon; almost swallowed up into nonexistence as most people think African Americans are generally Protestants. In the Catholic Church, blacks have little role in its institutional structures, with very few in the hierarchy. The role of the Black Catholic theologian becomes one that must be defended. Copeland confirms this, stating: 34 I was put off initially by what following Victor Anderson I will call “Cone’s militancy.” See Victor Anderson, “Foreword,” to Alistair Kee’s The Rise and Demise of Black Theology (London: SCM Press, 2008), vii. 35 Jon Nilson, “James Baldwin’s Challenge to Catholic Theologians and the Church,” Theological Studies 74 (2013): 884–902. 36 Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” 736.

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Chapter Four Almost from the beginning, indeed, even now, the faith praxis of African American Catholics has been met with arrogance and suspicion. These reactions stem chiefly from the notion that African American Christianity is restricted to, if not identical with, a certain form of Protestantism. This misconception has been absorbed not only into our religious, cultural, and social commonsense, but has been formalized in scholarship, that is, in the prevailing American religious and social historiography.37

The sticking point is the adherence of Black Catholics to the tradition of the Catholic Church, a tradition branded white and racist by no less a person than James Cone. He urged Black Catholic theologians to protest the tradition that fails to recognize and accord them the dignity they deserve as humans. Cone’s pointed questions challenge Black Catholics to critically challenge faith issues: “Can one be a Christian theologian in America and not engage White supremacy as a theological problem? Can one think correctly about God and not oppose slavery and segregation in a nation and Church defined by them?”38 Our discussions earlier in this section are enough proof that Black Catholic theologians have never wavered in their criticism of and protest against racism in the Catholic Church. Copeland’s guest editorial in the special edition of Theological Studies lays out what Black Catholic theologians have been doing in response to the tradition of White racism in the Catholic Church. Copeland responds to the four issues Cone raised as important for Black Catholic theology: identity, authority, resources, and theological vocation. While agreeing with Cone on the synergy “between identity and theology, between Black identity and Black theology,” 39 Copeland disagrees that the absence of friction between Black Catholic theology and Catholic Church tradition is assimilation or lack of identity and authority. Black Catholic theologians critically appropriate the tradition to mediate the matrix of Black Catholic communities and the racist religious and cultural matrices in which Blacks exist. They employ the tools of social analysis and retention of African cultural experience in doing Black Theology. This retrieval of African cultural experience instantiated in the Institute for Black Catholic Studies (IBCS) Ceremony of Commemoration and Veneration of the Ancestors, which recovers West African BaKongo religio-cultural life (Congo being the most enslaved of African countries), 37

Shawn Copeland, “Tradition and the Traditions of African American Catholicism,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 632. 38 Cone, “Black Liberation Theology and Black Catholics: A Critical Conversation,” 736–37. 39 Shawn Copeland, “Guest Editorial,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 605.

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is important for integrating inculturation and liberation motifs of African liberative theologies often at war with each other. 40 The ceremony that Copeland aptly elaborates in her article “Tradition and the Traditions of African American Catholicism,” reflects the Afrocentric base of African American behavior and phenomena.41 This not only means that the rich culture and history of African Americans reflect African culture, it equally buttresses Itumeleng Mosala’s position on the relevance of African religions for Black Theology of South Africa. Mosala relates African religion to African culture and history and argues that the arrest of African culture, history, and religion by European imperialism impeded African progress. In a similar way, the struggle for the liberation of Africans in which Black Theology is engaged must involve the restoration of African culture and history. Mosala expresses his point: “To want to liberate people is to desire to restore them to the center of the historical process. Commitment to a people’s liberation is reflected by commitment to their culture. It is here where African traditional religion can make a lasting contribution.”42 The relationship of Black Theology to African Traditional Religion and culture is supported by Cone and Wilmore, who entrust to African and Black Theology the “reconstruction of the Christian faith in Africa which takes seriously the fact that God had revealed himself in the traditional religions and that by a selective process African religions can use this revelatory content to throw light on the message and meaning of Jesus Christ.”43 Copeland reminds us that the vocation of the theologian in mediating God’s word to culture and society is telling the truth.44 Copeland asserts: 40 See Shawn Copeland’s “Tradition and the Traditions of African American Catholicism,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000) on this retrieval and ceremony in IBCS. Copeland’s description of the ceremony as well as the location in the city of New Orleans (and its place in the consciousness of African Americans as the liminal center of slavery), as well as veneration of ancestors, stands for me as an example of the interrelatedness of inculturation and liberation. 41 Janice D. Hamlet, “Preface,” in Afrocentric Visions: Studies in Culture and Communication edited by Janet D. Hamlet (London: Sage Publications, 1998), xi. 42 Itumeleng Mosala, “The Relevance of African Traditional Religions and their Challenge to Black Theology,” in The Unquestionable Right to be Free, ed. Itumeleng Mosala and Buti Tihagale (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 98. 43 J. H. Cone and G. S. Wilmore, “Black Theology and African Theology: Considerations for Dialogue, Critique and Integration,” in Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966–1979, ed. G. S. Gilmore and J. H. Cone (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 471. 44 Shawn M. Copeland, “Racism and the Vocation of the Theologian,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Sprituality 2, no. 1 (2002): 22.

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“Contemporary Christian theological witness requires of us a thoroughgoing grasp of the social and cultural condition of our own circumstances. Our theologizing is an act of critical interpretation of the Gospel; we aim to offer both responses and challenges to questions that confront faith.” 45 This requires attentiveness to human affairs, evaluating society and culture in the light of the Gospel, standing on the side of people discriminated against just by their existence. For Black Catholic Theology, this demands a dedication and commitment to theologize within the Catholic tradition so that Black identity is always asserted, defended, and preserved. Copeland states this as the vocation of the Black Catholic theologian: “We make his [Cone’s] obligation our own: to write a theology that critiques and challenges, that consoles and nourishes, that insists on and fights for the sacred character of a sacred Black human life, even and especially our own.”46 Copeland engages in this form of truth-telling in her book Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being. 47 This book of practical engagement with theological anthropology from the perspective of racism, especially seen through the prism of Black women’s bodies, contributes in a unique and exemplary way to Christian anthropology, using what can be the singular and visible aspect of being human—the body. Remembering the differences of opinions, biases, and ideological machinations power has made of differences in phenotype in hierarchizing human bodies, Copeland approaches Christian anthropology with a call to solidarity in the single humanum (liveable humanity) everybody shares. Copeland does not shy away from the discomforting feeling the notion of racism causes. Instead, using the experiences of slavery, especially the suffering of Black women, she calls for a reimagining of the social structure and reconceiving the flawed Enlightenment-induced scientific analysis that sanctioned dehumanization and denigration of Black bodies considered as “inferior” to the “superior” White race. She suggests a rethinking of theological anthropology from the experience of Black women, whose bodies’ slavery rendered “objects of property, of production, of reproduction, of sexual violence.” Using the body of Jesus as a prototype, Copeland recalls Jesus lived within the context of an oppressive empire, resisted it and sought to transform it through his exemplary life of commitment to the poor and 45

Ibid., 21. Shawn M. Copeland, “Guest Editorial,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 608. 47 Shawn M. Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009). 46

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preaching. In the new imperial order, championed by globalization that continues the commodification of humans this time by consumerism, race and racism operate differently. Some people become blind to racism by thinking that with the Civil Rights movement everything about race is over. Copeland delves into the heart of racism arising from misrepresentation as responsible for the distortion in interracial relationships. For instance, painting African Americans as lazy makes immigrants from Africa try to distance themselves from them; also, differences in the perception of “blackness,” which is an identity for African Americans while it is not the same for other peoples of Africa, equally creates tension between African Americans and Africans. Globalization reinforces versions of colorblind racism. Since Jesus embodied openness, equality, and mutuality in his solidarity with all humans in all their conditions, Copeland urges the enfleshment of the freedom of Christ in our flesh by surrendering all claims to superiority based on wealth, race, education, etc. Massingale’s apt summary draws the implications of Copeland’s truth-telling for theology: “Implicit in Copeland’s reflections, then, is a call for Catholic theological ethics not only to attend to the sacramental sources of Christian discipleship but also to more deeply appreciate their inherent social consequences in a world rent by racial supremacy and gendered domination.”48 Black theology is not concerned only with racism. It is concerned with the liberation of the poor in all aspects where they are marginalized, oppressed, and demeaned. As Massingale remarks: “Black Catholic intellectuals … are engaged in other justice concerns besides racism; for example, the struggle for environmental justice, the role of women in church and society, and the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons lay claims to our concern.”49 Therefore, the demise of apartheid should not mean the demise of Black Theology of South Africa. Many social justice issues need to be addressed by the church in South Africa.

Black Theology of South Africa Black Theology of South Africa arose in tandem with the Black Consciousness Movement reform by the South African Students Organization, formed in 1969 under the leadership of Steve Bantu Biko. 48

Bryan Massingale, “Has the Silence Been Broken? Catholic Theological Ethics and Racial Justice,” Theological Studies 75, no. 1 (2014): 141. 49 Bryan N. Massingale, “Cyprian Davis and the Black Catholic Intellectual Vocation,” U.S. Catholic Historian 28, no. 1 (2010): 65–82.

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According to Kalemba Mwambazambi, “The intellectuals of SASO developed their theology as a counter-hegemonic ideology. During the 1970s and 1980s, this theology ‘conscientised’ Black people and motivated their struggle for freedom. Indeed, this theology challenged the ruling class ideas that claimed to justify the subjugation of Black people, affirmed their human dignity and validated their desire for liberty.”50 The Black Theology project of the University Christian Movement, reflecting on Black consciousness, the Bible, and liberation, organized seminars aimed at articulating the Black Christian response to oppression, segregation, intimidation, violence, and murder unleashed on Black South Africans by the apartheid regime. The seminars were influenced by the contact of the students with American Black Theology, especially the publication of two of Cone’s books: Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation. Reflecting on the influence of Black Theology of the United States on the emerging Black Theology of South Africa, Mokgethi Motlhabi observes: Resulting from the publication of these books, the UCM engaged in ongoing communication with American black theologians and tried to learn as much as possible from them regarding this new method of theology, its socio-political motivation and context, and its vision of human liberation seen from a theological perspective. This engagement, which included visits to the US by individuals from the UCM, is wellsubstantiated by Basil Moore.51

Dwight Hopkins corroborates the link between Black Theology of the United States and Black Theology of South Africa in later years in the testimony below, culminating in a joint conference in 1986 later published as a book. 52 “During the summer of 1985, professors James Cone and Cornel West journeyed to South Africa and there met several Black theologians, professors Simon Maimela, Bonganjalo Goba, Takatso Mofokeng and others. In conversation, they discovered the need to share

50

Kalemba Mwambazambi, “A Missiological Glance at South African Black Theology,” Verbum et Ecclesia 31, no. 1 (2010), http://www.ve.org.za/index.php/ VE/article/view/53/459. 51 Mokgethi Motlhabi, “Phases of Black Theology in South Africa: A Historical Review,” Religion & Theology 16 (2009): 165. 52 Simon Maimela and Dwight Hopkins, eds., We Are One Voice: Black Theology in the USA and South Africa (Cape Town and Johannesburg: Skotaville Publishers, 1989).

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in dialogue and exchange around the origin and common concerns of Black theology in both contexts.”53 Even from its early stage, Black Theology protested against interpreting the Bible outside the experience of Blacks in South Africa and the continued racism of apartheid segregation and exclusion of Blacks in their homeland, practices that are contrary to Christian teaching. Using the Exodus metaphor, Black Theology sees Black Christians as moving from Egyptian bondage to the promised land of freedom, abundance, and happiness. Its stress on liberation was more for political liberation in the sense of revolution of the entire political structure of apartheid, instead of merely personal conversion of White oppressors from the sin of racism. Allan Boesak explains that as a liberation theology it agrees with the Gospel: Black Theology is a theology of liberation. By that we mean the following: Black Theology believes that liberation is not “only” part of the Gospel, or “consistent with” the Gospel; it is the content and framework of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Born in the community of the Black oppressed, it takes seriously the Black experience, the Black situation. Black Theology grapples with suffering and oppression; it is a cry unto God for the sake of the people. It believes that in Jesus Christ the total liberation of all people has come.54

Black Theology of South Africa rejects the image of the White God, by which White supremacist theologians construe themselves as created in the image of God and therefore as deserving of the service of Black people’s labor. According to Itumeleng Daniel Mothoagae, “Black Theology challenged the perception of Afrikaner supremacy and their theological hegemony … that God has ordained it for black people to be ruled and oppressed.” 55 They reject the salvation of soul theology but instead choose theology that relates to the daily experience and needs of Black people. And so Black ministers were urged not to preach pie-in-thesky platitudes from the pulpit but instead to be engaged in the suffering and plight of the people, and to encourage an appreciation of the blackness of Africans as a gift from God. Black theology insists that Africans matter 53 Dwight Hopkins, “Introduction,” in We are One Voice: Black Theology in the USA and South Africa, x. 54 Allan Boesak, “Coming in out of the Wilderness,” in The Emergent Gospel, ed. S. Torres and V. Fabella (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1978), 9–10. 55 Itumeleng Daniel Mothoagae, “The Stony Road We Tread: The Challenges and Contributions of Black Liberation Theology to Post-Apartheid South Africa,” Missionalia 40, no. 3 (Nov. 2012): 278–79.

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and that African dignity must be maintained at all costs. This dignity is not conferred by any institution or person, but by God, and it is inherent in the “Africanness” of Africans. Black Theology seeks to restore African communitarian traditions destroyed by various forms of Western imperialism, including their disparagement by European Christian missionaries’ theology of individual salvation. One of the greatest achievements of Black Theology of South Africa is the Black consciousness it helped bring into various Christian communities. This led to the serious questioning of state theology, which the White Dutch Reformed Churches and some other Christian churches used to justify racism, capitalism, and the totalitarian apartheid regime. The resistance and struggle for freedom and articulation of alternative theology that reflect the experience of the Black oppressed poor led to the Kairos Document of 1985. The Kairos Document shows the interrelatedness of Black Theology of South Africa to the Black Theology of the United States. The church theology of White South African theologians that called for reconciliation without justice and outright condemnation of apartheid as heretical to the Christian faith, correlates with the call for the individual conversion of White theologians in America. White church theology cannot tear down apartheid in South Africa, as White theology is blind to the systemic racism of American social structure. But the Kairos Document in its moment of truth exposed the deceit of White church theology and galvanized the Black Christian communities to resist and to seek nothing short of liberty in a free South Africa. 56 The landmark achievement of the Kairos Document formed a watershed for South Africa57 and hence for Black Theology, and helped galvanize international condemnation of apartheid by shedding light on the level of crushing oppression the racist policies of apartheid inflicted on the Black majority of South Africa. For instance, it brought about remorse from some German theologians whose people perpetuated the apartheid regime. A group of such theologians confessed: We are caught up in historical and present-day relationships which helped to bring about your oppression and still maintain it today. People from our country and our continent of Europe contributed to the economic

56

For discussion on the Kairos Document and the call for a prophetic theology, see Kairos Theologians (Group), “The Kairos Document: A Theological Comment on the Political Crisis in South Africa,” Cross Currents 35, no. 4 (1985–1986): 367– 86. 57 Richard P. MacBride, “The Kairos Document: A South African Watershed,” Conrad Grebel Review 6, no. 3 (1998): 215–32.

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exploitation of Africa and the theological justification of racism and apartheid during colonial times, and we too benefit from present political and economic relations with the system of injustice in southern Africa.58

The same truth-telling characteristic of the Kairos Document remains relevant in democratic South Africa. Vuyani S. Vellem articulates this well: “KD, [Kairos Document] which remains a version of liberation theology par excellence, offers a methodology that is still appropriate to our democratization processes in South Africa.”59 Later stages of Black Theology of South Africa incorporated in its advocacy liberty, class, and gender concerns (especially regarding the oppression of women), not only by the structures of the apartheid system but by Black men. The collapse of apartheid created a lull in Black Theology of South Africa. Mokgethi Motlhabi thinks “Today South African theology in general (and Black Theology in particular) seems to have lost its bearing and sense of direction, especially since the political change that took place in the country in 1994.”60 This is especially more so as it had devoted its energy to confronting the monster of the apartheid regime and is now overwhelmed by religious pluralism, especially occasioned by the Government policy of supporting all religions equally. There is a preference for religious studies instead of theology.61 For this reason, Motlhabi suggests a need for a paradigm shift for Black Theology of South Africa to concentrate on the contemporary experience of Black South Africans dealing with challenges: “such as ongoing poverty, slum dwelling, crime, family violence and child abuse, HIV/AIDS, corruption and greed in public and private service, and other related evils still bedeviling South Africa today.”62 However, what is needed is not so much a paradigm shift as a broadening of Black Theology to include other issues of social concern mentioned above. Instead of a paradigm shift from Black Theology of South Africa to Theology of Reconstruction, as Jesse Mugambi and some 58

Evangelisches Missionswerk, “To the Authors of the ‘Kairos Document,’” Mission Studies 3, no. 1 (1986): 1. 59 Vuyani S Vellem, “Prophetic Theology in Black Theology with Special Reference to the Kairos Document,” HST Teologies Studies/Theological Studies 66, no. 1 (2010):1. 60 Mokgethi Motlhabi, African Theology/Black Theology in South Africa: Looking Back, Moving On (South Africa: University of South Africa Press, 2008), x. 61 Allan Boesak, “Coming in out of the Wilderness,” in The Emergent Gospel, 172–73. 62 Mokgethi Motlhabi, “Phases of Black Theology in South Africa: A Historical Review,” 173.

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other theologians have argued,63 Julius Mutugi Gathogo proposes seeing the post-apartheid Black Theology of South Africa as dealing with the issues of social inequality consequent upon the apartheid regime: With the demise of apartheid, one may argue that Black theology is now emanating from the experience of poverty among Black people and neocolonialism that may be the result of racial tensions that will, most likely, take some time before it disappears from the South African community.64

Tinyiko Sam Maluleke acknowledges this to be the case in postapartheid South Africa, still very much needing reconciliation and uplifting of the people from poverty despite the advances recorded in various areas of national development. He asserts: Inasmuch as the new South Africa has made giant strides, through the introduction of a vibrant democracy, in the areas of economy, electrification, water supply, electronic and mobile communication, many problems still remain. Even though wonderful statistics abound concerning the vibrancy of the economy, the development of democracy and an everdiminishing backlog in service delivery of essential services, this does not mean much to the majority, who remain poor, without jobs and without hope. As long as the poverty gap between rich and poor widens, even if some of the nouveaux riches are Black and some of the nouveaux pauvres are White, South Africa is not yet a reconciled nation. Indeed the local churches will have to dig deep into their own pockets if they are to attempt to address the question of reconciliation for our times.65

Post-apartheid Black Theology of South Africa’s responsibility is ensuring that the sacrifices of people during the apartheid regime are not in vain. Instead of receding into the background in the affairs of state and church organization and theologizing, Black Theology of South Africa must be visibly involved in the democratization of South Africa. The call by some theologians for a “critical solidarity” with the state is a step in the right direction. As Motlhabi explains, “African and black theologians can

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Included here advocating for theology of reconstruction are Jesse Mugambi, Charles Villa-Vicencio (of South Africa), Jose Chipenda (of Angola) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (of South Africa). 64 Julius Mutugi Gathogo, “Black Theology of South Africa: Is This the Hour of Paradigm Shift?” Black Theology 5, no. 3 (2007): 333. 65 Tinyiko Sam Maluleke, “Of Lion and Rabbits: The Role of the Church in Reconciliation in South Africa,” International Review of Mission 96, no. 380–381 (2007): 53.

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better help the state by giving praise where it is due, while equally pointing out some of its shortcomings whenever it is necessary to do so.”66 The onus lies on Black Theologians not to be involved in or endorse any social injustice, which they fought vehemently against in South Africa. The intolerance of non-South African Blacks (from other parts of Africa) and other peoples of color must be condemned strongly.67 Poverty eradication, on the front burner of Black Theology, continues to be a burning issue in South Africa. Closely related to this is HIV/AIDS, which ravages Africa, especially South Africa. Women’s equality being pursued by Womanist theologies in South Africa equally demands the attention of Black Theology of South Africa. In religiously pluralized South Africa, Black Theology must be involved in interethnic and interreligious dialogues to promote freedom and equality of all peoples in a democratically free South Africa. Black theologians must equally engage in reconciliation and reconstruction of South African society socially, culturally, personally, and religiously; so that a united South Africa emerges in line with the dreams of the souls who perished in pursuit of a free South Africa, where the vital values of the people are constantly provided and all have opportunity for self-actualization.

Post-Cold War and Post-Apartheid African Liberative Theologies Theology in pre- and post-independence Africa is inculturation theology, with an emphasis on the liberation of Africans from Eurocentric cultural forms arising from the activities of European Christian missionaries. Inculturation theology aims at upholding African dignity by extolling African cultures and urging Africans to appreciate their cultures and express their Christian faith in ways relevant and meaningful to them through their cultures. Since Africans will never agitate for political independence unless they appreciate who they are as humans in the light of their cultures, the link between inculturation and political independence is clear. Inculturation is liberation from being tied as a church to the apron strings of external cultural forms. Simultaneously it leads to other forms of 66

Motlhabi Mokgethi, African Theology/Black Theology in South Africa: Looking Back, Moving On, x. 67 Stan Chu Ilo’s “Blacks Against Blacks: From Homelessness to Reconciliation,” African Ecclesiastical Review 51, no. 1–2 (2009): 78–104, chronicles the crisis of identity in post-apartheid South Africa, mentioning particularly (82–83) the revolt of South African youths against immigrant Africans whom they accuse of stealing their jobs.

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liberation like political, economic, liturgical, and personal liberation, whereby African integrity lies upon African agency in its social transformation, despite challenges of poor infrastructure, weak institutions, and challenges of tropical diseases. Little wonder African theology of inculturation emerged simultaneously as African nationalists were agitating for independence. Jonathan Gichaara paints the picture vividly thus: African theology emerged almost at the same time as the African nations were liberating themselves from the shackles of colonialism. Most of the people who were involved in the political liberation movements in Africa were devout Christians. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya had, for example, gone through missionary schools and institutions. Sedar Senghor of Guinea and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana were formerly seminary students. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania were professing Christians in the Protestant and Catholic traditions, respectively. Therefore, there was a close affinity between African theology and the movement towards freedom in Africa. This led some people to adjudge African theology as nationalism masquerading as religion.68

The affinity between inculturation and liberation theology that equally shows the relationship between African Theology and Black Theology of South Africa is anchored in Black consciousness, which arose among African nationalists as they sought emancipation from Eurocentric imperialism on the one hand and Black consciousness arising from the Black Power Movement’s influence in South Africa giving rise to the Black Theology of South Africa, on the other hand.69 African culture and religion remain important catalysts for the emergence of Black theologies: African Theology, Black Theology of South Africa, and Black Theology of the United States. Mosala’s pointed assertion aptly expresses the nature of the relationship of Black theologies: The point must be made unequivocally, therefore … that without a creative reappropriation of traditional African religions and societies both African and Black Theologies will build their houses on sand. A Black Theology of Liberation must draw its cultural hermeneutics of struggle from a critical reappropriation of black culture just as an African Theology must arm

68

Jonathan Gichaara, “Issues in African Liberation Theology,” Black Theology 3, no. 1 (2005): 76–77. 69 Basil Moore, “What is Black Theology?” in The Challenge of Black Theology in South Africa, ed. Basil Moore (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1974), 1.

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itself with the political hermeneutics that arise from the contemporary social struggles of black people under apartheid capitalism.70

Theology in post-Cold War and post-apartheid Africa seeks freedom and equality for all, including women and children. It seeks reconciliation for people in Africa, especially in places like South Africa, where people have been discriminated against and the reconstruction of Africa after various forms of imperialism: colonialism, neo-colonialism, maladministration, corruption, and other factors that dash Africans’ hopes of a better life in a free and liberated Africa. These other liberative theologies—African women’s theology, African theology of reconciliation, African liberation theology (which follows the Latin American model), and African theology of reconstruction—through reflection on the Christian faith in the light of the diverse experiences of Africans, promote the ongoing quest of Africans for free and prosperous egalitarian societies. So instead of a paradigm shift whereby one supposes these theologies replace one another, one can talk of continuity among these theologies on the pressing theme of liberation. Maluleke is clear on this: It is important that we recognize that post-Cold War African theologies are continuous with previous African theologies even if and when their proponents espouse and proclaim a radical discontinuity. African Theology cannot and will not abdicate the gains made—and ambiguities inherited— during the past fifty odd years. A careful reading of Villa Vicencio reveals that although he genuinely seeks to propose a new metaphor for theology and a slightly different orientation he is methodologically still beholden to the liberation paradigm. Ironically, Mugambi's “take” on reconstruction is methodologically also still largely beholden to the inculturation paradigm. Robin Petersen's otherwise ground-breaking and “different” study of AICs turns out to be largely a pursuit of such familiar categories of classical ecumenical theology as oppression/domination, protest/resistance and Kairos.71

Concluding Remarks Black Theology of the United States contributed to the emergence of the Black consciousness movement that enabled Black churches and pastors to develop Black Theology in South Africa. This theology, through its 70

Itumeleng Mosala, “The Relevance of African Traditional Religions and Their Challenge to Black Theology,” 99. 71 Tinyiko Sam Maluleke, “Of Lion and Rabbits: The Role of the Church in Reconciliation in South Africa,” 202.

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dogged fight against the evil of racism, brought down the segregationist oppressive apartheid regime in 1994. This significant contribution to the Black Theology of the U.S. should be carried into post-apartheid South Africa, whose theology must include, besides racism, other issues of poverty, social justice, HIV/AIDS, gender equality, environmental degradation, and so forth. The emphasis Black Theology of South Africa places upon race and Black consciousness because of apartheid differs from the quest for cultural emancipation from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, whose struggle for political independence from colonialism makes freedom from Eurocentric cultural forms an imperative. Even though these differences of emphasis have divided Black Theology of South Africa from African theologies that concentrate on inculturation of Christian faith in African cultures, there is a noticeable demand for respect of their human dignity, and a striking resemblance between the Black consciousness movement of Black Theology of the United States and South Africa with the cultural emancipation and inculturation of African Theology. Black Theology of the U.S. and South Africa, and African theologies, draw from African traditional, cultural, and religious values. This is reflected in Afrocentric ceremonies like the Pan-African ceremony of Kwanzaa, and the ceremony commemorating the veneration of ancestors by which African Americans celebrate the richness of their African traditions. Cultural emancipation is not rejected in South Africa. Black Theology of South Africa only rejected the distortion of African culture by the segregationist state theology of the apartheid regime, which used culture to isolate and marginalize blacks in uninhabitable arid parts of South Africa. Post-apartheid South Africa celebrates the wealth of the South African philosophy of Ubuntu drawn from aspects of African cultural values emphasizing humanness and the African sense of hospitality and community. African theologies’ emphasis on inculturation is not solely ethnographic, aimed at the restoration of Africa’s cultural past as if African cultures were static. The aim of inculturation is the liberation of the people through the African people’s appreciation of their own cultures. In this way, African nationalists and theologians hope to lead Africans to national independence from colonialism and other forms of European domination. One can say that Black theologies are liberative theologies emanating from the common quest for freedom from cultural, economic, and political domination; as well as from racism, segregation, oppression, marginalization, and all forms of dehumanization and depersonalization of the Black person. Instead of bowing to the divide-and-rule policy used against Black people before— pitting African Americans against African immigrants in the United States,

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making African Americans consider people from Africa as timid and inferior, and African immigrants to judge African Americans as lazy and morally bankrupt—Black theologies must unite, since they all have one singular aim: liberation of the Black person from centuries of domination. Black Theology of the United States emerged in response to the painful experiences of African Americans struggling to be recognized in their country, as people used the Christian faith to exclude, segregate, racially profile, stigmatize, and justify lynching or murder of people of color. Black Theology of South Africa equally arose in response to the exclusion of Africans in their homeland by the very people to whom they had initially shown hospitality. They had to develop Black consciousness in order to free themselves from their “anthropological poverty.” The same could be said of the African theology of inculturation’s quest for authentic Christian faith that incarnates it in the culture of the people. The relationship of Black theologies to each other must be in what Bernard Lonergan calls mutual self-mediation. They must mutually benefit from one another, learn from one another’s experiences, collaborate, and improve one another’s development to enrich one another. Just as Black Theology of South Africa was inspired by Black Theology of the United States, African liberative theologies must equally learn the importance of engagement with the social orders of their various countries and protest the continued dehumanization meted out to people by the security agents, government officials, corrupt leadership, and selfish elite. Black Theology of the U.S. ought to be inspired by the traditional cultural values emphasized by African liberative theologies, and engaged in the reform of the African American family structure to improve opportunities for young African Americans. Black Theology of South Africa ought to pay attention to the place of culture in Black consciousness, and build strong democratic institutions and reform post-apartheid South Africa to be a violence-free society. Inculturation is empty without liberty; freedom bereft of critical culture becomes meaningless. The significance of Black Theology of the United States to African liberative theologies is to serve as the catalyst for Black consciousness movements akin to the emphasis of culture in inculturation theology; aimed finally at the freedom, restoration of dignity, and emancipation of Blacks in America, South Africa, and other countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Before delving into the issues of liberty and the reforms expected in African theology, we consider African ethics, the basis of African moral

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judgment of right and wrong, good and bad, and the centerpiece of African character—personhood and community.72

72

See Kwame Gyekye, “African Ethics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, 2010) http://plato.stanford.edu/.

CHAPTER FIVE AFRICAN ETHICS: GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The question “What is African ethics?” is a double-sided question, as it ambiguously raises the question “Which and whose ethics?” Traditional African societies, as any other society, are organized around mores, customs, traditions, and prohibitions that guide the conduct of life. Sociopolitical and economic life and attitudes to the environment are drawn from these customs, traditions, and prohibitions. Peace and order in society, justice and equity, arbitration and disputes are settled in the light of these traditions. Segun Gbadegesin aptly sums up the moral outlook of traditional Africans: “Like other cultural traditions, morality comes into play in African cultures as a system of rules and practices for the purpose of maintaining the social order and enhancing the individual’s process of self-actualization.”1 To a large extent, the epistemological framework and patterns of a people’s thought influence societal laws and their applicability. Societies predominantly communitarian, as are African societies, value the protection of the common good and from this the marks of good character and moral life are determined. For instance, using the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria as an example, Edumund Ilogu notes: The picture of an Igbo gentleman of character can now be drawn—(1) He is one who does not indulge in wickedness but rather through respect to elders and dead ancestors observe the customs for hospitality, generosity, and kindness especially to the less fortunate members of the community. (2) He does not break covenant nor defraud nor deny debts he owes not even after the death of his creditors. (3) He is not greedy in the sense of wanting to deprive others of their possessions but is highly emulative in competing, and strongly motivated in giving more and more to the less fortunate relations and others. (4) He should draw young people as well as

1

Segun Gbadegesin, “Origins of African Ethics,” in The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweiker (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 415.

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The process of socialization aims at inculcating the related goals of morality, such as self-actualization, which can only be possible in a peaceful social order. Informal education in the family, various age-grade initiations, moonlight stories, day-to-day interaction with elders, are all opportunities for the inculcation of these traditional values aimed at developing good character, the prerequisite for social harmony and justice. Like every other aspect of African society, ethics is grounded in religion as the gods and ancestors are the originators of the customs, taboos, and prohibitions. Contravening them draws the wrath of the gods, and punishment could be as serious as exile (as happened to Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart), or even during the era of the slave trade to being sold into slavery. It could even lead to the execution of the culprit by the community. African traditional ethics cuts across almost every aspect of life as the entire gamut of African cultural values forms part of African ethics. As Benezet Bujo observes: “the main goal of African ethics is fundamentally life itself. The community must guarantee the promotion and protection of life by specifying or ordaining ethics and morality.” 3 “Thus, to be morally upright is to act deliberately in favor of human life. Alternately, the witch or the sorcerer is the person who undermines the collective life force of the group.”4 And so by implication, African ethic includes general protection of life—including preserving forests, streams, animals, plants, the sacredness of human life, and hospitality. As aptly expressed by A. E. Orobator: The notion of expansiveness of life relates to the fact that life is not construed only as a reality constituted by the living; it also includes the ancestors and the yet-unborn. Furthermore, the category of life extends to and includes the natural universe. In this sense, therefore, from an African religio-cultural perspective, the moral imperative to protect human life also warrants the protection of sacred forests, trees, rivers, mountains, streams, and animals. This moral imperative or duty to protect the physical environment is founded on the vital link between the survival of human life

2

Edmund Ilogu, “Christian Ethics and African Religion: The Problem among the Ibo of Nigeria,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (1977): 22. 3 Benezet Bujo, Foundations of an African Ethics: Beyond the Western Claims of Western Morality, trans. Brian McNeil (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001), 2. 4 Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, S.J., “Ethics Brewed in an African Pot,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31, no. 1 (2011): 5.

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and the environment. To protect the environment is to protect human life, since the survival of the latter ultimately depends on the survival of the former.5

African traditional ethics encompasses all aspects of life. It incorporates the entirety of African cultural religious values. It is anthropocentric, cosmosconscious, spiritual, and religious. Mbiti, who affirms that religion permeates every aspect of life in Africa, asserts: “Most African peoples accept or acknowledge God as the final guardian of law and order and of the moral and ethical codes.”6 Specific cultural values that promote social well-being issue from African ethics: “kindness, generosity, faithfulness, honesty, truthfulness, compassion, hospitality, and whatever brings peace, happiness, dignity, and respect.”7 We will understand African ethics better in conversation with the universal claims of Western morality. We can draw from Benezet Bujo’s Foundations of an African Ethics and Paulinus Odozor’s Morality Truly Christian, Truly African 8 to learn more about African traditional ethics.

African Ethics and Western Morality Bujo’s five-chapter book divided into two parts argues that the communitarian nature of African ethics distinguishes it from Western individualistic ethics arising from Western discursive reason. The community gains prior attention for African ethics, because as we emphasized above: “life is the highest principle of ethical conduct.” 9 Instead of the Cartesian Cogito ego sum, Black Africa will prefer cognatus sum, ergo sumus (I am known, therefore we are). This in no way means that the individual is subsumed under the ethnic group so he/she is not considered as an autonomic ethical subject. “For ethical reflection, the 5

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, “Ethics of HIV/AIDS Prevention: Paradigms of a New Discourse from an African Perspective,” in Applied Ethics in the World Church: The Padua Conference, ed. Linda Hogan (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), 149. 6 J. S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 269. 7 K. Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought, cited in “African Ethics?” in The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweiker (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 410. 8 Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor, C.S.Sp., Morality Truly Christian Truly African: Foundational, Methodological, and Theological Considerations (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014). 9 Foundations of an African Ethics, 3.

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heart of each individual is an important locus of ethical conduct and of the integration of ethical norms.”10 Emphasized and of high importance is the balance between the community and the individual. This manifests itself in sexual ethics, which places a premium on the perpetuation of life, continuity of the community, and avoidance of taboos that negate the community. Equally, private property does not preclude the community and the obligation to assist the family, relations, and kindred. On the comparison between natural-law moral theology and African ethics, “it is important to affirm that African ethics does not call into question the possibility of universal validity in ethics; all that is at stake is the problem of its justification.”11 This is more so important in the light of a plurality of moralities that could easily lead to a different praxis. Will natural law methodology be fruitful for Africans who think differently from the conceptual schemes underlying the construction of natural law ethics? Community (in its threefold dimension made up of the living, the dead, and the not-yet born) is important in deciding virtue because of the belief in African communities that their future depends on the ethical conduct of their members. However, the individual must not follow the community blindly. Life in community demands alertness and the maintenance of one’s own individuality. The community into which the individual is absorbed destroys itself. “History and the experience of one’s ancestors and of the elders are indeed taken seriously, but they are not merely repristinated or copied; rather, ethical conduct means that the individual does not consider himself to be the only one involved in his actions.”12 Here the social dimension of ethical conduct comes into play. Ethical goods and correct behavior are communicated through fairy tales, legends, proverbs, etc. One such fairy tale recounts the story of a hen driven out by her owners when they thought she was old and useless. She inhabited the bush and had hens and chickens while the community experienced famine that killed all their poultry. They begged her to come back but she refused. “This fairy tale too shows that the individual has an inalienable dignity and may not be discarded as something worthless. Even a handicapped individual has a unique position in the community and becomes a person thanks to other human beings, just as these become persons thanks to the one who is handicapped.” 13 The link between the community and the individual is one of harmonious mutual coexistence. The individual needs 10

Foundations of an African Ethics, 6. Ibid., 11. 12 Ibid., 29. 13 Ibid., 91. 11

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the community just as the community needs the individual. One cannot expect everything from the community; one has one’s own work to do and vice versa. While African ethics does not favor individualism, self-reliance remains important and crucial in the community and for the individual. Bujo asserts: In Africa, if one cannot fulfill oneself as a person outside the community, individual freedom is possible only through participation in the community’s life within “being-with-the-others”: my freedom as an individual can only be real and total if I free the community at the same time. In the same way, the community as a whole can enjoy true freedom only if it frees me as an individual. Strong and abundant for all is possible only in this continual interaction. Seen from this angle, African freedom is never conceived to be something that opposes the individual to the community. The golden rule, rather, is the individual with the community so that all are with all.14

Since the community is imperative for moral action, the elaboration of norms and their application can only unfold within the community’s frame. 15 Individual conscience also is subjected to the community’s dialogical discourse. African moral action takes place within the prism of palaver (“the African traditional council dealing with community matters”).16 Palaver is like discourse, where various opportunities abound to discuss and understand the meaning of words and their implication, in order to restore harmony and wholeness within the community and for various individuals. In its various forms: therapeutic (aimed at detecting the causes of illness or malaise, often by a traditional healer), family (solving family issues and feuds behind closed doors, often under the direction of the family sage), administrative (extra palaver often chaired by the traditional ruler or king and a council of elders), religious (God and the world of the ancestors are an integral part of palaver, yet actual discourse is critical), African ethics takes place in the community and not in isolation from the natural or moral law. “In all of this, life in its widest sense is what functions as the hinge for the elaboration of ethical norms. Everything that contributes to maintaining, strengthening, and perfecting individual as well as communal life is good and right. Whether it is an ethical judgment on property, marriage, or sexuality, etc., palaver will

14

Benezet Bujo, “Differentiations in African Ethics,” in The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, 433. 15 J. S. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa (London: SPCK, 1970), 248–49. 16 Benezet Bujo, “Differentiations in African Ethics, 425.

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determine if it is appropriate for life in abundance for all.” 17 In other words, “the community’s regular evaluation becomes, so to speak, the norm, ‘normalizing’ individual conscience. If this is the case, the individual conscience is not the highest court of appeal for moral decisions; rather, communal conscience, above all, measures and determines the individual conscience.”18 Contextuality and ethical sensibilities are important in virtue. While the Western view of truth is too intellectualistic with precise meaning that could have legal implications, one at home with African culture and worldview will recognize that truth is seen in a much more dynamic manner. Words are aimed at creating community, the meaning of words is understood not merely in its precise meaning but in gestures, looks, and proverbs contextually. Truth exists in its relation to the common life. One particular ideal of virtue cannot be imposed universally from on high on other peoples, especially if this is a contextually and culturally determined ideal. “With regards to ethical questions, this means that norms have a universal character while remaining plural. Every human as an individual is required to encourage the abundance of life, but also to take into account each community’s characteristics and realities.”19 It is only in a “Morality of Memoria” that one can grasp the problem of African ethics. Here the role of the ethically active subject is to understand his actions as making present the ethical experience of his ancestors and attempts to shape these so. This is the anamnetic character of African ethics expressed in choreography and art as expression of Africa’s experience of transcendence. “The human being in Africa dances his own life. In fact, all the existential events are danced: birth, marriage, and death, but also the new moon, political events, and so on.”20

African Christian Ethics African Christian ethics makes sense of the Gospel as a norm for morality within the context of Africa’s traditional ethics. It does not lose sight of African attitudes about life and community. This means that African Christian ethics must be an inculturated moral theology, in line with 17

Ibid., 428. Of course palaver differs from discourse ethics, which is based primarily on rational discourse and excludes those unable to articulate their viewpoints rationally. Palaver excludes no one. One notices the difference between this and Habermas’s theory of communicative action. 18 Ibid., 433. 19 Ibid., 431. 20 Foundations of an African Ethics, 39.

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African and not Western thought. African inculturated moral theology is caught up in the two opposed models of inculturation: the essentialist (critiques what it sees as romanticization of African cultures, as if it is anachronistic and static and as the only source for African Christian theology), and the existentialist (promotes African cultures and a source for theology and moral theology) models. The challenge becomes what one is to make of the African cultures in changing contemporary globalized society, especially as people are still guided by African cultures even as they navigate modern and postmodern society. Simon Kofi Appiah articulates the differences: “Essentialists” criticize “existentialists” for being overly reactionary to traditional moral theology and offering no more than revisionist theories that concentrate on culture instead of the originality of faith as the basis of all theologizing … “Existentialists” on their part disagree with the “essentialist approach” for ignoring the fact that inculturation is not just about mission. They insist that inculturation is part of an integral theological hermeneutic that is directed towards a rigorous reinterpretation of reality as a result of the historical experiences of African people. For “existentialists” the status questionis of inculturation lies precisely in what the “essentialist approach” denies. Given that there is no faith without a “cultural matrix” how can the “Christian story” (in its present predominantly Western cultural form) be proclaimed and lived in such a way that it becomes an authentic Christian response to the aspirations of African Christians? Bujo and other theologians argue that any attempt to answer this question by drawing on predetermined Western theological discourse (say, the use of natural law as a basis for doing inculturation ethics as Odozor proposes) begs the question. “Existentialists” believe inculturation is not just about faith in relation to African cultures. It must go a step further and become an on-going process that challenges Africans at the depths of their cultural psychology. In the words of Jean Marc Ela, inculturation in Africa implies “a rereading of our memories”; a way of living the Christian message from a new level of consciousness.21

Paulinus Odozor explicates Bujo’s ethics, differentiating its various stages of maturation, its claims of similarity and difference with Western communitarianism and the place of the word in its practice, especially the communicative problem-solving process of palaver. Palaver, unlike Western discursive ethics, involves every member of the community in decision making, resolution of conflicts, and search for moral truths. 21

Simon Kofi Appiah, “The Challenge of a Theologically Fruitful Method for Studying African Christian Ethics: The Role of the Human Sciences,” Exchange 41, no. 3 (2012): 259–60.

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Odozor, while extolling Bujo’s foundational contribution to African moral theology, is uncomfortable with what he considers Bujo’s essentialism. Bujo’s emphasis on essential features of African cultures and personality ignores the reality of moral conflicts and historical facts inconsonant with his essentialist claims. Odozor, using African participation in the slave trade and the inconsonant ethnic conflicts and violence, suggests caution when we emphasize Africa’s essential qualities. The evidence of history must be brought to bear in verifying how some of the legendary cultural values hold up in contemporary society. On another note, Odozor observes that “palaver is not a fool-proof approach to the determination of moral norms, because it is open to being hijacked by demagogues and to distortion by community and individual biases.”22 Odozor’s inculturated ethics seeks to harmonize African ethics with universal Christian ethics based on the natural law. Such ethics, he holds, is anamnetic, not only in recalling the just deeds of the ancestors but also their shameful deeds arising from greed and having remorse for them. Finally, African ethics must equally be ethics of discipleship according to the mind of Christ: For Africa this would include, but is not limited to, practicing forgiveness as a central Christian moral imperative; love as the center of Christian ethical life; attention to the poor and the marginalized; the recognition of the equal humanity of all persons, irrespective of ethnicity, gender, or religion; and continued vigilance over the culture to ensure it does not harbor, condone, or nurture any tendencies harmful to the welfare of the human person integrally and adequately considered.23

In the third part of his book Morality Truly Christian, Truly African, Odozor emphasized strongly the natural law “as a means for moral justification,”24 for African ethics. This is against Bujo’s rejection of the rationalistic approach of natural law. Odozor’s methodological foundation for an ethics truly Christian and African struggles with the relation of the Christian faith to African cultural (moral) and traditional religious traditions.25 Therefore, according to him the challenge of African Christian ethics is one of inculturation, and he is right. The problem though is his criteria for inculturation, which give the impression of a universal Christian faith without cultural accoutrements, which sets the criteria for 22

Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor, C.S.Sp., “An African Moral Theology of Inculturation: Methodological Considerations,” Theological Studies 69 (2008): 597. 23 Ibid., 609. 24 Morality Truly Christian, Truly African, 152. 25 Ibid., 170.

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morality truly Christian. Odozor thinks there is the Christian Christianity with which cultural Christianities must be in sync, or else they promote ethics merely “built on minimalist assumptions about God.”26 Even though he acknowledges that “much of the Christian tradition has been forged in contexts foreign to Africans,” 27 yet “one must at least know what the tradition teaches in order to dialogue with it or improve it or even modify it for African appropriation; otherwise one runs a number of risks, including chasing after red herrings, reinventing the wheel, or even engaging in outright heresy.” 28 In one sense, Odozor’s views resemble Niebuhr’s Christ-above-culture model we examined in Chapter One. He asserts: Some aspects of culture are outright immoral and must be changed as soon as we become aware of their immorality; failure to do so could otherwise make us morally complicit in them. Morally conscious Christians, and indeed morally conscious citizens, have a duty to work to change such immoral practices. Christians do so from the point of view of who they are: people tutored and informed by faith. This is the essence of inculturation from a moral point of view.

Christians make better moral judgments about African traditional cultural and religious traditions. Perhaps African culture is only preparatio evangelica for Odozor. He is overtly too cautious, albeit too afraid of heresy that the methodological foundation of African ethics he is proposing may actually not materialize. As Emmanuel Katangole observed, Odozor’s moral theological methodology in the article above and in his book is guided by an unseen fear of possible relativization and ethnocentrism in Africa’s ethics if it is not in sync with the universal Christian ethics. 29 Constructing African ethics is not one of either/or between essentialism and existentialism models, but as articulated below is one of critical appraisal of both approaches. Unlike classical or revisionist theories of ethics that try to ground ethical norms of universalist ethics that are Western in their conceptual schemes, inculturation ethics tries to ground Christian morality on concrete traditions of people. In inculturation ethics, Christian faith, culture, and philosophy of concrete people merge. “One of the main 26

Ibid., 169. Ibid., 172. 28 Ibid. 29 Emmanuel Katangole, “Morality Truly Christian, Truly African: Foundational, Methodological, and Theological Considerations by Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor, C.S.Sp,” Modern Theology 32, no. 3 (2016): 449. 27

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characteristics of inculturation ethics, therefore, is its insistence on making a people’s cultural experience as expressed in their concrete way of life a major part of the study of Christian ethics.”30 I wonder if there is any other way of articulating a sensus fidelium (Christian sense of faith) other than through one’s cultural and traditional thought. For this brings about a unity of faith and culture that makes Christian morality indigenous to the people. Inculturated moral theology preoccupied the first special assembly for Africa, the first African Synod, with specific treatment of marriage and family, justice and peace. The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa uses the image of “Family of God” as an ecclesiological symbol of unity for diverse African peoples, particularly Christians.31 The whole of chapter 4 of the exhortation (especially nos. 80–85) is devoted to evangelization and inculturation of the family. Various theologians have also devoted studies on issues of the African family problematizing the morality of monogamy and polygamy, the dignity of persons (especially the discrimination of women), and the education of children. According to the exhortation, some worrisome issues related to the family include restoring hope in youth, the scourge of AIDS, wars, refugees and displaced persons, the burden of international debt, and the dignity of an African woman (nos. 115–21). Inculturation, justice, peace, and reconciliation were the themes of the Second African Synod. It once more falls back on the family, the domestic church as the starting point of reconciliation, justice, and peace. It draws on an African vision of life formulated in traditional morality as an exemplar of justice and reconciliation. Both Synods presume inculturated ethics drawn from African cultural values as valuable for African Christian ethics. Both insist on a synthesis of the essentialist and existentialist models of inculturation. Inculturation is critical contextualization open to cultures as spaces for the Spirit of God. It is also open to changes, not only in the light of contemporary changes in society but also to greater authenticity attained by the purging of unwholesome elements of cultural traditions, prohibitions, and customs.

Conlcusion: Christian Ethics and African Traditions of Morality The pushback from African theologians has been against the Christagainst-culture model used in the evangelization of Africa, which 30

Appiah, “The Challenge of a Theologically Fruitful Method for Studying African Christian Ethics: The Role of the Human Sciences,” 262. 31 EIA n.63.

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condemns everything African as pagan. There have also been changes in the formulation of Christian ethics since the recognition of historical consciousness and variety of contexts. Much work has been done in this regard as well. The question now is one of quo vadis African Christian ethics? This question is important because Africa, like other parts of the world, is in the throes of globalization and has not remained the same. The traditional African ethics we elaborated in the first part of this chapter can as well be pristine. It is in the subconscious of some Africans, especially those who live in the rural areas, but for a great majority the struggle is one challenge of continuity and change in African traditions. While some ignore traditional morality, especially those living in urban areas who have had more exposure to Western ethics because of travel, Christianity, or other forms of interaction, the question of integrating traditional morality and Christian ethics is an urgent but difficult one. The daunting task of writing a Christian systematic study of African Christian ethics is based on the integrated nature of culture and religion in African traditional societies. Neville Richardson rightly observed: The definitive work on African morality and ethics has yet to be written, and it will be a brave person who sets out to do so. How can one comment ethically on all the customs and practices of Africa, or even a section of Africa? How does one select those traditions which are “morally relevant”? This points to an even greater difficulty: on whose criteria does one determine what is and is not morally relevant in Africa? The danger here is that of imposing foreign ethical criteria thereby effectively colonising the morality of Africa!32

This difficulty is exacerbated by the Enlightenment coloration of ethics “characterised by universalism, ahistoricism, individualism, an understanding of society as a rational contract, a punctiliar understanding of human experience, effectiveness as a moral factor, actions above persons, the priority of right over good, and a floating free from religious bases into secularism.”33 Post-Enlightenment Christian ethics, which emphasizes the universality of moral norms, is profoundly at odds with the particularities of cultural norms, especially African morality tied intrinsically to religion and community centered. I hope an alternative ethical framework critical of the Enlightenment and modernity and very open to the particularities of other cultural ethics will not only enhance the development of African Christian ethics, but also harmonize Western Christian ethics with other 32

Neville Richardson, “Can Christian Ethics Find Its Way, and Itself, in Africa?” Journal of Theology for South Africa 95 (1996): 39. 33 Ibid., 47.

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regional Christian ethics through greater recognition of the context-bound nature and situatedness of Christian ethics. We turn now to the contemporary context of doing theology in Africa, characterized by facets of globalization and challenges to the Good News. Because of its possible adverse effects in Africa, is there any prospect of humanizing globalization through Christian anthropology? Are Africans responsible for the underdevelopment of Africa? If so, what form should Christianity take in Africa to advance African progress and development? Is dialogue between African and Western thoughts possible? These are some questions that form the contemporary context of doing theology in Africa.

CHAPTER SIX GLOBALIZATION AND AFRICAN CATHOLICISM: TOWARDS A NEW ERA OF EVANGELIZATION

The Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG) is the watershed document for the reforms of Pope Francis,1 a blueprint for evangelization.2 It aims at a renewal of Christian faith and life through a daily personal encounter with Jesus Christ. 3 The transformation it envisions is to be achieved through a careful distinction of the hierarchy of the truths of the Christian faith, to remove the incidentals and accretions accumulated through history that burden church dogma and lead to misconceptions of the true doctrine of the Christian faith. 4 Instead of concentrating on protecting the image of the church (protecting the status quo), it calls for renewal of the church itself to usher in a new era of evangelization.5 It adopts a “missionary option” that can transform every aspect of the life of the church for the evangelization of the world, instead of a church that seeks her self-preservation.6 It departs from the church-against-the-world rhetoric to offer a church that seeks to engage cultures by understanding the signs of the times. Specifically, EG engages contemporary society in an open-minded, compassionate, tolerant, and cautious manner, emphasizing the mission of mercy at the heart of the Gospel, yet hoping for the transformation of the society by the same Gospel. It attributes the enormous changes taking place in the world to the multifaceted forces set in motion by industrialization and attendant information technology that has shrunk the globe into a village—globalization. EG states: 1

EG n.1. Joan Frawley Desmond, “‘Evangelii Gaudium’: Pope Francis’ Blueprint for Evangelization,” National Catholic Register 12/03/2013 http://www.ncregister. com/daily-news/evangelii-gaudium-pope-francis-blueprint-for-evangelization/. 3 EG, n.3. 4 Ibid., nn.34 & 36. 5 Ibid., n.26. 6 Ibid., n.27. 2

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This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occurring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power.7

While acknowledging some of its benefits, EG blames economic globalization for the greed, consumerism, and individualism characteristic of contemporary societies. EG rightly rejects these vehemently: “No to economics of exclusion;”8 “No to the new idolatry of money;”9 “No to a financial system which rules rather than serves;” 10 and “No to the inequality which spawns violence.”11 Economic theories with little regard for ethics, such as the trickledown theories of Neoliberal capitalism, not only perpetuate exclusion, but enthrone inequality and engender injustice. They are harbingers of greed consequent upon the idolatry of money and consumerism, gnawing at the heart of societies’ ethos, subjugating the human person, and turning humans into objects at the whims and caprices of the strong, the powerful, and the mighty privileged few. Under its watch, “a globalization of indifference has developed.”12 “Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.”13 Other aspects of societal life are marginalized and corrupted. The environment is degraded due to overexploitation; the use of fossil fuel increases the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exponentially with little thought to the consequences for the survival of other generations of humankind. The activities of transnational corporations and financial institutions challenge the sovereignty of most nation states, as they can easily upturn the economic fortunes of a country by moving their capital overnight. The forthrightly assertive yet pastoral tone of EG and its outright condemnation of the idolatry of money and consumerism is a calculated response to the centuries of war of the West against Christianity. Since the Enlightenment through modernity and post-modernity, by which the West considers itself “post-Christian,” the West has deliberately undermined Christianity as a potent force in the public sphere. Their arsenals of warfare are ideological: various forms of modern philosophy (secularism, 7

Ibid., n.52. Ibid., n.53. 9 Ibid., n.55. 10 Ibid., n.57. 11 Ibid., n.59. 12 Ibid., n.54. 13 Ibid., n.53. 8

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pluralism, relativism and modernism); global civilizing forces (liberal democracy, advanced science and technology, and capitalism); and restoration of neo-paganism. 14 These enthrone the cult of the superman against the Christian God presumably rendered impotent by the secularizing forces of superabundance, giving rise to rampant materialism and consumerism. EG rejects these Western gods and allied forms of contemporary atheism, which obstruct the Christian faith and impede the new evangelization. The Western pursuit of freedom through capitalism, the institution of human rights without a moral order, becomes only entrenchment of excessive individualism and enthronement of the Darwinian survival of the fittest. The casualty is the human person, neglected and replaced by the love of profit and money. EG rhetorically asserts: How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.15

EG’s engagement with cultures begins by rejecting the globalizing forces that militate against integral development and positive understanding of pluralism by divergent relativizing forces that seek to reduce the human person to a thing, a merely dispensable object. Africa’s history is tied to the forces of the Enlightenment, later industrialization, and consequent globalization, especially the free-market economy by which Africa’s economy is configured to the global economy even though she remains an unequal partner in world trade. Similarly, because African Catholicism emerges, benefits, and suffers from globalization, we will appropriate the message of EG from the perspective of its criticism of globalization, its emphasis on the church of the poor, and its holistic spirituality concerning integral development. We will equally know of the two African Synods’ exhortations: Ecclesia in Africa (1994) and Africae Munus (2011) in the light of the continuity of their major 14

Yusufu Turaki, “African Christianity in Global and Religious Conflict” Evangelical Review of Theology 31, no. 2 (2007): 128. 15 EG, n.53.

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themes with the reforms of EG. The key question we will address is how EG’s proposed reforms can engender a deepening of the Christian faith in Africa, by fostering Christian renewal characterized by a life of love brought about by an unfailing personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

African Catholicism: Product of Religious Globalization Globalization is the foremost phenomenon that has cut across disciplines and national boundaries, with lasting impacts and attendant consequences on the human person and societies. Generally understood as the economic, political, and cultural integration of nations worldwide, globalization brings to the fore the fact of human interdependence and the worldwide scope of interpersonal relationship. Powered by advances in science and information technology, especially the worldwide web, globalization through the activities of transnational corporations affects all aspects of human life. Not only does commercial entrepreneurship hold the key to society, the logic of capitalism seems determined to hinge human happiness and political, social, and cultural changes on the accumulation of capital. Yet globalization is multifaceted and beyond merely economic growth. As a complex process with recorded tremendous success in its stated aims of improving the human condition through creating opportunities for exercising human freedom by the production of goods and services in a free-market economy, globalization raises serious moral issues of concern to human and social sciences, especially in social justice. Some social justice matters worthy of note include the following. First, a competitive free-market economy presupposes a level playing ground for free and fair trade, which does not exist for the low-income countries of the world excluded from capital, from currency, and from decision-making power. Second, the economic, political, and cultural integration touted by globalization is not followed by the easy migration of people across borders. Stiff immigration laws and reforms excluding instead of including fellow humans, contradict the integration at the heart of globalization. Third, the emergence of worldwide terrorism abusing the infotechnological advances of globalization engenders human insecurity on a global scale, resurrecting the moral dilemma surrounding just war, dialogue, and respect for fundamental human rights. Fourth, the mechanistic laws underlying globalization lead to the objectification of the human person, giving rise to a culture in which its core values derive from consumption. The church’s interest in globalization arises in response to the issues of concern raised above: global inequality expressed in the widening gap

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between the rich and the poor; 16 preference of material goods over humans17 manifest in exploitation of migrant workers and depersonalization of migrants; 18 environmental degradation because of an unsustainable quest for economic growth;19 increasing global insecurity engendered on the one hand by geopolitical inequality and injustice, and on the other hand by a reaction against worldwide materialism and consumerism. 20 These and many more issues affect the dignity of the human person created in the image and likeness of God. Humans are stewards of God’s creation and ought to benefit from and protect the environment. Christianity is a globalizing force. Since its emergence as an institution within the Roman Empire, Christianity has been intertwined with globalization. Although the events were not as far-reaching as present-day globalization, the founding of Greco-Roman civilization in the four centuries immediately before and its consolidation in the four centuries immediately after the appearance of Christianity, are to some extent a globalizing phenomenon. This is true of the Hellenization, Romanization, and finally Christianization of the Mediterranean basin. 21 Christianity equally became a globalizing force within the context of Roman power with the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great in AD 313. Under this Roman emperor, the Nicene Council formulated the Christological doctrine of the Word of God present in Jesus as the same substance as the Father. Christianity spread within the Roman Empire through the declarations of the emperors. Western Christianity equally spread through exercising hard power that resulted in the fusion of the sacred and political power in the leader of the Christian faith as a representative of Christ on earth. The Spanish conquest of native lands and peoples through the Pradoado Treaty (1493), by which the church under Pope Alexander VI granted Christian emperors of Spain and Portugal legal rights over these lands to establish Christian holy empires, is a clear example of the form of globalization through hard power. According to 16

EG, n.53; John Paul II Solicitudo Rei Socialis, nn.13–14; Centesimus Annus, n.33. 17 Ibid., n.55; Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, n.25–27. 18 See John Coleman, “Pope Francis on the Dignity of Labor,” America: The National Catholic Review, Nov. 20 2013 http://americamagazine.org/content/allthings/pope-francis-dignity-labor; see also John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, nn.5– 7. 19 EG, n.56. 20 Ibid., n.59. 21 Max Stackhouse, God and Globalization: Vol. 4, Civilization and Grace (Theology for the 21st Century), Kindle Edition, Loc. 150.

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Joerg Rieger, the theological justification of this was guided by “particular images of God as the heavenly monarch who, through the Roman Catholic Church, endorsed the earthly monarchies of the Spaniards and Portuguese both at home and abroad, and by a particular sense of mission.”22 African Christianity and Catholicism are tied to Western Christianity. With the extinction of the North African Christianity with roots in early Palestinian Christianity (except Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, which survived) in the seventh century, and destruction of the Nubian Church by Islam in the sixteenth century, Christianity in modern Africa is the product of Western missionary enterprise from the fifteenth to twenty-first centuries. Through the strategy of using the structures of colonial governments with zeal to spread the Christian faith, amidst risks to the lives of Western Christian missionaries,23 and the witness of African converts who not only endured various persecutions, including martyrdom, but also spread the Christian faith to fellow Africans by word of mouth, millions of people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are converting to Christianity. The 2013 Report of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity confirms the growth of Christianity and Catholicism in Africa: In 1910, only 9% of Africa’s population was Christian, and 80% of Christians lived in just four countries: Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, and Madagascar. By 1970 Africa’s Christian percentage had risen to 38.7%, many of whom were converts from ethnoreligions in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010 the Christian percentage was 48.3%, and by 2020 it is expected to reach 49.3%. Roman Catholics form the largest bloc of Christians in Africa. Between 1970 and 2010 their numbers increased from 44.9 million (12.2% of the population) to 197.0 million (17.3%). In 2010 the Catholic share of church members (34.2%) was lower than in 1970 (38.3%). However, projections for 2020 show an increase to 35.2%. Independents [i.e. Independent African Churches] have seen their share of the total population and church members decrease recently, although they are still higher in 2010 than in 1970. The Orthodox share of both has declined steadily since 1970, a trend that is predicted to continue.24

22

Joerg Rieger, Globalization and Theology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2010), 11. Kindle Edition, Loc. 194. 23 Pope Benedict XVI in Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus (n.164) commends the efforts of the Christian missionaries “who, over the course of several centuries, sacrificed their lives to bring the Good News to their brothers and sisters in Africa.” 24 Center for the Study of Global Christianity, “Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission (Gordon-Conwell Theological

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The Western missionary enterprise in Africa succeeded according to the statistics above. African reception of the Gospel and evangelization among themselves continued the missionary enterprise as Christianity spread after the attainment of political independence by African countries in quick succession immediately after World War II. This massive conversion contradicted the expectation of some people who assumed Christianity in Africa and the global South was merely tied to colonialism.25 The conversion of more people after colonialism26 indicated that Africans accepted the Christian faith not out of fear of the colonial masters, but willingly because Christianity correlated to traditional African religion and culture. 27 Scholars of globalization and world Christianity prognosticate that the relocation of Christianity to the global South will bring about another cultural transformation akin to the influence of Greek culture on early Christianity. 28 For Jenkins, Africa, Asia, and Latin America are the face of the next Christendom29 and the New Christianity must take cognizance of cultural plurality as the Christianity in the global South reads the Bible with different hermeneutic keys.

African Catholicism through the Lens of the First and Second Synods for Africa Commenting on the strength of African Christianity and the direction the universal church expects her to take, Pope St. John Paul II in the PostSynodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa (EIA) expressed the need for the local churches in Africa to hold onto their own traditions

Seminary, June 2013), 22. http://wwwgordonconwell.com/netcommunity/CSGC Resources/ChristianityinitsGlobalContext.pdf 25 Donald M. Lewis, ed., Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 2. 26 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West, 41. 27 Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995) claims that Christianity is the renewal of African traditional religion, not an import from overseas. 28 Susan VanZanten, “Imagining Globalization as a Christian Literary Critic,” in The Gospel and Globalization: Exploring the Religious Roots of a Globalized World, ed. Michael W. Goheen and Erin G. Glanville (Vancouver, BC: Regent Publishing, 2009), 333. 29 Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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within the communion of the church.30 Pope Paul VI equally expressed this clearly during his first pastoral visit to Africa: The expression, that is, the language and mode of manifesting this one Faith may be manifold, hence it may be original, suited to the tongue, the style, the character, the genius and the culture of the one who professes this one Faith. From this point of view, a certain pluralism is not only legitimate, but desirable.31

Considering its importance for the appropriation of the faith, one is not surprised at the inclusion of inculturation as an important theme of EIA. As scholars of Christianity in the non-Western world know, one mistake of Christian missionaries was not taking the cultures of the people they were evangelizing seriously, because they were blindfolded by the Eurocentric form of Christianity under the tutelage of Christendom. 32 While inculturation had been in the life of the church, its practice was stunted by a classicist mindset that viewed Christian faith from one cultural perspective. Uniformist (universalist) ecclesiology, suspicious of the independence of local churches, is exported to sub-Saharan Africa with dire consequences on the autonomy of the local churches in the one universal church. This has accounted for the almost total dependence of the African church on the Roman church.33 Inculturation of Christian faith enables Africans to maintain their cultural identity in tendencies towards monoculturalism because of globalization. Using inculturation, EIA takes the church as God’s family as its guiding idea of evangelization in Africa.34 The intended aim of church as a family of God is healing in relation to Africa’s politics, economy, and culture and in its socio-religious and spiritual dimensions. The weakness of this foundational ecclesiological category lies in its interpretation and 30

EIA n.11. Paul VI, “Eucharistic Celebration at the Conclusion of the Symposium Organized by the Bishops of Africa,” n.2, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/homilies/1969/documents/hf_p-vi_hom _19690731_en.html. See also Evangelii Nuntiandi, n.20 on the distinctness of Gospel and culture and the imperative of Gospel not being incompatible with culture of each people. 32 Laurenti Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 34 reports the perception in Africa of “excessive imposition on Africa of Western Christian values at the expense of good African values.” 33 Eugene E. Uzukwu, A Listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in African Churches (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 58. 34 Ibid., 63. 31

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possible application to the life of the African church, whose understanding of the family rarely exceeds kinship by blood. This is reflected in the Rwandan 1994 genocide, when in a predominantly Catholic country, two Catholic tribes butchered each other and exterminated 800,000 of their own people within one month. One wonders whether the church-as-family is actually the panacea to ethnic discrimination. Even though EIA drums support for inculturation as an imperative for evangelization, its strategy for balanced inculturation (compatibility and communion) remains stuck in the age-old fear of the universal church losing control of the local church. Perpetuating the phobia, Africae Munus warns the bishops of Africa against undue allegiance to African cultures to the detriment of the tradition of the Church: Bishops should be vigilant over this need for inculturation, respecting the norms established by the Church. By discerning which cultural elements and traditions are contrary to the Gospel, they will be able to separate the good seed from the weeds (cf. Mt 13:26). While remaining true to itself, in total fidelity to the Gospel message and the Church’s tradition, Christianity will thus adopt the face of the countless cultures and peoples among whom it has found a welcome and taken root. The Church will then become an icon of the future which the Spirit of God is preparing for us, an icon to which Africa has a contribution of her own to make. In this process of inculturation, it is important not to forget the equally essential task of evangelizing the world of contemporary African culture.35

Inserting this caution weakens the pursuit of the process only of inculturation in the African church. One would have supposed the image of Church as a family would imply Christianity in Africa would be distinct in expression and formulation from Western Christianity. However, the Church’s struggle with inculturation is understandable, since the pluralistic view of culture is fairly recent in the Catholic Church, appearing for the first time in a papal document in 1944. Perhaps most inculturation in Africa has been theoretical, expressed in unending debate among theologians and a few shallow cosmetic changes in liturgical garments and minor liturgical rites.36 Despite its challenges, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of the Second African Synod (2009), Africae Munus (AM) praises African 35

AM, n.37. For instance, J. Obi Oguejiofor observed: “The problem with inculturation today is the gap between theory and practice,” J. Obi Oguejiofor, “Prologomena to an Authentic African Christian Theology,” The Nigerian Journal of Theology 11, no. 1 (1997): 7. 36

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Catholicism as a “spiritual ‘lung’ for a humanity that appears to be in a crisis of faith and hope, on account of the extraordinary human and spiritual riches of its children, its variegated cultures, its soil and sub-soil of abundant resources.”37 Affirming the ecclesiological image of church as a family, AM links the challenges facing Africa (some traumatic) to external forces of globalization.38 It mentions specifically the hegemony of the world system by which the minority appropriates the resources of the earth to the detriment of the many thrown into poverty.39 It calls upon the church in Africa to serve as sentinel and hold Africa’s political leadership to task to promote good governance and curb corruption and embezzlement of public funds. 40 For the new evangelization, AM exhorts the church in Africa to bear witness by being at the service of reconciliation, justice, and peace,41 especially by rekindling the personal encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.42 While recognizing the anthropological crisis and painful memory of the traumatic events that shape African history, AM falls short in its treatment of globalization. Although it emphasizes the need to resist the temptation to regard globalization as the only lens with which to view reality, 43 it fails to mention directly the negative impact of neoliberal capitalism on African economies, the lopsidedness of world trade that marginalizes Africans, and the attendant poverty in Africa. For a synod dedicated to the theme of reconciliation, justice, and peace, speaking of global justice for Africa in ambiguous terms of justice obliging us to give each one his due is not enough.44 It fails to condemn in strong terms the hegemony of economic globalization that perpetuates poverty, penury, and want for the majority of humankind for the benefit of the minority in a few countries in the global North. The terms of Africa’s configuration into the global economy leave her perpetually poor: her resources are left to the whims and caprices of multinationals and financial speculators. Africans simply have no bargaining power to decide how much they get for what they produce. This is because “emphasis on trade liberalization, economic deregulation, and the retrenchment of the state simply lay open the

37

AM, n.13. Ibid., n.9. 39 Ibid., n.24. 40 Ibid., nn.23, 76. 41 Ibid., nn.163, 174. 42 Ibid., n. 165. 43 Ibid., n.87. 44 Ibid., n.24. 38

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resources and economies of African countries for the picking by the powerful multinationals and financial speculators.”45

The African Church and the Universal Catholic Church The unity of the church as the People of God made explicit in Lumen Gentium 23 emphasizes the unity of the local churches with Petrine primacy, so local churches are united with the universal church in exercising the ministry of communion manifest in the celebration of the sacraments. The relationship between the local and the universal church can then be understood in reciprocity of the universal church existing in the local churches, and the local churches existing in the universal church. Joseph A. Komonchak shares this “mutual interiority or reciprocity”46 of the local church and the universal church existing within one another and argues against any attempt “to set them over-and-against one another as if they were distinct” and then create the problem of how to relate them.47 He explains: The universal church is the communion of the local churches; it does not result from, it is their reciprocal reception of one another as all the beneficiaries of Christ’s word and grace. What is realized locally is what is realized universally. What is called the universal church is the common and universal consciousness among all Christians and among all particular churches.48

Komonchak’s interpretation accords with EG’s understanding of the local church’s relationship to the universal church. Each particular Church, as a portion of the Catholic Church under the leadership of its bishop, is likewise called to missionary conversion. It is the primary subject of evangelization, since it is the concrete manifestation of the one Church in one specific place, and in it “the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative.” It is the

45

Simeon Ilesami, “Leave No Poor Behind: Globalization and the Imperative of Socio-Economic and Development Rights from an African Perspective,” Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc. 32, no. 1 (2004): 79. 46 Joseph A. Komonchak, “The Theology of the Local Church: State of the Question,” in The Multicultural Church: A New Landscape in U.S. Theologies, ed. William Cenkner (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 42. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 43.

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Church incarnate in a certain place, equipped with all the means of salvation bestowed by Christ, but with local features.49

Pope Francis endorses this conciliar ecclesiology and pledges to restore the autonomy of the local churches to foster the new evangelization. “It is not advisable for the Pope to take the place of local Bishops in the discernment of every issue which arises in their territory. In this sense, I am conscious of the need to promote a sound ‘decentralization.’”50 The church in Africa has, therefore, to know of its self-identity as a unique autonomous local church in the one church of Christ, vested with powers because of its unique witness of Jesus Christ to incarnate the faith it has received from Christ in its way of life. The future of the African church depends on such autonomy, which the church in Africa has so far been afraid to exercise because of the influence of the uniformist ecclesiology prevalent during the European missionary enterprise. Such ecclesiology stifles creativity, stalls the process of inculturation, prevents the church from being authentically African, and increases double allegiance of Africans to the Christian faith and their traditional religions. It prevents African Catholicism from paying attention to its history and so to what it might contribute to the universal church. EG places much premium on evangelization of cultures in order to inculturate the Gospel.51 It interprets culture as constitutive of the People of God, the body of Christ, the church. It defines culture as unique to people in the light of their history and patterns of life. It states: “It [culture] has to do with the lifestyle of a given society, the specific way in which its members relate to one another, to other creatures and to God. Understood in this way, culture embraces the totality of a people’s life.”52 EG not only prioritizes inculturation as essential for evangelization, it is convinced of the preeminent place of cultural pluralism in the Christian faith.53 It understands evangelization as inculturation.54 EG removes the major obstacle to inculturation by asserting that cultural diversity is not a threat to Church unity.55 Even though a particular culture may have participated in missionary activities, its culture is not the culture of the church. The Gospel is transcultural and the multiplicity of 49

EG, n.30. Ibid., n.16. 51 Ibid., nn.69–75. 52 Ibid., n.115. 53 Ibid., n.116. 54 Ibid., n.122. 55 Ibid., n.117. 50

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cultural expressions of the Christian faith is a blessing and enrichment for the church. Since evangelization is inculturation, African Catholicism must boldly pursue the inculturation of the Gospel in the light of the culture of their people. This may appear to be preposterous, since inculturation theology has been the most popular form of theology in many sub-Saharan countries. 56 Despite this, the process of inculturation has been bottlenecked with bureaucracy and enmeshed in the intricacy of discernment and communion with the universal church. As Peter Schineller notes about Nigeria, where he has worked as the Mission Superior of the Jesuits of Nigeria and Ghana, “The question remains, however, of how to judge whether a particular move or development is truly Christian and truly African, and who, which individual or which body, will make this judgment.”57 The process of inculturation must go beyond the artificial use of local instruments like drums, using the vernacular, substituting gourds for chalices, and liturgical vestments made with local textiles, etc. What needs to be Africanized is the mentality of the church in Africa to improve people’s self-identity, to accept themselves as they are, to be proud of their cultures, their thoughts, philosophy, and to adopt structures suited to the African way of life.58

Globalization: A Mixed Blessing for African Catholicism Globalization affects African Catholicism positively and negatively. As an agent of economic, political, cultural, social, and religious integration, globalization brings Catholics across the globe together through its highly efficient communication network, especially through the worldwide web and social media. Dioceses, parishes, institutions, men’s and women’s religious congregations, pious devotional associations, etc. in Africa are linked with their counterparts in the world through various Internet services. In a sort of reverse missionary activity, many African clergies and religious are working in various churches in parts of Europe and North America. This cross-pollination of ideas, theologies, interactions, and influences has contributed immensely to the growth of African

56

See Peter C. Phan, “Method in Liberation Theologies,” Theological Studies 61, no. 1 (2000): 41. 57 Peter Schineller, “Inculturation and the Issue of Syncretism: What is the Real Issue?,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16, no. 2 (1992): 52. 58 Seth Adom-Oware, “CIWA and Inculturation: A Critical Evaluation,” in Inculturation in the Third Millennium, ed. Patrick Chibuko and Simeon Eboh (Port Harcourt, Nigeria: CIWA Press, 1999), 92.

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Catholicism and survival of many parishes in Europe and North America facing an acute shortage of priests for the celebration of the sacraments. The negative consequences of globalization on African Catholicism are many, but we limit ourselves to two most devastating ones. First, Africa is falling victim to the consumerist culture made possible by the increased exporting of goods and the activities of transnational corporations in Africa. The desire to acquire foreign-made goods not only hurts African economies; it leads to violent criminal activities like kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, prostitution, human trafficking, etc. This social malaise affects Christian spirituality as many Catholics fall prey to the prosperity preachers and are swindled in the mad quest for material wealth. Corruption in government orchestrates endemic poverty, which pushes people to extreme measures in the search for solutions. Some Catholics leave the faith due to excessive taxation by the church to maintain diocesan institutions, the clergy, and their relatives. Second, because Christianity is interpreted as coterminous with modernity and the West, many people who think the West is morally bankrupt because of the Enlightenment and globalization declare war on African Christianity because they see it as a symbol of Western civilization. The statistics indicating the growth of Christianity in Africa become a curse as militant Islam considers African Christians as extensions of the West, and therefore easy targets in the ideological war against modernity and globalization. The jihadi groups and international militant Islamic terrorists’ organizations operating in Africa seek to obliterate Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa, as in North Africa and Asia centuries ago. Philip Jenkins’s words are worth recalling: “The deeply rooted Christianity of Africa and Asia did not simply fade away through lack of zeal, or theological confusion: it was crushed, in a welter of warfare and persecution.”59 African Catholicism and Christianity suffer various forms of persecution, violence, and loss of lives and property because of the marauding self-proclaimed Islamists who aim at Islamizing and establishing Islamic caliphates across Africa.

Towards a Full Theological Reality of the Church in Africa The foundational ecclesiological category of the church-as-family in Africa, if well understood and inculcated, can overcome its weaknesses. 59 Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 100.

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But for this to be achieved, religious actors must embark on the aggressive education of the conscience of Africans to broaden their concept of the family away from the limitedness of the traditional concept of family tied to kinship blood. The blood of the waters of baptism and even the blood of the universal brotherhood and sisterhood in one God configure humanity together as members of one family. Such an ecclesiological category will bring to its fullness the reality of the church in Africa, sharing the values of her African peoples, participating in the Eucharistic sacrifice and practically suffering for African peoples. Such a concept imbibed into the socio-political, cultural, and religious life of African peoples will fructify in their becoming their brothers’ keepers, pursuing policies for the good of the African peoples, and working together to enhance their standard of living by caring for their common wealth. It will also potentially strengthen African Catholicism’s independence to pursue its evangelizing efforts with the Christian faith deepened in all facets of African life. Africa will become a land of plenty, where her rich natural resources will be tapped for the benefit of her peoples. Globalization is the context of being church and being Christian and Catholic. Despite its challenges, its inevitability implies we must find ways of making the best of its strengths and significant contributions to humanity. Globalization will only serve humanity if it becomes a process of inclusion of both rich and poor. Globalization with inclusion can be realized by a conscious effort at solidarity. And the principle of solidarity affirms that the more individuals are defenseless within a society, the more they require the care and concern of others. The challenge of the African Church, therefore, should be how African peoples could benefit from globalization and still avoid the inherent dangers of monoculturalism, technologism, consumerism, profiteering, and moral decrepitude. I suggest:

x First, as religion, African Catholicism must come to grips with the reality of globalization and be able to understand its internal dynamics, especially economic globalization. The socio-economic condition of Africa today is created due to the Bretton Woods agreement, amidst other factors.60 It should be able to speak out in 60

The Bretton Woods agreement was signed in 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States. It established the rules, institutions, and procedures of the world monetary system. It set up such international financial institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which today are part of the World Bank Group. For criticism of these international financial institutions and their impact on the world

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x

x

x

x

clear condemnation of structural adjustment programs without a human face, which kept many African peoples perpetually poor and malnourished. Christians and other religionists perpetuate capital outflow from the continent. The church must not allow herself to be caught up in sharing in the booty of the few African technocrats who are beneficiaries of the system that holds other Africans down in poverty and want. If she does she will be caged. Second, African Catholicism must understand the dynamics of the market-oriented economy before involving itself in it. It must not become an agent that corrodes the cultural traditions of Africa in a preference for Eurocentric culture camouflaged as Christianity. Therefore, it must open its eyes to the effects of globalization and be ready through Christian tradition to preserve the cultural values of African peoples. Third, in a pluralistic society like many countries of Africa with multiple heritages, the African church must pay close attention to dialogue; and be able to unite with other religions in a common cause for the good of the continent. The divide-and-rule attitude that pits the local churches of Africa against each other and other religions hurts in bettering the socio-economic life of the people. It only gives the elite the opportunity to distract the people by playing religious politics, while looting the treasury and disregarding infrastructural development. Fourth, the African church does not seem to have caught on to the reality of ecological devastation, despite erosion and other disasters like drought, famine arising from insufficient rain, and others. She embarks on development projects without due regard for the environment. There are few documents from the regional bodies on ecology, not to speak of developing an ecological spirituality. Fifth, in the aspect of peace and conflict resolution, it is very clear that Africa is embroiled in ethnic, political, and religious violence. The church’s attitude helps in polarizing people and ethnically some of its language is potentially violent and often results in violent actions. The absence of dialogue with the other two important religions in Africa has often resulted in violent conflicts between the African church, African Traditional Religion, and Islam.

poor, see: Richard Peet, The Unholy Trinity (London: Zed Books, 2003); Susan George and Fabrizio Sabelli, Faith and Culture: The World Bank’s Secular Empire (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994).

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Conclusion EG’s call for a new evangelization within the context of globalization, as the sign of the times, must be anchored in the fervent daily unceasing encounter with the person of Jesus as the fount of Christian spirituality. African theologians must devote time into developing an African Christology to guide the popular devotions of people. Since according to John Paul II, “globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it,”61 we must make use of its resources in preaching the good news. We must participate in the concerted effort to humanize globalization through solidarity and by anchoring every economic system in the Jesus economy of care with compassion for the poor, the weak, and the marginalized. Evangelization is inculturation. Therefore, the ongoing spread of the Christian faith must be in the light of the cultures of African peoples to overcome the often-startling strangeness of Christianity to African peoples. African Christian spirituality can only be meaningful and genuine when correlated to the traditional African religious spirituality underlying cultural and religious moral norms of Africans. This way African Catholicism will cease being perceived as the church of the wealthy and the comfortable, which people like to identify with but shun in moments of trials and difficulties of life. EG’s call for a new evangelization is an opportunity for consolidating and deepening the Christian faith in Africa. To foster the new evangelization, African Catholicism’s way of being Church must change from its highly clericalized hierarchical uniformist ecclesiology to the Vatican II way of being church as the People of God. EG’s exhortation for a pastorally minded church is an imperative that African Catholicism must heed to win back those who have left the church; to keep their Christian communities together and to bring in more converts to the Christian faith. This is important in the light of the demand of the majority world church for contextualization of the faith in the light of people’s cultures. But in the light of its connection to globalization, can Christianity limit the negative impact of globalization in Africa in such a way it becomes much more beneficial? Can Christian anthropology be inculturated in Africa to give Africans a better understanding of being Christian that will enable them to navigate the changes and chances of globalization much 61

John Paul II, “Address to the Plenary Session on the Subject ‘Globalisation: Ethical and Institutional Concerns,’” The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, April 27, 2001 http://www.pass.va/content/scienzesociali/en/magisterium/blessed johnpaulii/27april2001.html.

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more integrally? These and other related questions demand broader study of globalization’s impact on Africa and the possible ways of humanizing globalization in Africa through Christian anthropology.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE PROSPECT OF HUMANIZING DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE IN AFRICA THROUGH CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY

The invention of development as public discourse began with United States President Truman’s 1949 speech that trumped up an illusion of global material prosperity based on a total restructuring of the “developing” world on the model of development and material achievement of the West. Truman argued this painful process was the only recipe for world prosperity. After decades of serious engagement in development discourse and multiple implementations of successive theories, the situation of the developing countries has not improved as rapidly as expected. The developed countries are experiencing various forms of financial crises. This chapter acknowledges the professionalization of development discourse and proposes humanizing development discourse in Africa in the light of Christian anthropology. This vision of integral development promotes the common good based on God’s love and respect for the uniqueness of the human person.

Introduction Try searching the dictionary for the word “development” and you will find an uncontroverted plethora of meanings. But these meanings become blurred when “development” is used in relation to such concepts as material well-being, progress, social justice, economic growth, personal blossoming, or even ecological equilibrium. As will become clear in a later section, the cacophony of meanings of “development” arises from the Western dualistic worldview with the tendency of separating the material and the spiritual (metaphysical) worlds and emphasizing individualism and competition, often to the detriment of the common good. This is opposed to the position of the more integral African worldview where the material world is linked to the spiritual, and progress is connected to the common good. The African concept of Ubuntu expressed in the communitarian

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societal value of universal belongingness to the human community expresses the concept of “development” more broadly. Consequent upon differences in understanding, and because of many sociological and political changes, the meaning associated with the word “development” differs depending on the hemisphere articulating the definition. For instance, in the Northern hemisphere, development refers to meeting the needs of economies considered less advanced according to Northern standards. We see this in Paul A. Haslam’s edited volume Introduction to International Development, which replaces President Truman’s “Point Four Speech,” classification of First, Second, and Third World countries, and instead uses the labels “developed” and “developing” to denote countries’ levels of wealth or poverty.1 The rich industrialized countries of the Northern hemisphere are “developed”; the poor precolonial countries of the world are “developing.” The binary conceptual differentiation of development results from the acceptance of the Enlightenment idea of infinite progress, supposedly impeded only by the power of superstition, despotism, and war. The triumph of social evolutionism in the nineteenth century took this idea to a new level, equating progress with history; and all nations will travel the same road, following the lead of the West in development owing to the size of its production, the use of reason, and scientific and technological advancement. Other cultures and peoples were deprived of their histories and specificities. They were seen in comparison with the West and are expected to be like the West. As Gilbert Rist asserts: “What passes today for the truth of the history of humankind (that is, progressive access of every nation to the benefits of “development”) is actually based upon the way in which Western society—to the exclusion of all others—has conceptualized its relationship to the past and the future.”2 Following Rist, we could speak of a solidified system of thought, making a world system resulting from the European/Western practices of extending their hegemony over other peoples and cultures based on their convictions of “development” from above. This initially took the form of colonization when countries like France, Britain, Germany, and Belgium had territories in Africa, India, the Middle East, and so on. The program of postcolonial development gradually took shape after the pattern of the United States’ 1947 Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, devastated by World War II. The desire of the other continents to be rescued in the same 1

Paul A. Haslam, et al., eds., Introduction to International Development: Approaches, Actors and Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5. 2 Gilbert Rist, The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Zed Books, 2002), 44.

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manner cemented the modern idea of development as economic growth. President Truman’s Point Four program (1949) extended technical assistance to Latin America and the poorer countries of the world, inaugurating the “development age.” With the use of the term “underdeveloped areas” in Point Four, development took on a transitive meaning, (an action performed by an agent upon another) as a principle of social organization.3 This chapter utilizes the development theories across decades to analyze the dominant development paradigm, especially neoliberal economic globalization theory. Therefore, I will take for granted conventional theories of development: classical and neoclassical economics to Keynesian economics, ranging from development as modernization to neoliberal economics. I will not concern myself with nonconventional critical theories of development, such as Marxism, socialism and development, poststructuralism, postcolonialism and postdevelopmentalism, or with feminist theories of development or critical modernism. It is not because I do not think these theories are important; rather, I recognize, appreciate and draw upon the work already done in these areas by various disciplines.4 The focus of this chapter is confined to a critical analysis of the hegemonic form of development as economic globalization in the light of the age-old challenge of income inequality responsible for these theories of development. Relying on the works of some development economists like Thomas Piketty,5 the first part of the chapter critiques the exercise of power in development discourse. The second part proposes, in the light of Christian anthropology and the African concept of Ubuntu, a humanization of development that would properly focus on the well-being of the human person, whose dignity is inherent in having been created in the image and likeness of God.

Economic Globalization in the 21st Century Appraisal of the impacts of neoliberal economics or economic globalization on any population has often resulted in conspiracy theories, 3

Part of President Truman’s Point Four Program states: “We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.” Truman’s Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949, accessed from http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/50yr_archive/inagural20jan1949.htm. 4 See for example, Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick, Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives (New York: The Guilford Press 2009). 5 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).

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blame games, and needless antagonism; especially as these assessments are often unsubstantiated and generally theoretical, exhibiting crass ignorance of the dynamics of wealth distribution and income inequality. Having said this, one must not ignore or sidestep the importance of balance (which is difficult to attain) between capital and labor. Unresolved, this breeds conflict and sometimes deadly violence resulting in loss of lives. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century deals squarely with this problem of income inequality, which has plagued societies of every age. This problem is important in the twenty-first century because development discourse is equally about justice expected in the relation between income and labor that often contributes to inequalities. It is clear the invisible hand of the market only benefits societies that already possess wealth, and this is often drawn from other countries and continents. The ongoing dominance of such countries and continents over others depends upon persistent political maneuvers by dominant groups. Poor countries (especially in Africa) continue to experience great capital outflows because rich countries own the majority of their industrial output and financial market. Piketty estimates “that the foreign-owned share of Africa’s manufacturing capital may exceed 40 to 50 percent and may be higher in other sectors. Despite the fact that there are many imperfections in the balance of payments data, foreign ownership is clearly an important reality in Africa today.”6 It is often repeated that African countries must increase their FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) to increase foreign currency to boost their economies, in order to increase their per capita income. The truth is that poor countries keep on enriching foreign countries, who manage most resources of African countries. However, in other emerging economies that finance their investments and do not depend on foreign direct deposits, the reverse is the case. Piketty asserts: Furthermore, if we look at the historical record, it does not appear that capital mobility has been the primary factor promoting convergence of rich and poor nations. None of the Asian countries that have moved closer to the developed countries of the West in recent years has benefited from large foreign investments, whether it be Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan and more recently China. In essence, all of these countries themselves financed the necessary investments in physical capital and, even more, in human capital, which the latest research holds to be the key to long-term growth. Conversely, countries owned by other countries, whether in the colonial period or in Africa today, have been less successful, most notably because they have tended to specialize in areas without much prospect of future 6

Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 68–69.

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development and because they have been subject to chronic political instability.7

Africa’s involvement in economic liberalization must be in such a way that it benefits from open markets, just as Asians benefit from the free movement of goods and services. Africa’s economy will never improve as long as it remains hinged on dependence on foreign capital. The failure of the modernization idea of development is increasing the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the wealthy. Unfortunately, this appears to be the strategy of neoliberal economics, which prioritizes the market above the human person. There is the glorification of capital over human well-being. Despite the arguments in defense, neoliberalism contains systemic injustice within its structures. Perhaps this arises from its aiming primarily for profit and economic growth. The contributors in a book on neoliberalism agree, “neoliberalism is not advancing social justice and equality, but is, instead, reinscribing, intensifying, and creating injustices and inequality.” 8 It cannot advance social justice because its major value—the promotion of individual freedom through competition in the market that creates wealth—fails to account for differences in the starting point of competition, opportunities available for equal competition, or extenuating circumstances such as unequal treatment because of race and sex (gender regimes, ethnicity, and racism) and even health issues that will make one unable to effectively compete. It also does not attend to how choices by policy makers constrain the choices of other people and poor countries’ participation in the market. Markets do not work as market economic theories presume. There is no level playing ground between the rich and the poor, or the employer and the employee; neither is there any between resource-rich but less powerful nations and those industrialized, and more technologized societies that enjoy more international political clout. Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize laureate in Economics, and a staunch believer in the prospect of economic globalization to increase human prosperity and lift the poor from destitution, advocates radical change in the economic policies imposed on developing countries. Stiglitz denounces policies based more on “ideology and politics,” which result in “wrong-headed actions, ones that did not solve the problem at hand but

7

Ibid., 70. Susan Braedley and Meg Luxton, eds., Neoliberalism and Everyday Life (Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2010), 6.

8

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that fit with the interests or beliefs of the people in power.”9 As an insider, Stiglitz exposes not only the lack of transparency of the institutions charged with providing policies for neoliberal reforms in developing countries, but also how the ideologies of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization perpetuate the political and economic hegemony of the rich and developed countries with little consideration for the poor developing countries of the world. The IMF-imposed structural adjustment program offers an important example. Stiglitz postulates: IMF structural adjustment policies … led to hunger and riots in many countries; and even when results were not so dire, even when they managed to eke out some growth for a while, often the benefits were disproportionately to the better-off, with those at the bottom sometimes facing even greater poverty … But while no one was happy about the suffering that often accompanied the IMF programs, inside the IMF it was simply assumed that whatever suffering occurred was a necessary part of the pain countries had to experience on the way to becoming a successful market economy, and that their treasuries would, in fact, reduce the pain the countries would have to face in the long run.10

One calls to mind as well the “shock doctrine” propounded by advocates of neoliberal capitalism, which advises leaders to capitalize on disasters (either natural or orchestrated by allied governmental institutions) to impose economic, political, and social changes people would not have accepted under normal circumstances. 11 As Philip McMichael observes, “at the turn of the twenty-first century, the United Nations reported that the richest 20 percent of the world’s population enjoyed 30 times the income of the poorest 20 percent in 1960, but by 1997 the difference was of the order of 74.”12 It is not surprising that World Trade Organization meetings draw public outcry, such as the famous anti-globalization protests during the WTO Seattle ministerial (1999) conference. The failure of neoliberalism to fulfill its promises necessitates the constant need to trumpet its successes and achievements in reducing poverty and hunger, 9

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002), x. 10 Ibid., xiv. 11 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Penguin Books, 2008); Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999). 12 Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change (Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press, 2008), 191.

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and supports the tendency of the United Nations to manufacture new development goals. It is not out of place to wonder whether Sustainable Development Goals will achieve what the Millennium Development Goals failed to achieve: halve poverty by 2015. Piketty does not think global inequality of wealth will be any different in the twenty-first century than in the previous century.13 The inegalitarian process of wealth distribution may take on unprecedented proportions in the new global economy. Unequal returns on capital widen the rich–poor divide within nations, and this is often complemented by unequal wealth between nations, because the poor will always have less capital to invest than the rich and the wealthy. As global wealth increases, average income does not increase. Piketty argues, “the largest fortunes grew much more rapidly than average wealth.”14 This does not mean poor countries cannot grow rich, but all things being equal, they will not catch up with rich developed countries. One must also take account of political, military, and economic factors as responsible for global distribution of capital, because market forces alone are not the determinant of economic growth. Countries at the periphery, which are edged out of the policymaking process by the rich and powerful and must borrow capital in foreign currencies to participate in the international free market economy, will always be at disadvantage. Inept and corrupt leadership and other forms of internal political and social upheaval exacerbate these countries’ situation. This is particularly the case in the African continent’s striving for “development.”

Africa and the Development Discourse The paternalistic attitude toward Africa in international trade is a carryover of the social evolutionism fostered by colonial anthropologists that construed Africans ahistorically, as people at the lowest level of the human race. As Basil Davidson observes, Africans were first called “the undeveloped peoples,” 15 before they were classified as underdeveloped peoples who need Western technology and assistance in forms of aid to rise up to civilization, per Truman’s Point Four Program. This paternalistic

13

Piketty, 431, 437. Ibid., 435. 15 Basil Davidson, The African Genius: An Introduction to African Social and Cultural History (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), 27. 14

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discourse extends the perception of the Negro as less human, which justifies the commodification of Africans as articles of trade.16 Newly independent African countries worked zealously to catch up with the West via the strategies of the development decades. At the Bandung conference (1955), they and other “Third World countries” sought to develop a common “development” policy to integrate into the world economy. 17 By 1960, the International Development Association was formed to grant loans on lower interest rates to developing countries, with the purported aim of allowing them to benefit from the 1960s United Nations declared “Development Decade.” Alongside most of Latin America, African countries adopted stages of development as contained in W. W. Rostow’s (1953) modernization theory of development. 18 Africa borrowed heavily to attain technology transfer, buy equipment and machinery to revolutionize agriculture, build infrastructure, fund education, provide healthcare, construct cities, improve transportation, etc. It is now common knowledge that such loans, which were embezzled or used for elephant projects to prop up military regimes in Africa, accumulated heavy interest. This forced Africa into the neoliberal economic system unprepared. Stephen Lewis’s calculation of the African continent’s debt and repayment gives a bird’s-eye view of Africa’s predicament in its attempt to catch up with the West: It may seem hard to believe, but between 1970 and 2002, Africa acquired $294 billion of debt. Much of the debt was assumed by military dictators who profited beyond the dreams of avarice, and left for the people of their countries, the crushing burden of payment. Over the same period, it paid back $260 billion mostly in interest. At the end of it all, Africa continued to owe upwards of $230 billion in debt. That is the definition of international economic obscenity. Here we have the poorest continent in

16

In addition to the viciousness of enslavement, American economy is built partly at the backs of forced slave labor. Piketty’s analysis is instructive here: “What one finds is that the total market value of slaves represented nearly a year and a half of US national income in the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, which is roughly equal to the total value of farmland” (Piketty, 159). 17 The Bandung Conference was the Asian-African conference in Bandung, Indonesia convened by leaders of Third World governments in 1955 to develop a common “development” policy—integration into the world economy, peace, and political roles, especially that of non-alignment in the Cold War. 18 W. W. Rostow, The Process of Economic Growth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953).

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the world paying off its debt, again and again, and forever being grotesquely in hock.19

The above-mentioned predicament sketched by Lewis betrays the lie of “development.” Instead of enhancing the development of the poor countries, the “project” of development benefitted the rich and impoverished the poor countries. This is why Third World countries agitated intensely for a fair share in development, and an end to imperialism and extortion by the transnational corporations during the development decade of the 1970s. At the international level, this led to the demand for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) to discuss the issues of raw materials and development, and the inequality of the benefits of technological development that resulted in the widening gap between the rich and poor.20 Sadly, however, while this would have meant that the NIEO enshrine the rights of developing countries to the disposition of their own natural resources within international development law, every effort to do so has failed. Why? Margot E. Salomon offers a simple answer: “industrialized countries as net beneciaries of the global economic system would not allow it.” 21 But is this not the presumed purpose of development—to replace the imperialism at the heart of exploitation for foreign profit, which President Truman’s Point Four program promised to stamp out? Should the implementation of the Point Four Program not have led to support for the NIEO and other policies to speed up developing the 19

Stephen Lewis, Race Against Time (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2005), 22. It is important to note here the successful role Christians played through the Jubilee Year Movement towards the eradication or reduction in some cases of most of African debt. It is sad as well to note that many African countries are once more piling up more debts from international financial institutions, partly due to vagaries of the international market but mainly due to corruption and mismanagement of their nation’s resources (cf. Sebastian Kim, “Editorial,” International Journal of Public Theology 2 (2008): 139–43). 20 In spite of the massive support for the NIEO (such as by the World Council of Churches, Episcopal Conferences, theological associations, individual moralists, and sociologists, among others), it was defeated because the structural change it demanded challenged the domination of the rich countries over the poor countries in international trade (Cf. World Council of Churches, “New International Economic Order and the Churches,” The Ecumenical Review 27, no. 4 (1975): 402–04; Commission Française Justice et Paix, “New International Economic Order and the Church,” African Ecclesiastical Review (AFER) 20, no. 3 (1978): 186–89; International Documentation Center, “Towards a New International Economic Order,” IDOC Bulletin 47 (1976): 15–20). 21 Margot E. Salomon, “From NEIO to Now and the Unfinishable Story of Economic Justice,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 62 (2013): 31.

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“underdeveloped” peoples? 22 Instead, the “project” of development was rather designed to continuously benefit the dominant rich industrialized countries to make it easier for them to access raw materials and to provide easy markets and consumers for their ever-expanding production powered by advanced technology. Benefits accruing to poor developing countries were often accidental—unintended consequences that arose from the selfinterest of the dominant countries. It is little wonder then that the Lagos Plan of Action, a blueprint for the economic development of Africa (1980) by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) began in a tone of frustration with the whole “project” of development it had formerly embraced with trust: The effect of unfulfilled promises of global development strategies has been more sharply felt in Africa than in the other continents of the world. Indeed, rather than result in an improvement in the economic situation of the continent, successive strategies have made it stagnate and become more susceptible than other regions to the economic and social crises suffered by the industrialised countries. Thus, Africa is unable to point to any significant growth rate, or satisfactory index of general well-being, in the past 20 years. Faced with this situation, and determined to undertake measures for the basic restructuring of the economic base of our continent, we resolved to adopt a far-reaching regional approach based primarily on collective self-reliance.23

The resolutions of the Lagos Plan of Action were approved by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at its Second Extraordinary Session held from April 28 to 29, 1980, in Lagos, Nigeria. The Lagos Plan was constructed in the light of the NIEO agenda, and aimed at self-reliance and greater participation of African countries in policies affecting them, especially their own economic development. The developed countries of the North vehemently opposed the resolutions taken because they advocated structural changes in the world politico-economic arrangement. Instead, the IMF used the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa to impose an alternative program: an austerity measure called the 22 In actual fact, the demise of the NIEO followed intense background activities by the United States to frustrate it (Cf. Patrick Sharma, “The United States, the World Bank, and the Challenges of International Development in the 1970s,” Diplomatic History 37, no. 3 (2013): 572–604. 23 Organisation of African Unity, Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa 1980–2000. www.merit.unu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/ 01/Lagos-Plan-of-Action.pdf (accessed October 26, 2015).

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African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation 1990 (AAF-SAP). This devastated Africa’s social, economic, financial, and political institutions in the 1990s. AAF-SAP aimed at several improvements in policy areas: “1) financial management and efficiency of public enterprises and tighter financial accountability; 2) agricultural incentives; 3) export diversification; and 4) external debt management.”24 Effectively, however, this program once more served the interests of the international financial institutions. Instead of policies that sought Africa’s self-reliance and selfdetermination by control of their natural resources, as proponents of the NIEO advocated, this development regime preferred watered-down reports amenable to the interests of the countries of the rich North. One good example of this was the report of the South Commission, titled The Challenge to the South (1990). Whilst focusing on South-South cooperation and North-South relations, it helped to tone down the demands of the NIEO on structural change in the international economic order.25 Yet, because it devoted its attention to national development and because of its stress on the responsibility of developing countries for their own development, the report was welcomed by spokespersons from the North.26 Because of this, African countries entered the global market illequipped to compete and in a grossly disadvantaged position. The neocolonial Structural Adjustment Programs left them weakened politically, and destroyed them economically, financially, and socially. In addition, they were divided by ethnic rivalries, burdened by huge debts, and left in disarray by greedy, corrupt leaders; and now were without the requisite skills, infrastructure, and knowledge required to participate in technologically advanced global society. Not surprisingly, sub-Saharan African nations do not feature among the countries making any significant growth towards convergence with the advanced economies in Piketty’s analysis of economic growth, despite all the noise about economic growth in Africa. The growing economies projected by Piketty to converge with the Western economies include China and countries from Eastern Europe, South America, North Africa, 24

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 1990, African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programs for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP), Addis Ababa, http://hdl.handle.net/10855/5670. 25 The South Commission, The Challenge to the South: Report of the South Commission (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 26 Julius K. Nyerere, “Foreword,” The South Centre, Facing the Challenge: Responses to the Report of the South Commission (London: Zed Books, 1993), xiii–xiv.

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and the Middle East.27 This not only means that net foreign capital in subSaharan Africa is low, it implies it is not growing compared to that of the other emerging economies. It is decreasing so much that sub-Saharan Africa is doomed to remain the basket case of the world economy. This view of sub-Saharan Africa’s prospects as a region may have to be qualified in the light of the modest progress made in development and economic growth in various African countries. The World Bank Annual Report (2011) showcased continued growth in Africa, stating: “African countries south of the Sahara weathered the recent global economic crisis better than past crises, thanks in part to improved economic policies. As a result, Africa is one of the fastest-growing developing regions in the world.” 28 And the McKinsey Company Report (2010) corroborates the World Bank view of continued economic growth in African countries: “Africa’s collective GDP, at $1.6 trillion in 2008, is now roughly equal to Brazil’s or Russia’s, and the continent is among the world’s most rapidly growing economic regions. This acceleration is a sign of hard-earned progress and promise.” 29 An overview of World Bank’s 2015 regional report shows that Africa maintains economic growth: Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth is projected at an average of 3.7 percent in 2015 down from 4.6 percent in 2014. However, despite the slowdown of Africa’s biggest economies, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region is expected to pick up to an average of 4.4 percent and 4.8 percent in 2016 and 2017 respectively. This increase will be driven by domestic demand, supported by continuing infrastructure investment and private consumption fueled by lower oil prices. External demand is also expected to support growth, because of stronger prospects in high-income economies.30

The Economist (2013) goes further by offering eight countries as examples of the fastest-growing economies in the world:

27

Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 100. The World Bank Annual Report 2011, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/ default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/09/09/000356161_20110909023530/ Rendered/PDF/644400PUB0Year0l0version0BOX361537B.pdf 29 Global Monitoring Report 2015, Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change, http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/pubdocs/publicdoc/2015/10/503001444058 224597/Global-Monitoring-Report-2015.pdf 30 United Nations, 2015, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20re v%20%28July%201%29.pdf 28

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Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania. All have enjoyed rapid growth in GDP per person. But they have also done well at translating that strong growth into improved well-being (in technical terms, the correlation between GDP per person and well-being above one in these countries). Income growth per person has been above 5% a year in Ghana, Mozambique, and Uganda, too. But increases in wellbeing have not been quite as rapid as in the best performers.31

Even though notable economic growth and improvements are recorded in some countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Jim Yong Kim and Christine Lagarde note that millions of Africans are still left out, despite embracing and implementing policies of various development decades, including the now defunct Millennium Development Goals. 32 This reported growth comes from resources and not commodities. So fluctuation in prices of these resources immediately affects the economies of these countries. The sustainability of growth also depends upon how the countries invest the money they make during boom periods for their natural resources. In addition, as Morten Jerven observes, “Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers tell us too little about what has really happened or about whether living conditions on the African continent are improving.”33 For example, the United Nations report on the Millennium Development Goals (2015) that led the transition to Sustainable Development Goals, articulates what I consider the weakness of the MDGs even though the report gave itself a passing mark: an inability to lift people out of poverty but instead increasing the poverty of the poor. The World Bank Global Monitoring Report (2015/2016) mentions these three critical challenges:

31

J.O’S, 2013, “Development in Africa: Growth and other Good Things,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/05/development-africa. Other viewpoints point to the future of African growth and development in more positive ways than reported in the American media. According to Howard French of the Atlantic “A recent report by the African Development Bank projected that, by 2030, much of Africa will attain lower-middle- and middle-class majorities, and that consumer spending will explode from $680 billion in 2008 to $2.2 trillion. According to McKinsey and Co., Africa already has more middle class consumers than India, which has a larger population.” (French, 2012: 5). 32 Jim Yong Kim and Christine Lagarde, “Foreword,” World Bank Group, Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016: Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016), x. DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-06698. https:// openknowledge.worldbank.org/ 33 Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 5.

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Chapter Seven A large percentage of the remaining poor are deeply poor, with income levels far below the poverty line … in many countries, the incomes of the bottom 40 percent declined, including in half of the high-income countries … Poverty reduction and shared prosperity are held back by unequal progress on the non-income dimensions of development, like access to essential services.34

So it is still correct to say that the African economy is involved in market liberalization while still stuck in the eighteenth century land-based European economic format. Its monetary policy resembles the preindustrial rentier and mercantile economy, in which wealth is in the hands of a few landlords to whom the majority of citizens pay rent. Despite abundant natural and human resources and capital accruing from these resources, its infrastructure is decrepit and unable to function in the service of commercial and financial global capitalism in the twenty-first century. For instance, the World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim, said in a speech at the Global Launch of “Poverty in A Rising Africa” Report (2015) that only one in three people in sub-Saharan Africa has access to electricity and, when available, it can be unreliable and unaffordable.35 The executive summary of this same report (2016) claims extreme poverty is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa: “While pockets of ultra-poverty exist around the world, Sub-Saharan Africa is home to most of the deeply poor.” 36 Why does a continent that so faithfully followed prescribed development strategies continue to lag behind the rest of the technologically developed world?

The Politics of Africa’s Underdevelopment Because of poor leadership in Africa, a balanced assessment underdevelopment in Africa must account for the phenomenon corruption and the impact of social evolutionism that underline Western idea of development. I begin with the latter because of possible influence it may have had on the former.

34

of of the the

Ibid., 3. Roseline Okere, “Only 33% of sub-Saharan Africans Have Access to Electricity,” Guardian Newspaper, Thursday 22 October 2015, http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/10/only-33-of-sub-saharan-africans-haveaccess-to-electricity/ (accessed October 22, 2015). 36 Global Monitoring Report 2015/2016: Development Goals in an Era of Demographic Change (2016 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank), xv. https:// openknowledge.worldbank.org/ 35

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African underdevelopment is traced to the triumph of nineteenth century social evolutionism, which advanced infinite progress for civilized peoples while perpetuating Africa’s marginality. This theory classified a culture’s creativity and intellectual achievements through a European cultural prism. It placed the black race at the lowest rung in the racial hierarchy. So the inferior race was the slave of the rest of humanity. Colonization perpetuated this social evolutionism not only by forcibly transforming Africa according to European constructs but also by distorting the orders of traditional society—the symbols of authority, and the understanding of and reverence for the sacred, its value structure—and replacing them with artificial consumption. This European superiority complex engendered an inferiority complex and timidity towards people of other races among African peoples. It promoted the idea that Africa is not and cannot be creative; that it is marginal and can only depend on other nations to progress. Not least, this view of African people’s inferiority was even extended to their creative arts, holding that despite their uniqueness they cannot be accepted as being original to them. V. Y. Mudimbe illustrates this Western epistemological ethnocentrism by stating that: Since Africans could produce nothing of value; the technique of Yoruba statuary must have come from Egyptians; Benin art must be a Portuguese creation; the architectural achievement of Zimbabwe was due to Arab technicians; and Hausa and Buganda statecraft were inventions of white invaders.37

The Western model of social transformation articulated in W. W. Rostow’s modernization theory of development advances social evolutionism. Development, Rostow argues, progresses by the gradual evolution of society from primitive to modernized mentality and technology. Africa’s development is therefore predicated on its evolution from the state of primitivism to modernity, from being a-cultural to civilization. Africa must be guided by the technologically advanced societies of the West. Truman’s designation of peoples as underdeveloped aptly applies to Africa according to this construct. Rostow’s development model was very influential in much of development policies in Africa in the 1960s, which should make it like the West.38 Claude Ake illustrates this beautifully:

37

V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 13. 38 Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the NationState (New York: Times Books, Random House, 1992), 199.

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Chapter Seven In the version of modernization theory applied to Africa, such as W. W. Rustow’s [Rostow] Stages of Economic Growth (1960), development replaces modernization, the state of backwardness is regarded as preindustrial, the movement to overcome it becomes the process of economic growth to be engineered by neoclassical tools, and the end of social evolution—that is, modernity—means industrialization and high mass consumption. In the postwar period, when the development of the third world came into vogue, development thinking leaned more toward John Maynard Keynes than toward the classical tradition. By the late 1950s, the orientations and assumptions of development thinking had become more structuralist.39

Modernization means nothing more than Americanization of societies and the spread of foreign politico-economic and cultural institutional structures to Africa and other parts of the world. The famed anthropologist Eric R. Wolf articulates this clearly: “Modernization theory” became an instrument for bestowing praise on societies deemed to be modern and casting a critical eye on those that had yet to attain that achievement. The political leaders of the United States had pronounced themselves in favor of aiding the development of the Third World, and modernization theorists seconded that pronouncement. Yet modernization theory effectively foreclosed any but the most ideologically charged understanding of that world. It used the term modern, but by that term the United States, or rather an ideal of a democratic, pluralistic, rational, and secular United States. It said traditional, but meant all those others that would have to adopt that ideal to qualify for assistance … By equating tradition with stasis and lack of development, it denied societies marked off as traditional any significant history of their own. Above all, by dividing the world into modern, transitional, and traditional societies, it blocked effective understanding of relationships among them.40

Africa’s prosperity is construed as lying in the hands of foreigners; to be shaped according to their capital, expertise and ways of life. This implies that Africa must abandon its traditional cultural life and political, economic, and social structures. To a large extent, Africa is underdeveloped the more it abandons its cultural life and traditional institutions. But Africa is neither undeveloped nor underdeveloped. The pioneering works of scholars like Basil Davidson, Ali A. Mazrui, Cheikh Anta Diop, 39

Claude Ake, Democracy and Development in Africa (Brookings Institution, Washington, DC: 1966), 10. 40 Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, 2010), 12–13.

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A. A. Onwuejeogwu and others, repeatedly debunk the lie of social evolutionism that excludes Africa from human civilization. Africa is not only the cradle of civilization, it is the birthplace of humankind. Africans have been able to inhabit and devise measures to survive in their often harsh environment for thousands of years before the encounter with foreigners and before colonization. Davidson rightly asserts: If one should praise “the Greek spirit” as splendidly creative and inventive, one may perhaps express some admiration for an “African spirit” which was far less favourably placed for the elaboration of the arts of life, but none the less made this continent supply the needs of man. Where, after all, lay the precedent for the social and ideological structures built by the Africans, so various and resilient, so intricately held together, so much a skillful interweaving of the possible and the desirable? Where did these systems draw their sap and vigour except from populations who evolved them out of their own creativeness? Even allowing for the distant precedents of Egypt, the peoples who settled Africa had surely less to go upon than the ancestors of Pericles. The balance needs adjusting here.41

The prelude to Africa’s development is a reorientation of the African mind from the social evolutionistic ideas internalized in much of Africa. The entire construct of the project and paradigm of development is based on the supposition there exist undeveloped and underdeveloped peoples. These are peoples without history whose progress depends on the paternalism of other nations. This idea must be exposed for what it is—a blatant lie. Africa must overcome the inferiority complex ingrained in its peoples by the misrule of colonialism, neocolonialism, statism, and manipulations of African elitist bureaucracy, which corrupt the entire political structure and complicate the artificiality of Africa’s nations. The problem with Africa is no longer simply external but also internal. The insensitivity and greed of African leaders and politicians cannot be explained merely by colonialism and imbalanced economic regimes. There is something else wrong with several of the past and present leaders. We cannot sidestep this narrative in explaining Africa’s underdevelopment. Walter Rodney aptly eulogizes how Europe underdeveloped Africa. Perhaps, add to the equation: How Africans underdeveloped Africa! This evil of corruption in Africa warrants further treatment (the focus of the next chapter), but corruption is so endemic in Africa that in Nigeria (the continent’s largest oil producer), “previous rulers stole some 3% of the

41 Basil Davidson, The African Genius: An Introduction to African Social and Cultural History, 37.

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country’s GDP every year.”42 Those billions of dollars could have gone toward needed infrastructure for development. Corruption cuts across other aspects of societal life: political, civil, economic, and even religious. Bribes are given to public officials and law enforcement agents; even to judges, health care professionals, and civil servants for them to do their jobs. These come with nepotism, rigging of elections, and other forms of financial fraud, with varieties of deceit in religious centers. Even though African countries attained political independence, structural injustice remained in vogue, perpetuated by African elites. Davidson is correct: “The point is to emphasize that the extraction of wealth from an already impoverished Africa was in no way halted by the ‘transfer of power.’ A transfer of poverty continued as before, even while the means of transfer were modified or camouflaged.”43 As many peoples in Africa are becoming Christians and Muslims and as religion is very important for Africans, in the light of Africa’s own failures of leadership and corruption mentioned above, can religion reorient Africa’s sense of the common good and restore integral development? Also, can Christianity and African indigenous cosmology help reorient Africa’s theological anthropology away from the colonialist and Western hegemonic development paradigm based on social evolutionism that places Africa at the margins of development? These are the concerns of the next section.

Christian Anthropology and Development Discourse One reason Africans are converting to Christianity in droves is the strong relationship of Christian anthropology to African traditional anthropology. Christian anthropology is the Christian definition of what “being human” means in the light of revelation. Following Augustine of Hippo, Christian anthropology can be summed up as desiring God in Christ above all else. Susan Ross captures this well: “A Christian theological anthropology has Christ as its center—a Christ who desires to be with his friends, a God who desires that there be the world in which God’s glory can be revealed.” 44 Traditional African anthropology is the African thought of what it means to be human. It is drawn from African religio-cultural 42

World Economic Forum, 2016, “Is Africa winning the battle against corruption?”, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/isafrica-winning-the-battleagainst-corruption/ (viewed September 9, 2016). 43 Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden, 219. 44 Susan Ross, Anthropology: Seeking Light and Beauty (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 5.

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values, which reserve an important place for human life it reveres as sacred. Despite differences in social stratifications, African cultures insist on respect for fellow humans, including strangers. Wealth is communal in the sense that a wealthy person is assessed based on his/her contribution to the common good. Every person is created by God, and after a good life, one is committed to one’s ancestors and remains a member of the human community.45 Underlying African traditional anthropology is relatedness: that humans are called to relationship with one another, to contribute to the well-being of one another, to coexist in society and to have fulfilled lives within the context of peace in society through their interactions with one another. African anthropology segues to African ethics of Ubuntu—the African value of contributing to the well-being of others and to the community.46 Despite the different ways various Christian traditions and denominations nuance it, Christian anthropology is based on the belief that humans are created in the image and likeness of God.47 This means that each person, despite race, gender, mental capacity, or achievement, is created “as a conscious, mindful, free and moral personality.” 48 Every human has inherent dignity, not conferred by any authority but embedded naturally by God the creator. Being created in God’s image, Glen Hughes explains, underscores “the Christian idea of the human being as a person gifted with 45

Cf. Simon S. Maimela, “Traditional African Anthropology and Christian Theology,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 76 (1991): 4–14. 46 Mluleki Munyaka and Mokgethi Motlhabi, “Ubuntu and its Socio-moral Significance,” in African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics edited by Munyaradzi Felix Murove (South Africa: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2009), 63–84. 47 See Genesis 1:26–27. It is important to point out that it is primarily stated in Christian theological anthropology that human beings are integrally constituted of body and soul. Humans are made to live together in society and to promote the common good essential for the continued survival of society and general wellbeing of humans. This is the prelude to resurrection, which is the end of humans created in the image and likeness of God, who sustains them by giving them everlasting life. The human contribution to this is mutual coexistence in society. Humans are communicating creatures. God created woman to be a helpmate to Adam, so that they communicate with each other and with God (Cf. L. W. Barnard, “The Father of Christian Anthropology,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 63, no. 3–4 (1972): 254–70; Eugene Klug, “The Doctrine of Man: Christian Anthropology,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 48, no. 2–3 (1984): 141–52. 48 Kameliya Slavcheva, “Human Rights, Dignity and Freedom: An Orthodox Perspective,” Baptistic Theologies 3, no. 2 (2011): 115.

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an inalienable dignity through her created participation in the freedom and self-determination of a transcendent God.”49 The emphasis on inherent human dignity confirms the inviolability of this dignity in the face of viewpoints that instead base human dignity on achievement. To be human is to be a person. Personhood implies freedom and responsibility. It presupposes that opportunities would enable each human person to actualize the inherent potentialities constitutive of personhood. It imposes on other persons the duty of mutual respect and serves as a deterrent to acts that would dehumanize others or take advantage of human vulnerability. Inherent human dignity entitles every person to the right to justice through the rule of law. It is the basis of the precept that one remains innocent until proven guilty. It negates all forms of discrimination or segregation based on accidents of birth and circumstances of life. Human dignity belongs essentially to what it means to be human. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights draws from this notion of human dignity. The declaration aimed at avoiding a future occurrence of the Nazi genocide perpetuated based on ethnic and racial superiority. Such a viewpoint created not only the atrocities of the Nazi camps but also underlay the inhumanity of centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade, the (1885) Berlin Conference Partition of Africa, foreign occupation and annexation of African land and resources, and the subsequent forceful administration of these territories for the benefit of various foreign powers, including the segregationist apartheid regime of South Africa that only ended in 1994. Christian anthropology equally emphasizes interrelatedness of members of the human community. This “belongingness” imposes upon all humans the responsibility of promoting the common good and ensuring the wellbeing of the human community. The story of creation in scripture emphasizes not just the one man, but also the community of humans. The incarnation is meaningful not just because Jesus is God, but because he is the God-Man, taking flesh among humans, not only for divinizing humans but also to promote their interaction in the language of love, promoting mutual coexistence and assistance. Christian revelation makes sense when the Gospel message is correlated to the practical wisdom of the species homo sapiens. Humans must belong together to survive, and incorporate not only species of one’s own kind, kith, and kin, but strangers, gentiles, and humanity. As Martin 49 Glenn Hughes, “The Concept of Dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Journal of Religious Ethics 39, no. 1 (2011): 1.

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Luther King Jr. rightly observed in his Christmas Sermon on Peace, 1967: “This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”50 King’s statement was made within the context of globalization and its interrelatedness and mutual dependence of humankind for survival on earth. Christian anthropology necessitates solidarity as the imperative value for humans, despite differences in language, lineage, and multiplicity of religions. The ideal of Christian love from the “Magna Carta of Christian life”—the beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7) – implies that Christian revelation envisions the world where humans function as one another’s keeper. Gaudium et Spes (nos. 24–32) of the Second Vatican Council specifies this, insisting that being created in God’s image is indicative that God’s plan gives human vocation a communitarian nature. This implies that humans are interdependent on one another (GS 25), must promote the common good (GS 26), and must revere the human person above all else (GS 27), including loving and respecting one’s enemies (GS 28). Christian anthropology lays out the essential equality of humans and the need to promote social justice (GS 29). A merely individualistic ethic will not do. All humans must create conditions favorable for every human to live an optimum life, with opportunities to actualize their potentialities. Being human always demands fidelity to human solidarity. Gaudium et Spes 32 states: “God did not create man for life in isolation, but for the formation of social unity.”51 In a discussion of the problems within the neoliberal capitalist agenda for globalization, John Paul II called for “globalization of solidarity.”52 This means global mutual sharing and commitment to the improvement of the human condition. The theme of solidarity sums up the Christian revelation’s notion of the human as created in the image and likeness of God, implying the common origin of humans and the imperative of love arising from this. Gerald J. Beyer’s work on solidarity, especially from the perspective of John Paul II, interprets this theme as central to Catholic social thought. Solidarity not only explains the basis of humans as created in God’s image, it underscores human interdependence, equality, respect,

50

Martin Luther King. Jr., 1967, “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” http://www.ecoflourish.com/Primers/education/Christmas_Sermon.html 51 Walter M. Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild Press, 1966). 52 John Paul II, Ecclesia in America no. 55 (Washington: United States Catholic Conference, 1999).

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dignity, and God’s expectation of humans to fulfil their obligation to one another as members of the human family.53 According to Beyer, humanity must join hands to combat the culture of consumerism and love of power by which corporations enslave humans for profit. Solidarity calls for concerted effort to promote sustainable development conscious of generations of humanity who would inhabit the earth after our present generation. Christians are called to take seriously the implications of revelation in terms not only of mutual dependence but also on the need to image God who loves and promotes life and wants it to be protected in all its ramifications. It is a call for integral salvation: Christianity does not devote itself to pursuing truth that neglects the practical aspects of the socio-economic, political and cultural values of society on the human person. It recognizes that what happens in one part of the globe affects other parts. A “globalization of solidarity” makes it imperative for humans to develop an economy that prioritizes persons and not profit.54 Within this construct, it is easy to decipher the role Christian anthropology could play in bridging the gap between the rich and the poor. I agree with Daniel G. Groody: Theological anthropology helps us construct an alternative vision of human life that differs significantly from a market system that gives primacy to the economic and consumer agendas of globalization often at the expense of human values. Amidst widespread cultural, economic, and social upheaval, theological anthropology also offers us an invaluable hermeneutical perspective that helps us understand the relational foundation of our existence, particularly as it unfolds through our relationships with God, ourselves, others, and the environment.55

Because neoliberalism’s operational anthropology is primarily mechanistic and hence materialistic, it is basically profit-oriented (not people directed), individualistic (prizing self-interest over the common good), and centers freedom within the bounds of the market. It adopts the social evolutionistic idea of infinite progress, which gives the rich and the dominant class opportunities to progress limitlessly because those at the lower ladder of social evolution serve and provide labor for the developed, 53

Gerald J. Beyer, “The Meaning of Solidarity in Catholic Social Teaching,” Political Theology 15, no. 1 (2014): 7–25. 54 C. René Padilla, “The Globalization of Solidarity,” Journal of Latin American Theology 9, no. 2 (2014): 69–90. 55 Daniel G. Groody, C.S.C., “Globalizing Solidarity: Christian Anthropology and the Challenge of Human Liberation,” Theological Studies 69, no. 2 (2008): 252.

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progressive peoples. It, therefore, negates the thrust of Christian anthropology which emphasizes the equality of humans created in the image and likeness of God. On the theme of solidarity, Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, argues that theological anthropology contributes positively to economics by critiquing the exclusive consideration of economics outside the confines of human activity and interaction. For Williams, we must think of one another as “equally helpless alone and gifted in relationship.”56 Humanity both rich and poor has something to contribute to mutual societal existence, or else our life will be less than wholesome. “It [theological anthropology] proposes a model of human life together that insists on the fact that we are all involved in the fate of any individual or group and that no one is exempted from damage or incapable of the gift within the human community as God intends it.” 57 Second, Christian theological vision provides a notion of human personality from the viewpoint of virtue, as a guide to economic life and human life. This way, theological anthropology questions our assumptions about human motivation and what is rewarded and what is not in economic activity and how these affect societal life and values, building and raising a family, promoting human well-being, and standing for the good of the human person. Just like every other human activity, theological anthropology must be the yardstick for judging economic activity morally, according to how it advances or not the basic humanum constitutive of persons as imago Dei and not as homo economicus. Williams asserts: It [theological anthropology] recalls us to the idea that what makes humanity human is completely independent of anyone’s judgments of failure or success, profit or loss. It is sheer gift, sheer love, in Christian terms. And if the universe itself is founded on this, there will be no sustainable human society for long if this goes unrecognized.58

Inculturating Christian Anthropology in Africa Besides the emphasis on other aspects of theology—biblical hermeneutics, systematics, liberation, liturgy, etc.—inculturation theology should integrate traditional African anthropology summed up in the African philosophy of “live and let live,” Ubuntu, into Christian anthropology. 56

Rowan Williams, “Theology and Economics: Two Different Worlds?” Anglican Theological Review 92, no. 4 (2010): 611. 57 Ibid., 613. 58 Ibid., 615.

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Ubuntu (meaning humanism or humaneness) is a whole complex of behavior, character, and integrity by which Africans express commonality and purpose in life. It emphasizes protection of human dignity and the obligation to promote the common good of the community. It recognizes the personhood of all humans and accords respect to others as fellow humans because of their common humanity. “Ubuntu is a disposition and it concerns values that contribute to the well-being of others and of community.”59 Ubuntu is behaving according to human nature; it is a form of being human that befits a human. It is an inclination to the good, one that bears witness to the good and challenges others to do the good for its own sake. It expresses human belongingness to one another and the cooperation necessary for harmonious social existence. Ubuntu guards against the selfishness and individualism that corrupts Africa’s political, social, religious, and economic structure. Ubuntu expresses the human interconnectedness at the heart of Christian anthropology. It holds that humans are children of one God and therefore are brothers and sisters. It is in the best interest of humans to protect one another, the rich and the poor. The principles of Catholic social teaching: solidarity, subsidiarity, the common good, and human dignity are expressed in the African concept of Ubuntu. The corruption by which African leaders under-develop Africa negates the communal nature of Ubuntu. Secularization of traditional values, thirst for power and wealth, timidity and an inferiority complex, the desire to be like the colonial masters, colonial capitalism, and the misconception of civil service as the white man’s job, jointly contributed to endemic corruption in Africa. “Th[e] colonial attitude towards labour created the impression that one could accumulate wealth without necessarily sweating for it.”60 Inculturation of Ubuntu as African Christian anthropology should be done by imbuing in African leaders and business entrepreneurs the common humanity they share with other citizens in their countries and the common good all humans ought to promote. The theology of inculturation, therefore, ought to bring to the fore in Africa the continuing relevance of the spirit of solidarity imbedded in Ubuntu in order to counter the selfishness and excessive individualism introduced into African countries by various external agents. 59

Munyaka Mluleki and Motlhabi Mokgethi., “Ubuntu and its Socio-moral Significance,” in African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, ed. Munyaradzi Felix Murove (South Africa: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2009), 65. 60 Felix Munyaradzi Murove, “African Bioethics: An Exploratory Discourse,” in African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, 226.

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African Christian leaders jointly must be involved in the reconstruction of Africa by partnering with various African governments and nongovernmental organizations for the promotion of democracy and good governance, the rule of law and constitutional reform, and economic and social changes to uplift African standards of living. In postcolonial postindependent Africa, liberative theologies must ensure through constant participation (and exhortations of government and church leaders) that nobody is left in deplorable conditions. Particular mention must be made of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), by which African leaders and governments have hoped to engage in the reconstruction of Africa. NEPAD, as the African Union’s strategic network for African development in the twenty-first century, addresses critical challenges facing the continent: poverty, development and Africa's marginalization internationally. Importantly, however, its focus also includes issues of agriculture and food security, climate change and natural resource management, regional integration and infrastructure, human development, economic and corporate governance, and crosscutting issues such as gender, capacity development, and ICT. Even though formally declared in 2001, NEPAD continues the vision of the foremost African leader Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who had advocated for a united Africa to overcome the challenges posed by colonialism and neocolonialism. Implementing NEPAD is a responsibility not only for African leaders but also for African Christian theologians and for all people of goodwill. Various religious organizations are already engaged with non-governmental organizations in promoting justice, reducing hunger, provision of infrastructures, building hospitals, schools, engaging in various forms of advocacy for the poor, being a voice for the voiceless in African countries. Just as the Apostolic Exhortation of the Second African Synod Africae Munus (2009) recommends, to stem the tide of the African anthropological crisis that cuts across all aspects of African life, and to promote sustainable development in Africa,61 African theology and church leaders must take their prophetic function seriously to ensure there is growth with development in Africa. Christian anthropology in Africa must inculturate Ubuntu to restore the African holistic idea of development intrinsic to the African integral world view.

61

AM, nos. 20, 21, 23, 79.

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Conclusion Even though Africa is marginalized in international trade and looked down upon because of the social evolutionism that undergirds world trade and international relations, Christian anthropology has the potential to humanize globalization by putting into practice a globalization of solidarity arising from human interdependence. African countries must liberate themselves from their prevailing crisis of identity preventing them from using their resources for their own development. African Christian theology can contribute to Africa’s liberation and development by proffering measures towards implementing the virtues of Ubuntu into Africa’s economic, political, social, and educational structures. This could help heal Africa’s anthropological poverty, reconstruct Africa, and put the continent and its peoples on the path to holistic development, one that is integral to catering for the vital, social, cultural, religious, and personal values of Africans.

CHAPTER EIGHT CHALLENGING THE UNJUST STRUCTURES OF GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL MALAISE

Introduction As we know already, Africa’s development and underdevelopment results from a conglomeration of factors both internal and external to the continent. Various theories of development have equally been propounded and actually implemented towards solving Africa’s underdevelopment. The most prominent, dominant, and still prevalent is the modernization theory, which morphed into the free-market economy. It promotes neoliberal economic political policies hinged upon the limited role of government to make room for market forces to determine prices of goods and services. It demands structural changes in traditional societal values to promote individual freedom and competitiveness, and readiness to put on the “Golden Straitjacket” (a discipline that helps in the accumulation of profit and of capital). The literature in development studies is awash with critiques of and support for the neoliberal economy’s ability to uplift Africa out of poverty. Since I have dealt with the external factors responsible for African underdevelopment, in this chapter I am concerned with a different question—that of African responsibility for the underdevelopment of Africa. Even though post-independence African countries are constrained in many and various ways by their erstwhile colonial masters and economically technologically industrialized countries who seek to benefit from Africa’s abundant natural resources, one cannot gloss over the question of how African leaders have contributed to the development or underdevelopment of Africa. This is especially more so in the forms of corruption: political, economic, social, cultural, etc., which militate against progress and development of the continent. Corruption drains from African countries over $140 billion per year. Corruption deters investment because it is a disincentive to potential investors; it distorts public expenditure, increases the overheads for

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Since the structure of society contributes to orderly and lawful social order and peace, without which development cannot take place, one cannot fail to ask whether African countries have been able to or can overcome ethnic and tribal differences that militate against the social order and development. Is civil society in Africa strong enough to monitor democratic governments for excesses, bureaucratic bottlenecks, elitism, greed, and selfishness? How strong is human capacity development in Africa, as this is the prerequisite for any meaningful involvement of the people in determining their freedom and effectively participating in building infrastructure for economic, political, and social development, and transformation? Considering the vastness of the continent and the need to be empirical in the analysis of Africa’s contribution to her underdevelopment, I will concentrate on corruption in the most populous country and the presumed most prosperous economy of the continent— Nigeria. Corruption in Nigeria is systemic and seamlessly attached to the structures of Nigerian society, pervading every nook and cranny of the country. The level of corruption in Nigeria led Chinua Achebe to make this remark: “keeping an average Nigerian from being corrupt is like keeping a goat from eating yam.” 2 I will focus on the unjust structures resulting in distortion of the political, social, economic, and cultural life of Nigerian society.

Unjust Structures in Nigeria 1 Politics Even though some people may be uncomfortable with the term, Nigeria is a pluralist society in which people speak at least 250 languages, organize their lives according to similar but diversely multiple cultures, and religiously worship in different ways. National integration is problematic.

1

Emmanuel Obuah, “Combatting Corruption in Nigeria: The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC),” African Studies Quarterly 12, no. 1 (2010): 18. http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v12/v12ia2.pdf 2 Chinua Achebe, Morning Yet On Creation Day: Essays (New York: Anchor Press, 1975), 55.

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Politics is characterized by what Richard A. Joseph calls prebendalism.3 According to Joseph, “A ‘prebend’ is an office of state, typical of feudal Europe and China, which an individual procures either through examinations or as a reward for loyal service to a lord or ruler.” 4 Prebendalism represents a state whereby struggle for self-interest is manifested in the concerted effort of various interest groups to take over the state to exploit its structures for the promotion of self and its group interests. Instead of making attempts at bridge building, political parties foster the embers of ethnic division for their own benefit, to the detriment of the rest of the citizens. This leads to nepotism, whereby people are appointed to positions just because they come from the tribe or ethnic group of the dominant group in power. Prebendalism negates national consciousness and promotes selfinterest through group interest to the detriment of the common good. The end result is the endemic return to sectional identities to the detriment of the nation. Voting during elections often goes along ethnic lines and sectional identities, predetermining the party to be in power. Political parties try to navigate this by recommending power rotation between the north and the south. Even when this is observed (which happens rarely), the fear of domination by a section is not extinguished as people still look to see how their own ethnic groups are favored or marginalized in appointments. Underlying this as well is the quest for self-interest by the elites who emphasize parochialism to serve as a representative of the people at the national level, and through that serve as a pressure group by which they achieve their own ends. Joseph pins the structure of Nigerian political, ethical, and religious identities on clientelism, patron-client ties by which a person climbs the social ladder and joins the dominant group by seeking the assistance of patrons, or what ordinarily one can call “godfathers.” Clientelism and prebendal politics thrive in Nigeria, Joseph argues, because the state emerged consequent upon the colonial structure of divide and rule, and not because of the indigenous development of homogenous or heterogeneous communities. The structure of the state has remained one up for grabs and as the only assured way of achieving wealth in Nigeria. For this very reason, it is confiscated and appropriated by patrons who take it upon themselves to distribute and allocate its resources to clients, other selfinterested people who also wish to belong to the powerbrokers, and the dominant groups benefiting from the spoils of the state. Joseph asserts: 3

Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 2014). 4 Ibid., 56.

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Chapter Eight I shall contend that clientelism and prebendalism are two of the fundamental principles of political organization and behavior in Nigeria. An individual seeks the support and protection of an oga or a “godfather,” while trying to acquire the basic social and material goods—loans, scholarships, licenses, plots of urban land, employment, promotion—and the main resource of the patron in meeting these requests is quite literally a piece of the state.5

Clientelism differs from ethnicism by going beyond the confines of cultural affinities to a wider cultural focus, beyond particular limited ethnic affiliation. They are related to mutual protection of self-interest, often through individual or group relationships to gain economic and political advantages over others. Consequent upon prebendalism of the state and civil service, the struggle for representation in federal service for members of one’s ethnic nationality becomes intense. The result is a bloated civil service and its politicization. Prebendalism and clientelism give rise to the “big man” syndrome, whereby the godfathers control institutions of government as their personal estate, resulting in institutional failure as interference from power elites leads to inadequate enforcement of institutions by government. The godfathers manipulate election results and put their clients in political power and positions in return for constant compensation from the coffers of the state, where their godson is in control.6 The end result is banditry, endemic corruption, and embezzlement with impunity because the state is conquered and confiscated for personal use and vainglory of the “ogas.” In sum, “political corruption” manifests itself “in the form of patronage, election rigging, and voter register manipulation, favoritism in the award of contracts, procurement scam, tribalism and nepotism in recruitment and promotion, and unfair punishment/sanctions for public officials.”7

5

Ibid., 56. Omobolaji Ololade Olarinmoye, “Godfathers, political parties and electoral corruption in Nigeria,” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 2, no. 4 (2008): 066-073. http://0-search.proquest.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/ docview/1658721884/fulltextPDF/60138E8A464546D4PQ/2?accountid=100 (accessed May 10, 2016). 7 Ogbewere Bankole Ijewereme, “Anatomy of Corruption in the Nigerian Public Sector: Theoretical Perspectives and Some Empirical Explanations,” SAGE Open 5, no .2 (2015): 2. 6

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2 Economic Injustice The Nigerian economy suffers the adverse effects of prebendal politics. With the state as an institution to be coveted for self-enrichment, the economy is structured to favor the bureaucrats who engage in the intense struggle to siphon the resources of the state for their personal gain. The quest for personal advantage results in policies that only enable the policymakers to increase their opportunities for stealing. These are done through inflated procurement bills, a collection of bribes before awarding bloated contracts, and defaulting on government loans that become means of private enrichment and confiscation of public money. Even though the exact amount of money siphoned off by corruption is not known, suffice it to note that corruption in Nigeria comprises fraudulent sabotage of formal rules, systems, and institutions, and replacement of these with informal rules and practices that weaken formal institutions; facilitating bribery, money laundering, and embezzlement of the country’s resources and money for private and group interest. This is mainly evident in the massive corruption in oil and gas, the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. It results in a vicious cycle as Nigerians victimized by corruption in the economy seek ways to make up for lost private gains. According to Ikwukananne I. Udechukwu and Bahaudin G. Mujtaba: Corruption in Nigeria is expected to be a vicious cycle of unending exploitations, mismanagement, and victimization, leading to further weakening of existing formal institutions and the strengthening of informal institutions, based on the misalignment currently existing between the architecture of Nigerian institutions and the framework of these institutions, to include their organizational structures, processes, controls and incentives, and culture.”8

Udechukwu and Mujtaba contend that lack of nationhood accounts for corruption in the Nigerian economy. “Though a nation, Nigeria is still fundamentally an organization of people with collective but disparate cultures and needs, whose primary goal is to take advantage of its resources and capabilities (crude oil).”9 Prevalent is a poor reward system through inadequate wages, nonpayment of salaries as and when due, perceived injustice because of promotion of colleagues due to nepotism, 8

Ikwukananne I. Udechukwu and Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, “An Institutional and Architecture Based View of Corruption in Nigeria: A Developing Economy’s Analysis of Formal and Informal Structures,” Journal of Business Studies Quarterly 4, no. 3 (2013): 232. 9 Ibid., 233.

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“unequal distribution of resources, overreliance on the political office as a route to wealth, and weak enforcement.”10

3 Social and Cultural Injustice The sole victims of high-level corruption at all levels of government, including the impotence of the institutions of governance to check it, are the common people—impoverished and whose quality of life is reduced by lack of infrastructure lost to embezzlement, theft, and fraudulent money laundering by various government functionaries and bureaucrats. The health sector is underfunded, recreational facilities are sold, parks are confiscated by the rich and the political class, salaries of civil servants are withheld, and funds for ministries are siphoned off; crippling social services, water, transport, communication, education, and health institutions. Corruption in the energy sector destroys the economy, increases crime waves, and creates unemployment as skilled workers who depend on electricity are left to bear the high cost of energy generation. The end result is increasing poverty, crime, despondency, violence, bloodshed, and an increase in ethnocentrism as various groups blame each other for nepotism, perceived to be responsible for the underdevelopment of the country. This is aptly articulated by Oluwaseun Bamidele, et al.: In Nigerian societies (corruption’s) impact is potentially still more serious: it can undercut the emergence of stable expectations and the processes by which they are legitimated; it can maintain or further exacerbate situations in which outcomes lack legitimacy, making it difficult for any serious form of authority to emerge; it can lead to the squandering of aid and external political will; and it can make the weak weaker, the poor poorer and the vulnerable still less secure. All of this has occurred in Nigeria, perhaps even to an unprecedented degree, certainly to an extent not envisaged by even the most vocal critics of the invasion and subsequent reconstruction efforts of Nigeria.11

Even though several reasons have been advanced for the high rate of corruption in Nigeria, one factor not given adequate consideration is 10

Olusola O. Karimu, “University Students Perceptions and Attitudes of Corruption in Nigeria,” Doctoral Dissertation Capella University 2014, 40. http://0search.proquest.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/docview/1611957017/fulltextPDF/5 C9CAA04911F4F14PQ/1?accountid=100 (accessed May 10, 2016). 11 Oluwaseun Bamidele, Azeez O. Olaniyan, and Bonnie Ayodele, “Culture, Corruption, and Anticorruption Struggles in Nigeria,” Journal of Developing Societies 36, no. 2 (2016): 105.

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whether selfishness is embedded in the value system of Nigeria, despite the communitarian societal structure of most African societies. Excessive individualism appears to be intrinsic to the traditional structure of society, so enterprise and success are valued so much that people do whatever is possible to become successful. For instance, most communities frown at stealing from their own communities but wouldn’t mind if one of their wards steals from another community and becomes rich by so doing. Even though some schools of thought might blame the West for corrupting traditional societies by introducing strange societal institutions that corrupted moral values, one would ask why Nigerians did not reject such influence immediately after political independence. Because we acknowledge colonialism had a corrupting influence on Nigeria, including the forceful yoking together of heterogeneous peoples into the state called Nigeria, we must avoid essentializing the trouble with Nigeria as all a result of colonialism. A critique of Nigeria’s moral values responsible for corruption fifty years after political independence remains important. Peter Ekeh’s theory of two publics, the primordial and the civil, within which Nigerian society operates indicates the dichotomy that promotes corruption eventually.12 According to Ekeh, the primordial public refers to one’s tribe, ancestry, and ethnic group, while the civil public is the government civil service or private enterprise where an individual works. It is okay to take from the civil public to help the primordial public. Taking from the government is not stealing, as one fulfils one’s community obligation by helping one’s family, extended relations, and tribe. This form of cognitional social construction militates against patriotic engagement with the country. It promotes nepotism, tribalism, ethnocentrism, and corruption. From Ekeh’s analysis, the connection between social and cultural injustice in Nigeria and corruption is very clear. It accounts for the two forms of corruption often tacitly approved by the society if one uses one’s loot to benefit one’s relations and members of one’s tribes. Ogbewere Bankole Ijewereme is right in his analysis: “In Nigeria, corruption takes two major dimensions—the embezzlement of public funds from the civil public and the solicitation and acceptance of bribes from individuals seeking services provided by the civic public by those who administer these services.”13 The tenuous ethnic relations in Nigeria contribute to corruption. It makes nation-building problematic. The Nigerian state is a foreign 12

P. P. Ekeh, “Colonialism and the Two Publics: A Theoretical Statement,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1975): 91–112. 13 Ogbewere Bankole Ijewereme, “Anatomy of Corruption in the Nigerian Public Sector: Theoretical Perspectives and Some Empirical Explanations,” 8.

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institution—in a popular Nigerian cliché, a national cake, to be balkanized by whomever is able and has the opportunity, without caring about how the cake is baked. As has been earlier observed: “The general pattern of accessing social and economic resources through networks of patronage grounded in ties to kin and community is characteristic across the Nigerian ethnic spectrum.” 14 In this way, even ordinary people without power reproduce corruption by benefiting from the structure that perpetuates the patron-client structure characteristic of Nigeria’s political arrangement. However, unlike Ekeh’s theory, which suggests a political trickledown process whereby the looters steal to build their various constituencies, most corrupt officials and bureaucrats steal for selfish aggrandizement. Most of the money looted from the treasury is stashed in foreign banks in Europe and America, used to buy choice estates for themselves and their families while most members of their communities wallow in wretchedness, dying in extreme poverty from preventable diseases. It can be surmised that a mix of self-interest and the African cultural system of gift-giving, and family or ethnic solidarity, account for high-level and lowlevel corruption in Nigeria.15 Various efforts to stem the tide of corruption through promulgation of laws and establishment of institutions to try corrupt individuals and government officials appear to be ineffective to check corruption in Nigeria. This failure could be attributed to neglect of civil society, and the inability to integrate social reform with the process of state-sponsored checks on corruption. There is also a feeling of fatalism regarding corruption. The general sense of powerlessness over corruption empowers corrupt officials and citizens and results in the brazen embezzlement of public funds and engagement in other fraudulent activities. Most people arraigned for fraud do not appear to receive stiff penalties if ever they are convicted. The impression is created that corruption pays, as corrupt people are even promoted and appointed to positions of trust. So the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment continues unabated as such people devise various ways to continue to defraud the state, and hence the people, of development, which would have come to them from funds misappropriated through corruption. This way corruption makes a 14 Daniel Jordan Smith, “Kinship and Corruption in Contemporary Nigeria,” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 66, no. 3 (2001): 345. See also Chris Willott, “Rejecting Continuity and Rupture,” African & Asian Studies 13, no.4 (2014): 405–28. 15 Akingbolahan Adeniran, “Anti-Corruption Measures in Nigeria: A Case for Selective Intervention by Non-State Actors,” King's Law Journal 19, no. 1 (2008): 57–79.

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mockery of democracy and its link with development. This is especially more so with Nigeria, which endured over thirty-three years of military dictatorship only to be replaced with corrupt politicians who carried underdevelopment of the country to whole new heights. Little wonder that life in Nigeria is violence-prone, short, nasty and poor.

Bias and Intractable Corruption in Nigeria Various measures put in place to curb corruption fail because of the heterogeneous nature of the Nigerian citizenry, who owe allegiance to their various ethnic enclaves more than to the country. Most Nigerians feel forced to belong to the nation, which is a creation of the British Empire’s amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914. The inability of post-independence politicians to forge national unity exacerbates a perceived sense of social injustice felt by various ethnic groups against successive federal governments in Nigeria. Elections, census, infrastructure, the arms of government and their policies, employments, appointments and promotions, etc., are interpreted by the ethnic groups not well represented (by having one of their sons and daughters in government) as nepotism and favoritism against them. The people feel left out in that dispensation and therefore wait for their turn during the next election and government to favor their region and ethnic group. Not surprisingly, corruption remains intractable despite various institutions of government trying to curb it. The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act (2003), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act (2004), the Money Laundering Act (2011), and the Code of Conduct Bureau Act (1990) are in place to fight corruption, yet Nigeria is consistently rated poorly and considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International. The arms of government that should enforce these pieces of legislation are not free from corruption. The citizens often rise to defend people of their ethnic group charged with corruption. It takes strong political will to fight corruption in Nigeria. The scorecard of attempts at fighting corruption has ranked the institutions above low and inefficient. According to Oluwaseun Bamidele and Azeez O. Olaniyan: The anti-corruption agencies (EFCC, ICPC and Judiciary system) have been unsuccessful due to a lack of commitment, the lack of cooperation between the principal agencies, and the lack of political will to combat corruption. In Nigeria, politicians continue to maintain non-transparent, semi-autonomous, feudal domains and rely on networks supported by

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Chapter Eight financial and economic resources at their disposal. Until these change, the public sector will remain unable to effectively address Nigeria’s governance and corruption problems. The apparatus of orderly government is too often hijacked by political elites who siphon proceeds from the national treasury and transform government bureaucracies into bribecollection agencies which impede business.16

To a large extent, one can say (in Lonergan terms) that one reason corruption thrives in Nigeria is egoism, group interest, and the general bias of “common sense”—the here and now satisfaction of immediate needs. Consequent upon this, even though Nigeria is blessed with highly educated people recognized internationally, most of her elite, politicians, business class, statesmen and stateswomen, and specialists in various disciplines, act unauthentically, apparently unmindful of the inner law of the human spirit—the transcendental precepts to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible, and in love. In the quest for self-interest, most Nigerians miss the self-correcting process of inquiry. Often they fail to ask these important transcendental questions: what is it? Is it true? Is it good? Should it be done? Is it love? The result is all too clear—senseless actions full of hatred for people of other tribes and the country, irresponsible abuse of office and collaboration in both embezzlement of funds and other fraudulent activities (including giving and receiving of bribes, irrational and uncritical behaviors, unreflective perception of all actions of government as nepotistic) and, finally, flagrant pursuit of self-interest for procurement of perishable goods. Living merely in the common sense realm of immediacy, most Nigerians avoid the vital questions that would have promoted the critical exigence of living beyond merely empirical consciousness. Intractable corruption in Nigeria is unreasonable and does not reflect the level of literate people in the country, whose level of consciousness ought to be beyond that of immediate and short-term satisfaction responsible for corruption in the country. Nigeria is bedeviled with the acute distortion of the dialectic of community, where politics becomes the determinant of everything, assuming the role of a superstructure destroying all the values of society. Robert Doran’s observation plays out clearly in the Nigerian societal landscape: Politics should be the institution whereby the whole community can be persuaded by rational argument and symbolic example to exist and change in the tension of the opposites of vital spontaneity and practical ideation. 16

Oluwaseun Bamidele and Azeez O. Olaniyan, “Seized by Sleaze: The Siege of Corruption and a Search for Workable Options in Nigeria,” International Social Science Review 90, no. 1 (2015): 13.

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What it becomes under the dominance of group bias allied with general bias is an instrument of the distortion of the dialectic of community through a displacement of that tension. Slipping out of the infrastructure, it becomes a mendacious but quite public determinant of the meanings and values that inform the way of life of segments of the community. It begins to usurp the prerogatives of culture. The public determinants of meaning and value that would arise from the pursuit of the beautiful, the intelligible, the true, and the good are evacuated from the cultural scene. They retreat into the margins of society. The effective culture becomes merely an instrument of distorted practicality. The superstructure becomes a surd when the political specialization, defaulting on its legitimate and necessary infrastructural function, invades the domain of culture. Genuine culture surrenders its function of autonomous determination of the meanings and values that, through political integrity, would otherwise inform the economy and the institutions of technology as dialectical counterparts of spontaneous intersubjectivity. The social order becomes in effect the product of a distorted aesthetic consciousness, a perverted intelligence, and an uncritical rationality. The meanings and values that govern the way of life of the society become ultimately economic.17

Prebendalism destroys Nigeria’s political institutions. Politics becomes not an instrument of integration but one distorting the dialectic of the community through displacement of the tension of practical intelligence and spontaneous intersubjectivity of the country. Instead of being part of the everyday culture, where it properly belongs as integrator “where its task is to maintain intact the creative interdependence of social institutions and vital intersubjectivity, on the basis of genuine cultural values,” 18 politics in Nigeria erroneously becomes the superstructure of society, the only veritable source of wealth and power, and therefore a position to be coveted if one wishes to succeed and become wealthy. Politics serves not the interest of the common good but rather “defend [s] the interests of particular classes.”19 Little wonder that corruption is prevalent as everyday culture becomes the superstructure erroneously determining meaning and value. The consequence is all too clear: social disorder and meaninglessness, and demeaning the value of human life as survival of the fittest take over law and order, and society becomes in Hobbesian terms wolf against wolf, where might becomes right. What can be done to overcome the biases crippling Nigeria/Africa’s development?

17

Robert M. Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 102–03. 18 Ibid., 35. 19 Ibid.

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Lonergan’s Cosmopolis The intractable nature of corruption and its damaging effect on national development and progress of the country indicates that curbing corruption in Nigeria should go beyond laws and institutions. What is required is attitudinal change, a social transformation anchored in change in the citizen’s construction of nationhood, and education that links progress and development to the levels of consciousness and authenticity. Appropriating Lonergan’s notion of cosmopolis, in Nigeria: What is both unnecessary and disastrous is the exaltation of the practical, the supremacy of the state, the cult of the class. What is necessary is a cosmopolis that is neither class nor state, that stands above all their claims, that cuts them down to size, that is founded on the native detachment and disinterestedness of every intelligence, that commands man’s first allegiance, that implements itself primarily through that allegiance, that is too universal to be bribed, too impalpable to be forced, too effective to be ignored.20

Cosmopolis is the attitude that, through a critical approach to the historical process, broadens the human horizon towards the good wherever the insight that brings it about comes from. In this way, it is the development of human intelligence, away from biased negativities into the liberty requisite for progress and development. The bias of common sense prevalent in Nigeria goes beyond the shorter cycle of decline responsible for ethnicity and constant feelings of marginalization. It actually is at its core the longer cycle of decline that accounts for neglect of important ideas for the progress and development of the country. Even though virtually everybody knows corruption is killing the country and has almost brought it to its knees, yet people are not willing to support strong combat against it. Ethnic bias, protection of group interest, individual egoism, and the total rejection of the entity called “Nigeria” result in the distorted dialectic of community, fructifying in the tendency of group bias to exclude creative ideas and the mutilation of others by compromise. For this very reason, even though almost every government rides to power on the promise of curbing corruption and actually enacts laws against corruption, these reforms are excluded and mutilated by various forms of compromise. General bias manifests itself in the “push him down” mentality often manifest in the fatalistic attitude of most Nigerians towards the progress of the country. They thwart ideas “that suppose a long view or that set up 20

Bernard Lonergan, Insight, Kindle Edition. Loc, 5574–78.

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higher integrations or that involve the solution of intricate and disputed issues.” 21 The end result, unfortunately, is that Nigerians cannot “progressively restrict the realm of chance or fate or destiny and progressively to enlarge the realm of conscious grasp and deliberate choice.” 22 Little wonder superstition is high; religion bordering on fanaticism is supreme and enchanted Christianity is almost the norm, with the expectation of miracles and divine intervention exposing people to charlatans who perpetuate religious corruption by duping and defrauding the hapless citizens. A critical attitude and orientation is a must if a new Nigerian society is to be forged and if progress and development are to be entrenched in the country. This demands an overall transformation beyond the supremacy of the state and the cult of class to a preference for the detached unrestricted desire to know for its own sake and not necessarily for its practicality for whatever reason. Because it is above all politics, cosmopolis is averse to using force. Because it is beyond the supremacy of the cult of the class, “cosmopolis is concerned to make operative the timely and fruitful ideas that otherwise are inoperative.”23 It is out to break the circle of illusion, the hesitancy of people to accept and implement creative ideas because they are afraid the ideas may not work. “It is concerned with the fundamental issue of the historical process,”24 and for this to happen culture must become critical, to prevent the falsification of history.25 Culture is not just a way of life; for Lonergan it is the ensemble of human consciousness, of human “capacity to ask, to reflect, to reach an answer that at once satisfies his intelligence and speaks to his heart.”26 Culture should not just be a romanticization of the past or an uncritical adoption of all the fads of contemporary society. It is a readiness not to give in to the rationalizations of the dominant class, nor uncritical acceptance of political and economic ideologies of successive regimes proclaiming change, with little or nothing to show for it. For this very reason, humans must remain alert and be critical of the practical intelligence at work in their societies to “prevent practicality from being shortsightedly practical and so destroying itself.”27

21

Ibid., Loc. 5381–5386. Ibid., Loc. 5386. 23 Ibid., Loc. 5597. 24 Ibid., Loc. 5592. 25 Lonergan affirms: “There is needed, then, a critique of history before there can be any intelligent direction of history” (Insight, Loc. 5630). 26 Ibid., Loc. 5550. 27 Ibid., 5592. 22

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In the multi-ethnic, religiously pluralistic societies of Nigeria, often prone to fears of marginalization and replete with accusations of nepotism, ethnocentrism, and greed, developing such a cosmopolitan attitude will go a long way towards creating a conducive atmosphere for mutual coexistence, tolerance, and peace. It will remove the administrative bottlenecks, often occasioned by varying ideologies that impede insight from opposed groups, even when such insights would have contributed to the progress of the country. The intellectual development cosmopolis engenders will enlighten civil society, not only about the deceit and greed of the cult of “big man” politics, it will liberate the citizenry and elected officials from the machinations of prebendal politics and the client system that holds the country to ransom. The freedom, equality, and liberty of cosmopolis are the revolution that will dethrone moneybag politicians and exalt the long-suffering Nigerian citizenry. It will then be very difficult for politicians to play the divisive ethnic and religious cards to turn the citizens against each other. United, the citizens will not only hold the politicians they elect to account but they will hold each other accountable by not aiding and abetting corruption in any form. Perhaps this sounds so idealistic as to be unrealizable. Yes, it sounds idealistic, for as Lonergan notes about “the chief characteristic of cosmopolis: it is not easy. It is not a dissemination of sweetness and light, where sweetness means sweet to me, and light means light to me.”28

Cosmopolis and the Nigerian Catholic Theologian Underlying the unjust structures of governance and social malaise in Nigeria is the inability of the citizens to be united because of polarizing differences (especially religious and social) that politicians capitalize upon to prevent the citizens from united action against injustice. It is tempting in the face of provocations and glaring group and individual bias for religious leaders to take sides and defend their ethnic and religious base. The end result often has been the perpetuation of the unjust structures and widening of the biases. The intellectual ministry of the theologian in the church and society is the tall order of social transformation through the intellectual development of the people. This is important because social change is effected through changes in the culture and habits of people. Theologians must be engaged in such transformation. Robert M. Doran captures this specific function of the theologian: “the praxis of theology, I have concluded, is proximately the transformation of culture, of constitutive 28

Ibid., Loc. 5644–5648.

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meaning as the condition of the possibility of the transformation of polities, economies, technological structures, and intersubjective communities.” 29 Since most Nigerians operate under the tunnel vision of individual and group interest, and most government officials are under bondage to the general bias of common sense, converted theologians through critical culture aim at restoring the distorted dialectics of community. To do this successfully, to bring about good persons imbued with the integral scale of values endeavoring to promote the common good, “the spirituality, ecclesial praxis and theology of African Catholicism must be overhauled.”30 Cosmopolitan attitude remains the surest way of doing this. A new way of doing theology is called for—one that promotes critical culture, not one that longs for primordial culture unable to distinguish the infrastructure of culture from the superstructure of culture. African theology must decipher methods of doing theology that will enable it to confront the challenges posed by the problems of social transformation, good governance, and nation building.

29

Doran, Theology and Dialectics of History, 12. Joseph Ogbonnaya, African Catholicism and Hermeneutics of Culture (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 175. 30

CHAPTER NINE CHALLENGES TO AFRICAN THEOLOGY: THE QUESTION OF METHOD

One major challenge confronting African theology derives from the history of its emergence: the twin related but distinct European dominations: colonialism and Western missionaries. African theology often appears as reactionary theology, always stuck defending its existence and emphasizing its difference from Western theology. Even today, African theologians continue to recycle the problems of the 1950s. Why? Perhaps because as Kwame Bediako thought, the question of identity is central to the African theological task.1 Since African identity is tied to African culture, the relationship of Christianity to this culture remains one of the major struggles in African theology. The quest for African identity is not quenched by summary identification with Christianness as a new identity upon which we can become whatever we want to be, as Bediako2 and Mbiti3 would have us believe. African Christians cannot cease being Africans by being converted or born into African Christian families. African religious cultural tradition remains the backdrop upon which Africans embrace Christianity. African cosmology and culture remain vital in formulating African Christian theology. At its inception, African theology was conceived to be “a radical rethinking of faith in Christ, having in mind the African’s religio-cultural, socio-economic and political circumstances.” 4 This implies, as many 1 Kwame Bediako, Theology and Identity: The Impact of Culture upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and in Modern Africa (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011). See also Tinyiko S. Maluleke, “Identity and Integrity in African Theology: A Critical Analysis,” Religion and Theology 8, no. 1 (2001): 26–41. 2 Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995). 3 John Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (London: Heinemann, 1969). 4 Kwesi E. Dickson et al., “Development of African Theologies,” Mission Studies 1, no. 2 (1984): 54.

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African scholars insist, that African theology articulates “the empirical realities of the life and teachings that arise from African Christian communities.”5 African theology must be done conscious of the contexts and questions being raised at the grassroots of African Christian communities. This formed the core of Bengt Sundkler’s idea in the 1960s. 6 Harry Sawyer shares a similar view and suggests symbols and images in African religious tradition that can explain core Christian beliefs.7 For Bonganjalo Goba, African theology should adopt a phenomenological approach since it arises from the African Christian experience of God.8 In the same vein, Takatso A. Mofokeng emphasized the importance of experience drawn from “the ecclesial praxis of Christians and validated by it and not from the offices of theologians who are working in a university”9 in any quest for a relevant theology for Africa. Mofokeng is not alone in critiquing academic theology as some contemporary theologians raise a similar concern. For Teresa Okure, African theological reflection ought to be rooted and founded on faith, autochthonous and as contained in African wisdom and not just ape Eurocentric/North American forms. She favors collaborative theology where theologians devote time to studying given issues from different perspectives, cultures, locations, etc. Also, she calls for “bread for life” theology, which is doing theology by listening to, drawing from, and connecting with and responding to the real needs and concerns of Africans, doing theology from the grassroots. 10 Laurenti Magesa shares Okure’s view: Religious discourse in sub-Saharan Africa has for a long time remained unrelated to African experiential story. This accounts for the malaise of the dichotomy between Africanness and Christianity. Theological language in Africa that is incapable of following to its internal conclusion the logic and spirituality of witchcraft, polygamy, divination, traditional healing 5

Stephen Munga, “Encountering Changes in African Theology,” Swedish Missiological Themes 88, no. 2 (2000): 244. 6 Bengt Sundkler, The Christian Ministry in Africa (London: SCM Press, 1960). 7 Harry Sawyerr, “The Basis for a Theology for Africa,” International Review of Mission 52, no. 207 (1963): 266–78. 8 Bonganjalo Goba, “An African Christian Theology: Towards a Tentative Methodology from a South African Perspective,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (1979): 3–12. 9 Takatso A. Mofokeng, “The Basis for a Relevant Theology for Botswana,” Mission Studies 4, no. 1 (1987): 55. 10 Teresa Okure, “How African Is African Theology?” in Theological Imagination: Conversations on Church, Religion and Society in Africa, ed. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2014), 42–55.

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practices, and so on except to condemn these beliefs and practices fails miserably to engage with the African person holistically.11

The emphasis of these theologians follows the intentions of contextual theology, particularly which “briefly stated … [are] an attempt to give African expression to the Christian faith within a theological framework.”12 It is a dialogue between the Gospel and exigencies of culture. Acknowledging the need for a systematic theology of African theology, Eugene Uzukwu adopts the Christ-and-culture approach, by seeing African religious traditions as preparatio evangelica. He recommends salvation history and a dialogue approach, whereby Christianity encounters African culture by a critical examination of the continuity of the scriptural worldview with the African worldview. The dialogic encounter between both mutually benefits Christianity and African religious tradition. This means that African religious tradition is not a museum in which archaic lifestyles are uncritically approved, despite their irrelevance to contemporary realities of life in Africa.13 In his later work, Uzukwu acknowledged the concern of some African theologians that most academic approaches to African theology do not adequately attend to the experience of African Christians. African theology has made little impact on the life of ordinary African Christians. Perhaps African theologians, preoccupied with classical issues that the academia considers proper to theological discourse, have not engaged seriously the concerns of ordinary Christians or the questions that contexts are raising. It is becoming clearer that the African context should set the full agenda of theological discussion.14

Because of the relationality of the West African worldview, Uzukwu suggests a new methodology or interpretive framework dependent on empirical and descriptive results of research that derive from the historical context of various communities for doing African theology in West 11

Laurenti Magesa, “Truly African, Fully Christian? In Search of a New AfricanChristian Spirituality,” in Theological Imagination: Conversations on Church, Religion and Society in Africa, ed. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2014), 36. 12 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies.” Theological Studies 45, no. 3 (1984): 501. 13 Eugene Uzukwu, “Notes on Methodology for an African Theology.” African Ecclesiastical Review (AFER) 19, no. 3 (1977): 115–64. 14 Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, God, Spirit, and Human Wholeness: Appropriating Faith and Culture in West African Style (Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 3.

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African contexts. This methodology, with emphasis on flexibility as opposed to the rigidity of absolutizing one’s conclusions, draws from the principle of duality or multiplicity inherent in the African relational universe. “It enables one always to search for a ‘second point of view’ or to practice ‘looking at everything twice.’” 15 Uzukwu believes his methodology resolves the unnecessary disputes in African theology over which orientation—inculturation, black liberation, African women’s theology, et cetera—is the appropriate hermeneutic for African theology since the currents of theology complement one another. In no way is Uzukwu opposed to drawing from the riches of Western or any other theology, since his method is practically flexible and antithetical to absolutizing conclusions. This is despite his emphasis on home-spun African theology, as doing otherwise is equal to “dancing with borrowed dress which has its inconveniences. Dependence on foreign mentors limits one’s freedom when one is challenged by the structures of the reality on the ground.” 16 Uzukwu’s point is that while being a universal theology in its own right (because of its capability of entering into dialogue with other cultures and theologies), 17 African theology is done in the light of the religio-cultural context of the people. African theology as a reflection on the Christian faith in the African context is an intellectual activity made possible by the intercultural encounter of Christianity with Africa. While drawing from the grassroots experience of various Christian communities, it is equally an academic activity that articulates the variety of cultural symbols and myriad responses to the Gospel in Africa. Method in African theology cannot be formulated by dichotomizing grassroots experience from the academic. It is important though to emphasize that academic activity must draw from the grassroots experience of African Christian communities. As John S. Mbiti reminds us: There are three main areas of African theology today: written theology, oral theology, and symbolic theology. Written African theology is the privilege of a few Christians who have had considerable education and who generally articulate their theological education in articles and … books, mostly in English, French, German, or other European languages. Oral theology is produced in the fields, by the masses, through song, sermon, teaching, prayer, conversation, etc. It is theology in the open air, often unrecorded, often heard only by small groups, and generally lost to 15

Ibid., 11. Ibid., 19. 17 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies,” 513. 16

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libraries and seminaries. Symbolic theology is expressed through art, sculpture, drama, symbols, rituals, dance, colors, numbers, etc.18

African theology unifies, expresses, and communicates through these main areas of theology in its reflection on the Christian faith in African contexts. In doing this, one’s epistemological and metaphysical assumptions must be clarified.19 A written theology which is the focus of most African theology as an academic discipline can be pastoral or biblical in content. Here grassroots method has its merit. It helps African communities seeking to live out the Gospel values in their various cultural milieu. It grounds the incarnational theology of Africa.20 But is experience alone, no matter how embedded in the grassroots, enough material for grounding African systematic theology? Is it able to guide the African theologian to be creative in his or her task of “rethinking and re-expressing the Christian message in terms of the African cultural milieu?” 21 How about the critical analysis of the experience? While experience provides the data of sense for doing theology, does it not demand understanding and judgment and decision to bring about the truth of the Christian faith one upholds into action, to be transformative of the person and of the community? Justin S. Ukpong, one of the most articulate African systematic theologians in the early decades of African theology, recognizes the merits of the grassroots method but equally points to its weaknesses and chooses a combination of grassroots and critical approaches to articulate African theology: This is the grassroots method. The problem it raises, however, is how to help the people at the grassroots to give expression to their experience of faith and life, how to help them attain the freedom necessary for this selfexpression; for if they do not possess such freedom, they cannot live out the faith in terms of their cultural milieu. Needed to balance it, therefore, is another method which seeks to reflect upon the data of revelation and

18

John Mbiti, “The Biblical Basis for Present Trends in African Theology,” Kofi Appiah-Kubi and Sergio Torres, eds., African Theology En Route, 84. 19 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies,” 513. 20 Ngindu Mushete, “History of Theology in Africa” in African Theology En Route, 27. 21 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies,” 516.

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Often the issue lies in not distinguishing consciousness and knowledge. While consciousness is the starting point of knowledge, it is not knowing. Consciousness is being present to oneself. Now one can be conscious and be stupid, live in falsehood and be silly. Knowledge demands not only experience (Lonergan’s “the already out there now real”) 23 but also understanding one’s experience as experiencing, judging, affirming or denying, based on what one has understood—that is the critical exigence necessary for knowledge and then the decision and commitment to put into action what one has affirmed and denied. Unfortunately, overemphasis on grassroots experience fails to note the subtle distinction between experience as consciousness and knowing. Consciousness as self-presence may contribute to knowing by providing the data that inform knowing. But it alone is not knowing. Grassroots experience as praxis, as the concrete situation that informs theology, is a very important source of theologizing. The contemporary situation matters in fashioning method in theology, not only in Africa but for world Christianity. But the situation should also evoke transformative dynamics of grace capable of bringing about changes in church and society. Following Robert M. Doran, I emphasize the two situations that ought to concern systematic theology for method in African theology: There is the situation that a contemporary systematic theology would address, and there is the situation whose emergence the same theology would evoke. In addressing the one situation and evoking the other, the theology in question is to be praxis as doing and conduct, praxis as resulting from ends freely chosen in the key moments of one’s own religious, moral, intellectual, and psychic development. It is not to be a tool for an end, however praiseworthy.24

Emphasis on experience in African theology should, therefore, evoke changes resulting to the integrity of the human subjects who then become authentic Christians and theologians by continuously developing psychically, 22

Ibid., 517. See also Justin S. Ukpong, “Towards A Holistic Approach to Inculturation Theology,” Mission Studies 16, no. 2 (1999): 100–124; Aylward Shorter, African Christian Theology: Adaptation or Incarnation (London: Chapman, 1975); and ibid., African Christian Spirituality (London: Chapman, 1978). 23 Lonergan, Insight (1970), 252. 24 Doran, Theology and Dialectics of History, 446.

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intellectually, morally, and religiously by drawing closer to God through God’s grace in all aspects of their lives. This way, grassroots experience both provides data for theology and is transformed by theology to bring about conversion experiences, which transform individual Christians and their various societies towards sustainable integral development. Constant repetition of experiences of the past unable to evoke transformation of these experiences neither transforms Christian faith nor theology and theologians. For the self-communication of God through the word in religion “is not only disclosure but also transformative of the current situation, and, as transformative, evocative of an alternative situation.”25 Is there a theology open to a plurality of theologies, critical of classicist mentality, conscious of history and therefore of the transition from the one normative culture to the modern empirical notion of culture? African theologians can draw upon and freely theologize using such theology to make the Christian faith a way of life for Africans, rather than Christian faith just being mere propositions as the faith has been presented to Africans. Many African theologians gravitate to such theology and perhaps, on such theology, the future of African theology depends.

The Appeal of Lonergan in African Theology Many African theologians draw from Lonergan in their creative task of incarnating the faith in African cultural contexts. Bonganjalo Goba appeals to Lonergan to buttress his claim that religion occurs in a cultural context. He asserts: “I believe Lonergan sets a very important principle which any African Christian theology has to take seriously.” 26 Justin S. Ukpong praises the social sciences conception of a plurality of cultures against the classicist monolithic concept of culture as contributing to the emergence of African theology.27 For Laurenti Magesa, if we are to construct theology drawn from and relevant to the experience of the people, and of value to them, theology must free itself from a conceptual presentation of dogma divorced from experience of the people. It must move away from mere propositional faith manifest in the recitation of creeds. This he identifies as the bane of

25

Ibid., 448. Bonganjalo Goba, “An African Christian Theology: Towards a Tentative Methodology from a South African Perspective,” 7. 27 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies,” 506. 26

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“traditional methodologies of mission in Africa.”28 Using two of Lonergan’s articles, “Existenz and Aggiornamento” (1967) and “Dimensions of Meaning” (1965), Magesa asserts: “The point, as Bernard Lonergan would put it, is rather that, for any value to be a value for the subject—whether that subject is an individual or a group—the subject must somehow ‘own’ it, must bring it from inside of oneself, to make meaning out of it, and meaning more or less freely arrived at.”29 Remembering the situation in Africa, where catechesis has reduced the faith to mere recital of creeds divorced from the experience of the people, and therefore almost incomprehensible and less valuable to the people who fall back on their traditional religious practices amidst challenges of life, Magesa observes that in such situations, “the alleged ‘value’ can become an imposition from outside the subject in question, a form of oppression, an assault on, or disregard and infringement of human rights and dignity.”30 Here Magesa allies himself, and rightly so, with African theologians who insist on theology cognizant of the grassroots experience of Africans. But again, just as Lonergan insists that the data of experience provide the data for consciousness, Magesa moves ahead of these theologians by recognizing the dynamic cognitional structure of consciousness, this time drawing from Lonergan’s article “The Subject” (1968): Lonergan again explains this point well by pointing out that because it is the mind of the person that makes judgments on phenomena, in the final analysis truth is subjective because it exists in minds, in consciousness. The truth that impacts human social construction of structures and attitudes can be perceived only by paying “close attention to the data of consciousness.” Only then is it possible to “discover insights, acts of understanding with the triple role of inquiry, grasping intelligible form in sensible representations, and grounding the formation of concepts.”31

Instead of a conceptualism that has marked “Catholic dogmatic approaches to evangelization”32 and by extension, “traditional methodologies of mission in Africa,”33 Magesa applies Lonergan in what I interpret as his integral vision of theology in Africa incorporating the whole cognitional structure of human knowing and not just merely experience: 28 Laurenti Magesa, What is Not Sacred? African Spirituality (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 182. 29 Ibid., 181. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 181–82. 32 Ibid., 182. 33 Ibid.

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Instead, Lonergan urges the recognition of the role the historical, social and psychological limitations and determinations of human beings plays in the perception and reception, if not “construction,” of truth, out of which concepts and doctrines arise and which influences each individual’s horizons. As he puts it, we experience different realities in our existence as human beings, and these realities construct our practical, social, psychological, and spiritual worlds of truth. But even when we experience the same reality, we often interpret it differently. The particular interpretation of our reality most fundamentally gives direction to our ways of living, which can be modified or changed most effectively only through dialogue.34

African theology’s aim of constructing theology relevant to the concrete experience of the people cannot discard grassroots experience. These experiences as part of human consciousness do not stand alone without understanding, judgment, and decision. It is up to the theologian to make sense of these experiences within their various contexts.

Why Lonergan Matters for African Theology Magesa’s use of Lonergan may have shown Lonergan’s importance for African theology. But a similar point can equally be made of other theologians. Actually, some people might wonder how Lonergan fits into African theology, especially in light of the renewed demand for method in African theology, especially method that takes the grassroots experience of Christian communities in Africa seriously. Put in proper perspective, African theology’s quest for method is for pastoral purposes, to make the Christian faith relevant to the experience of Africans so that the faith becomes a way of life. Is Lonergan an academic relevant for pastoral theology? Was Lonergan concerned about social justice and equality? Does he care whether the poor have food on their table? What form of Gospel did he promote: lofty repetition of normative classical theology, or was he an advocate of theology that recognizes the new voices appropriating the Gospel from many contexts? Relatedly we must add, is pastoral theology the only branch of theology? The answer to some of our questions indicates that Lonergan is deeply interested in pastoral concerns of contemporary theology. As Frederick Crowe aptly remarks: “A pastoral concern marked Lonergan’s career from

34

Ibid.

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beginning to end.”35 Crowe details various examples, including Lonergan’s work on economics, “An Essay in Circulation Analysis,” chapter 7 of Insight on human affairs, society, and the good of order, and on the human good in Method in Theology. Unlike most of his peers absorbed in classical normative theology, Lonergan recognized an anthropological notion of culture, that theology takes place within many cultural contexts. He actually describes the primary task of the theologian to be “to mediate between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in that matrix.”36 Lonergan is the foremost inculturation theologian. The eighth Functional Specialty Communications, according to Crowe, “is coincident with pastoral theology and is the crowning exercise of the whole unitary process.”37 Communications are concerned precisely with evangelization, the spread of the good news in many cultural contexts. So, Lonergan’s relevance for world Christianity is beyond doubt. According to Cyril Orji: Theologians who see the Lonergan project as valuable to the Church’s missionary enterprise now insist on a new missionary model that is not “a dissemination of the Western experiences and expressions of the Christian faith.” They see in Lonergan’s endeavor an inculturation hermeneutic that is benecial for the Asianness or the Africanness of Christianity. His mediation of transcultural constituents of integrity helps in fostering a world cultural humanity.38

Lonergan cares about the twin goals of African theology: inculturation and various forms of liberation—political, social, economic, gender, etc. He constructs his theology with these goals squarely in mind. Through a long-drawn-out, rigorous study of up to eleven years reaching the mind of Aquinas, he formulates method in theology through the eightfold Functional Specialties. Communication (inculturation) is the culmination of the specialties by which the good news is disseminated to the whole world in various communities. Once more, Lonergan preempts the contemporary quest for method in African theology. Drawing from Lonergan’s Method in Theology we learn two important lessons relevant for African theology. Grassroots experience alone does not produce systematic theology. It provides the data of sense for the 35 Frederick E. Crowe, “Bernard Lonergan as Pastoral Theologian,” in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, ed. Michael Vertin (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 127. 36 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, xi. 37 Crowe, “Bernard Lonergan as Pastoral Theologian,” 130. 38 Cyril Orji, “Using ‘Foundation’ as Inculturation Hermeneutic in a World Church: Did Rahner Validate Lonergan?” The Heythrop Journal LIV (2013), 294.

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theological investigation. But experience must be understood and analyzed in the light of the Christian faith for Christian faith and enrichment of the experience of various communities in mutual self-mediation characteristic of intercultural theology. Method in theology combines the eightfold Functional Specialties. According to Lonergan: Theology has been conceived as reflection on religion and, indeed, in the present age as a highly differentiated and specialized reflection. After research, which assembles the data thought relevant, and interpretation, which ascertains their meaning, and history, which finds meanings incarnate in deeds and movements, and dialectic, which investigates the conflicting conclusions of historians, interpreters, researchers, and foundations, which objectifies the horizon effected by intellectual, moral, and religious conversion, and doctrines, which uses foundations as a guide in selecting from alternatives presented by dialectic, and systematics, which seeks an ultimate clarification of the meaning of doctrine, there finally comes our present concern with the eight functional specialty, communications … Without the first seven stages, of course, there is no fruit to be borne. But without the last the first seven are in vain, for they fail to mature.39

Grassroots experience alone does not constitute method in theology. The data assembled in research need the rest of the functional specialties to produce a theology that reflects on the Christian faith in African cultural contexts. The context for the African theologian is Africa’s socio-culturalreligious traditional culture, which forms the grassroots experience of doing theology in Africa. We cannot ground method in theology on this grassroots experience alone. In Lonergan’s pictorial clarification, “”there is set up a scissors movement with an upper blade in the categories and a lower blade in the data … theology can be neither a priori nor purely a posteriori but only the fruit of an ongoing process that has one foot in a transcultural base and the other on increasingly organized data.” 40 Experience is the lower blade of the scissors while the theologian’s interpretive framework (reason, critical analysis) is the upper blade of method in African theology. The unmediated experience at the grassroots is the infrastructure while reflection on those experiences based on the Good News is the superstructure of theology. 41 Justin S. Ukpong’s 39

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 355. Ibid., 293. 41 Bernard Lonergan, “Prolegomena to the Study of the Emerging Religious Consciousness of Our Time,” in A Third Collection, cited in John D. Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan (New York: State University of New York Press, 2004), 31–32. 40

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description of reading the Bible below aptly sums up integrating grassroots experience and other functional specialties Lonergan describes above: In academic biblical pedagogy and discourse in Africa today, there is a big departure from what was hitherto considered normal: African ways of reading the Bible are being taught alongside classical methods in academic institutions; the Bible is being studied against the background of African contexts, and African contextual issues form the agenda for reading the Bible; Africans, hitherto objects, are being constructed into subjects of biblical interpretation; African conceptual frame of reference is competing with that of the West (hitherto considered universal and normal) as a methodological tool of exegetical practices; the ordinary people’s approach to the Bible is informing scholarly reading practices; critical reading masses are being nurtured at the grassroots, and the hitherto muted voices of the ordinary people are coming alive in academic biblical discourses.42

Theology makes faith relevant to the everyday cultural, social, political, economic, religious, and vital life of the people. It does this not by regimented rules or outline but by collaborative creativity, not by the classical approach set out in handbooks of theology as a norm, but by the empirical, historical approach that pays attention to the operations within the theologian. “Method,” Lonergan reminds us, “is not a set of rules to be followed meticulously by a dolt. It is a framework for collaborative creativity. It would outline the clusters of operations to be performed by theologians when they go about their tasks.”43 Method in theology is found in the human subject, in the operations of the theologian, in consciousness, in the human desire to know. It involves the theologian making use of his reason in articulating the experience of the cultural matrix of the religion he is mediating. It demands the authenticity of the theologian being attentive to his experience and that of the community; an intelligent inquiry in understanding what is going on in the dynamics of the experience; being reasonable in reflecting on the truth of the experience, and responsible affirmation of the religious value of the experience. One can, following Eliade Mircea, say that African theology needs “a new Phenomenology of Mind.”44

42 Justin S. Ukpong, “Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings,” Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Cape Town (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 9–10. 43 Lonergan, Method in Theology, xi. 44 Eliade Mircea, Quest: The History and Meaning in Religion, cited in John D. Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan, 2.

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The Future of African Theology African theology’s mediation of Christianity within the cultural matrix of Africa should comprise differentiating the immediate experience of Africans, which is a mixture of a traditional religious cultural world view and the Gospel, from the objectivity of such experience by leading them to a deeper appreciation of the meaning of such experiences in the light of Christian faith. What I am saying in effect is that theologians in Africa should be akin to the Generalized Empirical Method aimed at deepening the Christian faith by being catalysts of change for “a new phenomenology of the mind.” Christian faith will remain shallow unless the people are made to reflect critically on the meaning of the truths of the faith and trained to be on guard against various forms of religious gullibility bordering on superstition, marauding the continent in the name of spectacular religious experiences in the form of miracles, prosperity gospels, and fraudulent false prophecies aimed at hoodwinking the people and robbing them of their scarce resources. Unfortunately, most Christians at the grassroots and even educated ones in most of Africa, operate on what Lonergan in his description of consciousness classified as the level of common sense or undifferentiated consciousness. Most are prone to interpret common experiences as mystical. John S. Mbiti underscores this by noting that religion influences all areas of African life and that Africans are notoriously religious.45 Even though articles and books dispute this claim,46 it is generally agreed that Africans live in a religious universe where traditional religion is embedded in their culture and life. Laurenti Magesa’s book on African spirituality is rightly titled “What is Not Sacred?” While this is a positive attribute expressive of Africa’s integrated worldview as opposed to the dualism of the Western conceptual framework, the undifferentiated consciousness of African traditional cosmology carried over into Christianity accounts for the religious gullibility to be challenged by African theology. It is the responsibility of African theology to lead African Christianity away from 45

John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (London: Heinemann, 1975), 27; African Religions and Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1969), 1. 46 Okot P’Bitek, Decolonizing African Religions (New York: Diasporic Africa Press, 2011), xxvii; Jan Platvoet and Henk J. van Rinsum, “Is Africa Incurably Religious?: Confessing and Contesting an Invention,” Exchange 32, no. 2 (2003): 123–53; Kehinde Olabimtan, “‘Is Africa Incurably Religious?’ II A Response to Jan Platvoet & Henk van Rinsum,” Exchange 32, no. 4 (2003): 322–39; Jan Platvoet and Henk J. van Rinsum, “Is Africa incurably religious? III A Reply to a Rhetorical Response,” Exchange 37, no. 2 (2008): 156–73.

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operating mainly at the first stage of meaning, and interpreting Christian religious experience as an already out there now real, as self-evident truths one must be drilled in opposed to reason. A critical exigence of relating things to each other is necessary to promote a greater level of freedom and responsibility in the practice of the faith, made possible by greater differentiation through a critical question that deepens appropriation of the Christian faith and worship of God, which Lonergan calls religiously differentiated consciousness. The prerequisite for these tasks lies in the commitment of the theologian to the truth of Christian faith. According to John D. Dadosky, “Foundations establish the subject’s religious horizon. There follows the affirmation of doctrines, ‘understanding’ of the mysteries of faith in systematics, and communication of the doctrines/mysteries within the tradition and to the community.” 47 Despite the increasing number of people becoming Christians in Africa, the skin-deep commitment to Christian faith makes conversion experience an imperative. African theology must, therefore, attend to the horizon of religious experience. Affirmation of the doctrines and understanding their meaning lead to a deeper level of commitment to the faith. African theology must draw from the numerous dissertations lying idle in many universities in Europe and North America by different Africans to educate Africans and to enhance critical reflection on the Christian faith. Inculturation and liberation theology in Africa will remain lofty unless the commitment to the Christian faith is deep. Foundation, doctrines, and systematics must be taken much more seriously to enhance African theology.

Conclusion The Pan-African Conference of Third World Theology banned not all theologies from Europe and North America, but the classicist theology that presumes the theological task is completed and the only thing that must happen for Africa is to adapt classical theology to its various contexts. Lonergan was one of the foremost theologians very critical of classicist culture, and so promotes an empirical notion of culture and hence a plurality of theologies. I have argued that the African quest for method in theology can benefit from Lonergan’s method in theology expressed in his functional specialties in Method in Theology.

47 John D. Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan, 37.

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Even though this is part of a larger project, and a lot more research must be done in other areas of theology to buttress the claims I have made here, I have limited myself to a subtle criticism of the claim by some African theologians that method in theology lies in paying attention solely to the grassroots experience of African Christians. I am convinced that while experience provides the data, it alone provides no method in theology. An adequate method that distinguishes African theology and enables it to critically interpret African grassroots experience in many contexts must involve the theologian using his mind: experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding. It means the theologian must be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. The whole gamut of the issues African theology cares about demands critical attention to data as infrastructure and Christian faith as the superstructure. Using the image of Lonergan’s hermeneutic scissors, theology cannot mediate religion within a cultural context without the lower blade and the upper blade. It remains to be developed how the African theologian will engage in the functional specialties of doctrine and systematics. But we first must reestablish the dialogue of Western and African thought to justify the use of the functional specialties developed by Bernard Lonergan.

CHAPTER TEN DIALOGUE BETWEEN AFRICAN AND WESTERN THOUGHT

One day at the Catholic Theological Society of America conference I met an African theologian who, on learning I do theology using Bernard Lonergan, frowned and reminded me that we (Third World theologians) are done with Western theology. We should, he advised, construct our theology in the light of the culture of our people, one that is integral and not one that is dualistic. I agree. Theology should not be a recycling or rumination on the works of dead Western theologians with little relevance to people of other cultures. A theologian once gave a similar piece of advice to a Nigerian graduate student who had gone to him to moderate his thesis on the relationship between Augustine’s and Aquinas’s doctrine of the Trinity. The professor asked the student how that thesis topic would help put food on the table of his people or advance his pastoral work when he goes back home. Relatedly, an Asian theologian, Choan-Seng Song, compared Asian theology’s extraordinary attachment to Western theology and the need for change in Asian ways of doing theology to the fat man in the Filipino folktale “The Gungutan and the Big-Bellied Man,” where the fat man is forced to reduce his weight. Christian theology in Asia has been overweight, like that big-bellied man. It could hardly walk or run with its huge belly of undigested food—a belly crammed with schools of theology, theories of biblical interpretation, Christian views of cultures and religions, all originating from the church of the West and propounded by traditional theology. It became more obese when the vast space of Asia, with its rich cultures, vigorous religions, and turbulent histories, began to compete for room in that already over-loaded theological belly. The result is painful indigestion. Our chief concern must be how to cure its indigestion, reduce its weight, and regain its agility and dynamic to win the hand of theology authentic to the Asian mind.1

1

Choan-Seng Song, Third-Eye Theology, cited in Peter C. Phan, “Contemporary Theology and Inculturation in the United States,” in The Multicultural Church: A New Landscape in U.S. Theologies, ed. William Cenkner (New York: 1996), 124.

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The same could be said of African theology when it becomes too Westernized and Eurocentric. Then its indigestion must be cured so it reflects on Christian faith from the perspective of the culture of its peoples to be relevant to the daily Christian life of Africans. As already noted in Chapter Two, the tension between Western theology and theologies from other parts of the world erupted with the formation of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians and their declaration and resolve to do theology in a new key. Boldly they declared every theology to be contextual and rejected the classical, one universal theological model bequeathed to them by various theological schools. For Latin American theologians, theology must move from a deductive to an inductive approach, from theory to praxis. To be relevant, our theologizing must be done within the context of the struggles of the poor. Asian theology, conscious of the religious plurality of the continent, emphasizes interreligious dialogue, enreligionization, and interculturation.2 African theology is split between the socio-political approach of Black Theology of South Africa and the inculturation theology approach of the rest of the continent (sub-Saharan, at least). Black Theology of South Africa and inculturation theology are closing their bitter disputes, with both theologies recognizing the importance of both perspectives in contextual theology. There is no doubt that African and Western conceptual frameworks are different because of differences in language, culture, thought patterns, and societal organization. “For example, within the African conceptual frame of reference, the reality of the interaction between the supernatural and natural worlds, the spirit world and the world of physical human existence, and the interconnectedness of all these, are taken for granted while that is not the case in the Western conceptual frame of reference.”3 African and Western values are also different. “The Western conceptual frame of reference include dualism, individualism, historicism, and intellectualism while a unitive view of reality, emphasis on community, and pragmatic outlook are among what mark the African conceptual frame of reference.”4 As Emefie Ikenga Metuh realized in his attempt to translate African beliefs into Western conceptual schemes, the problem is methodological and hermeneutical. The methodological problem is overcome by not taking too much at a time, by limiting the themes one considers and the 2

K. P. Aleaz, “The Theology of Inculturation Re-examined,” Asian Journal of Theology 25, no. 2 (2011): 241–43. 3 Justin S. Ukpong, “Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings,” 15. 4 Ibid.

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field of study. The hermeneutical problem consists in seeking ways to overcome the cultural and language barriers by participant observation and living with the people and learning their language. Metuh engaged the comparative approach by examining “data against the backdrop of generalizations, categorizations or evaluations of related African belief.”5 He recognized what has continued to be the Achilles heels of African Christian theology: One of the problems of the studies of African Religions, is the problem of interpretation. Most writers in African Religions are Europeans and Americans. Even the few African writers there, are western trained elite, and write in one of the European languages. Hence the problem of interpreting and translating African traditional beliefs in western patterns of expression.6

Even though many more African theologians have been trained since Metuh wrote in 1985, the theology of inculturation is still restricted by this problem in a different way—how to make sense of the Christian faith in the light of an African cultural framework. And whether we still must be doing theology in Africa using the Western conceptual framework. If so, what form of dialogue should be ongoing between African and Western thought? Specifically, how should African Catholicism come to grips with the hermeneutics of culture: through African philosophy, culture, and/or social analysis? As has been emphasized, inculturation is so important to our way of doing theology that the first African Synod Ecclesia in Africa is centered on it. Early approaches to inculturation, philosophical and anthropological, focused on religious aspects, ignoring the secular aspects of culture. Many theologians considered them inadequate. The philosophical approach borrowed too much from Aristotelian-Thomistic theology and sought corollaries in African culture to build an African theology of being. According to Justin S. Ukpong, “the argument behind this is that since western philosophy undergirds western theology, in African inculturation theology an African philosophy should be made to replace western philosophy. There is an insistence on the African theologian being competent in the western system of thought and culture as well as in his or her own, in order to be able to enter into dialogue with both and create an

5

Emefie Ikenga Metuh, African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes: The Problem of Interpretation (Jos, Nigeria: Imico Press, 1985), xii. 6 Ibid., vii.

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encounter between them.”7 The anthropological approach is based on an anthropological understanding of culture as worldview and as systems of symbols and meaning. Charles Nyamiti’s social-anthropological categories like Jesus the ancestor,8 and Aylward Shorter’s Jesus as a witch doctor,9 among others, instantiate this approach. According to Ukpong, what is left behind is the sociological-anthropological approach, an approach that combines “the sociological understanding of culture as the totality of a people’s way of life with the anthropological understanding as worldview, and as a system of symbols and their meaning.”10 The Apostolic Exhortation of the Second African Synod, Africae Munus, seems to adopt the sociological-anthropological approach by recognizing the importance of social and political change besides a religious conversion experience.11 But how is African theology to be done to bring this about? What attitude to culture can ground Christian faith in Africa? Metuh recommends methodological and hermeneutical changes that involve the theologian participating in the cultural experience of the people. Along the same line, Africae Munus urges an in-depth study of African traditional religion and culture, not just as a preparation for the Gospel, but as having spiritual elements of a full-fledged religion capable of leading people to God. A theologian’s notion of culture, the relations of culture and Christian faith, and method in doing theology, are vital in the study of culture and religion. As already noted, two notions of culture could guide a theologian’s method. First is a classical view of one culture (the Christian culture) as universal for all peoples. The second is a historical notion of culture that interprets the incarnation as validating all cultures as vehicles for the Good News. An African or a Western theologian could hold either of the notions of culture, which influences the approach to cultures, including African cultural and religious traditions. And so what matters is a theologian’s notion of culture and its relation to the Christian faith. The point of emphasis here is that the theologian pays attention to primary data in the light of the notion of culture she is using in particular cultural contexts. 7

Justin S. Ukpon, “Towards A Holistic Approach to Inculturation Theology,” Mission Studies 26, no. 2 (1999): 101–02. 8 Charles Nyamiti, Jesus Christ, the Ancestor of Humankind: Methodological and Trinitarian Foundations (Nairobi: The Catholic University of Eastern Africa Publications, 2005). 9 Aylward Shorter, Jesus and the Witchdoctor: An Approach to Healing and Wholeness (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1985). 10 Ibid., 107–08. 11 AM, nos. 81–83.

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Whatever be the case, the ideal is that the communication of the Good News must be in tandem with the meaning-making process, the cultural framework of the community of faith. The theologian mediates the Christian faith within this cultural framework by reflecting on the implications of the Good News in the diverse areas of the life of the people.

African Catholicism and Hermeneutics of Culture Most objections to Western theology are objections to the classicist mentality, against the one universal theology appropriate for all peoples; against Christendom, whereby Christianity was construed as a civilizing agent to give “Culture” to savages without civilization. We saw glimpses of such ideas of Christianity in some of the Christian missionaries’ approach to elements of our culture. One cannot agree more with Bishop Peter Sarpong of Kumasi, Ghana, who expressed his frustration with the alienation and non-functionality of the classicist theology of the Fifties and Sixties they were trained in: “The type of theology we studied was nothing but a combination of a few magisterial pronouncements and a philosophical system suitable to Europe of the Middle Ages.” 12 But Sarpong added Aquinas, as an example of the boldness African scholars must use to formulate African theology. “St. Thomas Aquinas provides us with the best example of how to be original and bold in theological thinking. Anybody of his time would have recoiled from the thought of using Aristotelianism to explain Christian doctrine.”13 For Sarpong, there is an example in Western theology of a harbinger of change, of doing theology in context. Now Lonergan took eleven years of study to reach up to the mind of Aquinas, to come to his conclusion of the importance of the shift from classicism to empirical or modern notions of culture and theology. It will make a whole lot of difference if an empirical notion of culture guides the hermeneutics of culture in the Gospel and its relation to culture in Africa. We will not be inhibited by the guilt of the source of our theology, because we will not worry about method as rules or guidelines to which we must conform. We will think in the light of the dynamism of our communities’ common meaning and our concern will be primarily how to make the Christian faith relevant to the culture of our various local churches. We really must do this, or else Christianity in 12

P. K. Sarpong, “Christianity Should Be Africanized, not African Christianized,” African Ecclesiastical Review 18, no. 6 (1979): 327. 13 Ibid.

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Africa will continue to be superficial. We remember the sound warning of the late venerable Chukwudum Okolo: Although Christianity has been in Africa for hundreds of years and in spite of the large numbers of confessing Christians, giving an optimistic vision of Africa as the last hope of Christianity in the world, the Christian faith is still on trial in Africa. It has neither penetrated to the roots of the African culture nor have Africans gone much beyond nominal Christianity.14

To be holistic, the relation of Gospel and culture must, as Ukpong taught, be sociological-anthropological, not merely religious but integral, incorporating every aspect of African culture that does not separate the sacred from the secular.15 It is wrong to argue, as some theologians do, that the crucial issue in African theology today is Gospel and justice, rather than Gospel and culture, as it has been overcome by events of poverty and injustice in Africa.16 The African religious past is not so much chronological as it is ontological, representing African identity.17 It is like arguing that African theology today is not inculturation, but that the emerging contemporary African theology is the theology of reconciliation,18 or positing reconstruction theology as the fourth developmental stage in African Christianity,19 as if these were not part and parcel of making the faith relevant to the meaning-making process of the people. What we need is not which theology is current in Africa and which has been surpassed. We equally need not defend the cultural Christianity of the West, as such Christianity is not broad enough to communicate the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What we need is cultural Christianity in Africa, one that mediates the Christian faith to the African in his immediate context. An empirical notion of culture is the key to accomplishing theology articulated in the All African Conference of Churches in 1963:

14

Chukwudum Okolo, The Nigerian Catholic Theologian: A Functional Definition (Enugu, Nigeria: Optimal Computer Solutions, 1996), 9–10. 15 Adrian Hastings, African Catholicism: Essays in Discovery (London: SCM Press, 1989), 24. 16 Ibid., 35. 17 Kwame Bediako, “The Roots of African Theology,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 13, no. 2 (1989), 59. 18 J. J. Carney, “Roads to Reconciliation: An Emerging Paradigm of African Theology,” Modern Theology 26, no. 4 (2010), 549–69. 19 Julius Gathogo, “The Tasks in African Theology of Reconstruction,” Swedish Missiological Themes 96, no. 2 (2008): 161–83.

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One of the major assignments before those who seek to communicate and inculcate the Gospel in Africa is that of understanding Africa and appreciating the fact that they must learn to address Africans as Africans… [This is more so important because] All over Africa people have been led to the stage of despising their own native traditions and cultures and of regarding foreign ideas and cultures as the only way to human dignity.20

Understanding Africa demands appreciating the patterns of African life, thought, politics, economics, health, education, religion, morality, ecology, etc. Only an empirical notion of culture as a hermeneutic of culture can restore African identity and heal the African psyche battered by dominating factors of oppression. Even though the African sense of history is short, its impact runs deeper than expected. The restoration of an African ontological past is the stepping-stone to the evangelization of the Christian faith in an African context. We must step back and reflect on African attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility, to be authentic and free to communicate the good news to our people as theologians. This way we can achieve the primary aim of African theology: “to give expression to Christianity in African religiocultural terms, to work towards creating a synthesis between Christianity and African culture and religion, to present Christianity in a way congenial to the African's view of reality, and to integrate Christianity into his world view. The final goal is to help the African live out Christianity authentically within his cultural milieu and to integrate his religious personality.”21

Conclusion The greatest challenge to African Christianity, Catholicism, and theology is not so much the influence of Western or other contextual theologies, but the unfortunate persistence of the classicist mentality in faith and practice, adherence to Eurocentric cultural Christianity misconstrued and protected as Christian orthodoxy, and the forms the reflection on Christian faith adopts in a Christ-against-culture typology in the relation of faith and culture. Pope Francis in Evangelium Gaudium warns against such a classicist mentality as militating against the truth of the Gospel and evangelization: 20

Kwesi Dickson and Paul Ellingworth, eds., Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1969), 14–15. 21 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence of African Theologies,” 510.

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Chapter Ten We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as mono-cultural and monotonous. While it is true that some cultures have been closely associated with the preaching of the Gospel and the development of Christian thought, the revealed message is not identified with any of them; its content is transcultural. Hence in the evangelization of new cultures, or cultures which have not received the Christian message, it is not essential to impose a specific cultural form, no matter how beautiful or ancient it may be, together with the Gospel. The message that we proclaim always has a certain cultural dress, but we in the Church can sometimes fall into a needless hallowing of our own culture, and thus show more fanaticism than true evangelizing zeal.22

Even though a good number of African theologians are Western trained, and are influenced by Western theology, yet they can critique elements of such theology that are classicist. Many teach and write excellent books on African Christianity, culture, and Catholicism. “In the process, African theologians have arrived at a generally more sympathetic view of the pre-Christian tradition than the Western missionary interpretation of Africa, with its basic cultural and theological presumptions, could do.”23 In the same way, the Latin American liberation theologians, though educated in the West, critiqued Western concentration on theory and prioritized praxis of the faith in the daily struggles of the poor by propounding what is now commonly known in the Church—the preferential option for the poor. Unless an African theologian buys into the classicist culture (naively and innocently), the fear of getting caught up in Western theology is near zero, because such a theologian will always make sense of theology from his/her cultural ambient. “There is already available to an African Christian theologian a religious ethos in the African cultural context which provides insights to develop an African Christian theology.”24 It will be difficult for an African theologian to be satisfied with Western theology as they will always face the nagging question of relevance to their cultural context. The dialogue between African and Western thought should be one of mutual self-mediation benefiting African and Western theology in such a way that both grow by the interaction. Mutual self-mediation equally involves openness to criticism and the consequent broadening of horizons. For example, convinced African spirituality contributes to global Christianity 22

EG, n.117. Kwame Bediako, “The Roots of African Theology,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 13, no. 2 (1989), 59. 24 Bonganjalo Goba, “An African Christian Theology: Towards a Tentative Methodology from a South African Perspective,” 3. 23

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exemplified in the dialogue of cultures engaged in by the African independent churches, Laurenti Magesa makes use of categories of different Western theologians and authors to support integrated African spirituality. While reiterating that inculturation involves all aspects of African culture including the political, economic, and social spheres, Magesa gives an example of how not to inculturate by alluding to some religious congregations in Africa: Inculturation must become a culture, and culture is lived. We might take the example of religious life in Africa. In many religious congregations of Africa, members still wear the “habit” inspired by European traditions, climatic conditions, and culture. This is, of course, a choice, but it is one that speaks volumes. It is stretching the point when the European-inspired habit is almost equated with loyalty to Christ, as it is sometimes claimed!25

Because of the expansion and steady growth of Christianity in Africa and other parts of the Third World when the Christian faith is decreasing in the West, and the growing discipline of mission theology and world Christianity, Western theology is paying attention to African theology and drawing from its spirituality, rites and rituals, literature, etc. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which is the story of introducing Christianity in an African nation and the social changes it brought, is read in high schools and universities in the West as part of a cross-cultural perspective in both theology and interdisciplinary African studies. I have argued that theology is contextual. It draws on the common meaning of its context to mediate the Christian faith in a mutual selfmediation leading to the appropriation of faith and culture. The cultural basis for this interculturation is the shift from a classicist to an empirical notion of culture, one that recognizes cultural plurality and the suitability of all cultures for the incarnation of the Christian faith. Lonergan’s theological framework, by its emphasis on historical mindedness and the necessity of theology in the light of Aquinas’s revolution of theology exemplified in his use of Aristotle as a foundation of theology, which was a novel idea in his time, challenges African theology to holistic inculturation. A sociological-anthropological approach to culture, in tandem with African integral spirituality, is recommended as an appropriate response to the challenges. What we should worry about is not African use of a Western theological framework, but the appropriation of any theology in a classicist Eurocentric culturally exclusive way, the idea underlying the imperial concept of Christianity as Christendom. Also, we 25

Laurenti Magesa, What is Not Sacred? 188.

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should not concern ourselves with rulebooks or methods as guides for specific ways of reflecting critically on the Christian faith. Method comprises the operations of the theologian in his unrestricted desire to know. I suggest appropriation of Lonergan’s eightfold Functional Specializations that guide the theological task for doing theology in Africa. This appropriation must be done without dishonor to the African traditional culture. In this lies the role of theology in the world Church.

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INDEX

A Abstract theology, 48; abstract relationship, 12 Abstraction, 3, 8, 25, 26 Accommodation, 10, 67 Achebe, Chinua, 92, 148, 187, 189 Adaptation, 21, 54, 168 (see footnote 22) Africae Munus, 15 (see footnote 31), 57, 105, 108 (see footnote 23), 111, 145, 182, 201 African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for SocioEconomic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP), 131 African Catholicism, ix, 103, 105106, 108-9, 114-19, 161, 181, 183-84, 194, 199 African Christian anthropology, 144 African Christianity, 15, 30, 27, 52 (see footnote 2), 57, 61, 109, 116, 175, 184-86, 203, African Ethics, vii, 89, 90 (see footnote 72), 91-101, 139, 144 (see footnote 59 and 60), 190, 193, 198 African Independent/Instituted Churches (AICs), 16, 41, 53 African liberative theologies, vii, 55, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 199 African synod, 57, 100, 105, 111, 145, 181-82 African theologian(s), 10, 29 (see footnote 75), 52 (see footnote 2), 55 (see footnote 7), 82, 100,

119, 163, 165, 167, 169-70, 173, 177, 179-81, 186 African theology of inculturation, 89 African theologians, 29 (see footnote 75), 52 (see footnote 2), 55 (see footnote 7), 82, 100, 119, 163, 165, 169-70, 177, 181, 186 African Traditional Religions (ATRs), 30-32, 53, 55, 57, 77 (see footnote 42), 87 (see footnote 70), 198 African Union, 130, 145, 200 Aggiornamento, 19, 170 All African Conference of Churches, 54 (see footnote 7), 55 Americanization of societies, 136 Analogy, 22 Anamnetic, 96, 98 Ancestors, 3, 76, 77 (see footnote 40), 88, 91-92, 94-96, 98, 137, 139; Ancestral spirits, 56 Anthropological Poverty, 30, 40-41, 66, 89, 146 Anthropology/Christian anthropology, vii, 5, 19 (see footnote 41), 21 (see footnote 49), 22, 49 (see footnote 55), 57, 78, 102, 119-21, 123, 138-46, 154 (see footnote 14), 189, 193, 195, 197, 201-02 Apartheid, 4, 12, 63-6, 79-85, 8789, 140, 198 Apologetical, 62 Aquinas, Thomas, 172, 179, 183, 187 Arrupe, Pedro, 21

208 Ascetic, 12 Asia/Asian, 2, 3, 19, 36-37, 39-40, 48, 58, 62, 109, 116, 124-25, 172, 179-80, 189, 192 Association of Third World Theologians (ETWOT), 180 Augustine, Saint, 11, 19, 52, 138, 179 Australia, 2, 38 Authentic, 13, 29, 32, 68, 89, 97, 100, 111 (see footnote 36), 114, 168, 179, 185, Authenticity, 100, 158, 174 Authority, 11, 37, 58, 76, 135, 139, 152 B Balkanized, 154 Bandung Conference, 128 Bangkok, 54 Baptism, 117 Barbarian, x, 15, 25 Bediako, Kwame, 43, 110 (see footnote 27), 163, 186 (see footnote 23), 190 Behavior, x, 8, 23, 26, 77, 94, 144, 150, 156 Belgium/Belgian, 122 Berlin Conference, 140 Bias/biases, 72, 78, 98, 155-58, 16061 Bible, 58-62, 80-81, 109, 174, 180, 194, 197, 203 Biblical, 48, 55-56, 58-63, 68, 167, 174, 179, 185, 192, 194, 197, 204; Biblical hermeneutics, 143; Biblical theology, 55; Biblical revelation, 55-56 Biko, Steve, 79 Binary, 122 Black Africa, 63, 75, 93, 198 Black church, 87 Black power, 67-70, 74 (see footnote 32), 80, 86, 191 Black race, 55

Index Black theology, vii, 4, 29 (see footnote 75), 30, 41, 45 (see footnote 35), 52 (see footnote 2), 63-77, 79-89, 180, 189, 191, 193-94, 198, 203-4 Brito, John de, x Bujo, Benezet, 92-93, 95, 97-98, 190 Buhlmann, Walter, 50, 190 Byzantine, x C Capitalism, 10, 41, 82, 87, 104-6, 112, 126, 134, 144, 195 Capitalist, 37-38, 141 Cartesian, xi, 93 Catechesis, 170 Catholic, Catholicism, vii, ix-xi, 4, 10, 12, 27, 32, 71, 76-77, 103, 105-9, 11119, 161, 181, 183-86, 191, 194, 199 Catholic Church, 13-14, 70-73, 7576, 111, 113, 191, 197 Catholicity, 47 Celtic, xi Center of gravity, 2, 5, 14, 43 Chaldean, x Chan, Lucas, 62-63 Change/changes, 11, 18, 27-28, 30, 32, 45-49, 66, 74-75, 83, 99101, 104, 111, 119, 122, 125-26, 129-34, 145, 147, 156, 158-60, 164, 168, 171, 175, 179, 182-83, 187, 193, 195, 197-98; Cultural change, 48, 106; Social changes, 126, 145, 160, 187, 197; Theological change, 48 China, 16, 124, 131, 149 Chines rite controversy, x Christendom, 2 (see footnote 4), 5, 14, 43, 50, 109-110, 183, 187, 194 Christianity (world Christianity), ix, 2-6, 19 (see footnote 43), 35-36, 43-44, 48, 109, 172, 201-5

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity Church (see Catholic Church/Catholicism) Christology, 13, 69 (see footnote 12), 119, 191 Christological, 107 Civil rights, 67-68, 71, 79 Civilization, 7, 12-13, 15, 24, 45 (see footnote 37), 53, 59, 107, 116, 127, 135, 137, 183, 202 Classical control of meaning, 23 Classical theology, 39, 69, 171, 176 Classicism, ix, 24-25, 35, 47, 183 Classicist idea/mentality, ix, 5, 14, 15 (see footnote 30), 19, 24-27, 32-33, 35, 48-50, 52-53, 110, 169, 176, 183, 185-87 Clergy, 31, 116 Clientelism, 149-50 Cogito ergo sum, xi, 93 Cognatus sum ergo summus, xi, 93 Cold War, 37, 85, 87, 128 (see footnote 17) Colonial/colonial masters, 5, 37, 3940, 51, 62, 65-66, 83, 108, 109, 122, 124, 127, 144, 147, 149; Colonial theology, 48 Colonialism, 27, 55, 57, 62, 84, 8688, 109, 137, 145, 153, 163, 192 Common good, x-xi, 11, 91, 121, 138-41, 144, 149, 157, 161 Commonsense, 22, 76 Communication, 29, 43, 77 (see footnote 41), 80, 84, 115, 152, 176, 183, 193; God’s selfcommunication, 18, 169 Communications (functional specialty), 27, 172-73 Communio Ecclesiology, 50, 70 Communion, 28 (see footnote 71), 42, 110-11, 113, 115, 200, 204 Community [human community], x, 3, 9, 18, 23, 42, 57, 68, 70, 75, 81, 88, 90-98, 101, 122, 139-40, 143-44, 153-54, 156-58, 161, 167, 174, 176, 180, 183; African American community, 75

209

African community, 54, 84; Christian community, 40, 45, 62; Dialectic of community, 156-58, Scholarly community, 60 Conceptualism, 170 Confucian, 62 Cone, James, 12-13, 67-78, 80, 1991, 194 Congo, 76, 133 Consumerism, 79, 104-5, 107, 117, 142 Contextualization, vii, 35, 50, 63, 100, 119 Continuity, 5, 18, 59, 87, 94, 101, 105, 154 (see footnote 14), 165, 191 Conversion, 11, 35-36, 49, 75, 8182, 107, 109, 113, 169, 176; Intellectual conversion 24 (see footnote 59); Religious conversion, 173, 182 Conversionist model, 11-12 Corruption, 5, 83, 87, 112, 116, 129 (see footnote 19), 134, 137-38, 144, 147-48, 150-59, 160, 189, 194-95, 199-200, 202-3, 205; Corruption of human nature, 11 Cosmology, 57; African Cosmology, 56-57, 59, 138, 163, 175; Biblical cosmology, 59 Cosmopolis, 158-60 Crisis, 112; African anthropological crisis, 145; Anthropological crisis, 16, 32, 112; Crisis of identity, 30. 85 (see footnote 67), 146; Economic crisis, 132; Political crisis 82 (see footnote 56), 195 Crowe, Fredrick, 23, 25, 171-72, 191, 196 Culture, [empirical notion], ix, 5, 23-27, 32, 48-49, 169, 176, 18385, 187; Classical view of

210 culture, 14-15, 182; See classicism Cultural Traditions, x, 91, 100, 118 Customs, 17, 91-92, 100-101 D Dadosky, John, 50, 173-74, 176, 191 Dancing, ix, 28, 166 Dark continent, 53 Darwininian, 105 Dawson, Christopher, 7-8, 191 Debt, 91, 128-29, 131; International debt, 100 Deductive, 27, 180 Democracy, 10, 84, 105, 136, 145, 149, 155, 189, 195 Depersonalization, 88, 107 Deutschland, xi Dialectics/Dialectical, 157, 173, 192; Dialectics of accommodation, 67; Dialectic of community, 156-58, 161, Dialogue, viii, 3, 5, 18, 21, 38, 40, 42 (see footnote 28), 60-63, 77 (see footnote 43), 81, 99, 102, 106, 118, 165-66, 171, 177, 179-81, 186-87, 191, 203; Dialogue of faith and culture, 33; Inter-ethnic and interreligious dialogue, 40, 85, 180 Diocese, 72, 115 Discontinuity, 5, 59 (see footnote 23), 87, 191 Disease, 51, 56-57, 86, 154 Diversity, 1, 3, 25-27; Diversity of cultural expressions, 5, 47, 72, 114; Diversity of theologies, 45 Division, 61, 149 Divination, 164 Doctrine/Doctrines, 1, 53, 171, 173, 176 Dogma, 103, 169; Dogmatic, 170

Index Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), 49 (see footnote 58), 196 Domination, 14, 16, 35, 38, 51, 79, 87-89, 129 (see footnote 20), 149, 163 Dominican, 16, 45 Donovan, Vincent, 16-18, 192 Doran, Robert, 156-57, 160, 168, 192, 196, DuBois, W.E.B., 55 Dutch Reformed Churches, 82 E Eastern rite, x Ecclesia in Africa (see Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation), 100, 105, 109, 181, 194, 201 Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, 155, 199 Economics of exclusion, 104 Economy, 52, 84, 105-6, 110, 112, 118-19, 125-28, 132, 134, 142, 147-48, 151-52, 157, 203 Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT), 37-38, 180 Egoism, 156, 158 Ela, Jean-Marc, 97 Ethiopia, 108, 133; Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, 108 Ethnic (group), 40-41, 93, 118,131, 140, 148-50, 154-55, 160; Ethnic bias, 158; Ethnic conflicts and violence, 98, 111; Interethnic dialogue, 85; Ethnic equality, 38 Ethnicity, 4; Ethnicity as a problem, 65, 98, 125, 150, 158 Emancipation, ix, 67, 86, 89; Cultural emancipation, 88 Embezzlement, 112, 128, 150-54, 156 Empirical (see culture) England, x, 19

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity Enlightenment, x-xi, 1, 3, 10, 58, 78, 101, 104-5, 116, 122 Enreligionization, 180 Eschatological utopia, 12 Exclusion, 68, 74, 81, 89, 104-5, 122 Exodus, 81 Exploitation, 39, 66, 83, 104, 107, 129, 151; Racial exploitation, 30 Eucharistic sacrifice, 117 Eurocentric, ix-x, 18, 47, 57, 86, 110, 164, 180; Eurocentric culture, xi, 4, 53, 85, 88, 118, 185, 187; Eurocentric theology, 42 Europe, x-xi, 1-2, 35-36, 38, 82, 115-16, 122, 131, 176, 183, 205 Europeans, 3,5, 14, 19, 39, 43, 47, 52-53, 55, 58, 63, 77, 88, 122, 134-37, 149, 154, 163, 181; European Catholicism/Christianity, ix, 48, 52; European culture, languages, traditions and civilizations, x-xi, 7, 13, 15, 17, 45 (see footnote 37), 166, 181, 187; European missionaries, ix, 25, 82, 85, 114 Evangelii Gaudium, 20, 46-48, 103, 201 Evangelii Nuntiandi, 20 (see footnote 45), 110 (see footnote 31) Evangelization, vii, 5-6, 16-21, 3536, 44, 46-47, 100, 103, 105, 109, 110-15, 119, 170, 172, 185-86, 192, 199 Evangelize, 16, 25, 48 Evil, 16-17, 31, 51, 56-57, 83, 137; Evil of racism, 68, 71, 88 Environment, 25, 47, 64, 68, 79, 9193, 118, 137, 142 Environmental degradation, 88, 104, 107 Evolutionary, 65

211

F Fabella, Virginia, 37-38, 40 (see footnote 20), 81 (see footnote 54), 190, 192, 198, 203 Faith (Christian faith), 1, 3-5, 12-13, 16-17, 20-22, 27-32, 35-36, 43, 46-48, 53, 56-57, 63, 69, 74, 77, 82, 85, 87-89, 98-99, 103, 105110, 114-15, 117, 119, 165-67, 169, 171, 173, 175-77, 180-85, 187-88; Faith and culture, 9, 12, 18, 22, 29, 33, 100, 118 (see footnote), 165 (see footnote 14), 187, 204; Global faith, 2, 201; Idolatrous faith, 9; Community of faith, 9; Ontological faith, 9; Moral faith, 9 Famine, 94, 118 Ferment (the ferment of Christianity), 1 Framework, 55, 91, 101, 131, 151, 173-75, 180-81, 183, 204; Framework of the Gospel, 81; Theological framework, 165, 187 France, 37, 122 Freedom, 1, 18, 37, 48, 63, 65-68, 78-82, 85-89, 95, 105-6, 125, 149 (see footnote 48), 140, 142, 147-48, 160, 166-67, 176, 191, 195; Proclamation of freedom, 13 Free market economy, 127 French Revolution, 37 Friendship, 50 Functional specialty, 172-73 Fundamentalism, 61 G Gaudium et Spes, (see Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) Ghana, 22, 31 (see footnote 80), 86, 115, 133, 145, 183 Geertz, Clifford, 13, 21-23, 193, 196, 203

212 General bias of common sense, 156, 158, 161 Genocide, 111, 140 Gestures, 96 Gilmore, George, vii, xi, 6, 77, 191 Global Christianity, 1-2, 36 (see footnote 1), 49, 108 (see footnote 24), 110 (see footnote 29), 186, 190, 194 Global North, 1-3, 5, 35-36, 58, 112 Global South, 1-2, 5, 30 (see footnote 78), 35-37, 109, 194, 199 Globalization, vii, 5, 29, 79, 101-20, 123, 125-26, 141-42, 146, 200-4 God/gods 3, 9-16, 18, 28, 30-31, 33, 40-42, 45-49, 51-52, 56-64, 67, 69-70, 76-77, 81-82, 92-93, 95, 99-100, 105, 107-8, 110-11, 113-14, 117, 119, 121, 123, 138-44, 164-65, 169, 176, 182, 184, 190-92, 202, 204; God of the oppressed, 12-13, 68-69, 190; Nietzsche declared God dead, 26; Patron gods, 56 Godfathers, 149-50, 200 Golden rule, 95 Golden Straitjacket, 147 Good News, 5, 14, 18-19, 30, 33, 46, 49-50, 53, 102, 108 (see footnote 23), 119, 172-73, 183, 185 Gospel, 1 (see footnote 1), 4, 8, 14, 18-22, 28-29, 33, 35, 38 (see footnote 8), 40-41, 43 (see footnote 30), 44, 46-49, 51, 61, 68, 75, 78, 81, 83, 96, 103, 10911, 114-15, 140, 165-67, 171, 175, 182-86, 190, 201-4; Gospel in Africa, 166, 185; Social gospel 10 Gothic, x Grace, xi, 48, 107, 113, 168-69, 202 Greeley, Andrew, x Gregory the Great, x

Index Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 132-33, 148 Gustafson, James, 12 H Habits, 160 Harmony, 92, 95 Hauerwas, Stanley, 12, 194 Healing, 57-58, 62, 66, 75, 110, 164, 182, 202 Heaven, 44, 108 Hellenistic, 19 Hermeneutics, 41, 61, 86-87, 143, 181, 183, 199 Historicity, 49 Historiography, 52-53, 76 HIV/AIDS, 83, 85, 88, 93 (see footnote 5), 200; AIDS, 60 Hopkins, Dwight, 80-81, 194, 197 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, xi Horizon, 26, 32, 158, 171, 173, 176, 187 Human nature, ix, 11, 49, 144 Humanism, x Humanize, 18, 119, 140, 146 Humanizing development, vii, 121 Hunger, 60, 126, 145 I Icon, 111 Identity, 18, 27, 29-30, 41-42, 46, 48, 58, 62, 73, 78-79, 85 (see footnote 67), 110, 114-15, 163, 190; African identity, 163, 18485; Black identity, 76; crisis of identity, 30, 146 Ideology, 5, 8, 12-13, 22, 52, 73, 80, 125 Idolatry, 73; Idolatry of money, 104 Idowu, Bolaji, 31 (see footnote 79), 55-57, 64, 194 Igbo, 17 (see footnote 36), 22, 53 (see footnote 4), 91, 192, 199; Ibo, 92 (see footnote 2), 194 Ignorance, 25, 51, 53, 124

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity Immigrant, 1, 79, 85 (see footnote 67), 88-89 Imperial, 1, 79, 187; Imperialist, 7, 15 (see footnote 30) Imperialism, 35, 77, 82, 86-87, 129 Implantation, 53-54 Implementation, 5, 121, 129 Incarnate, 8, 26, 43, 49, 89, 114, 173 Incarnation, 20-21, 32, 47, 52, 54, 70, 140, 182, 186-87; Incarnational theology, 167-68 Inclusion, 70, 75, 110, 117 Inculturation, 3-4, 21, -22, 27-33, 35, 41, 54, 57, 61, 63-67, 77, 85-89, 97-100, 110-11, 114-15, 119, 143-44, 166, 172, 176, 180-82, 184, 187, 189, 197, 199-202, 204; Inculturation of Catholicism, x; Inculturation of Christian faith, 1, 27, 88, 110; Inculturation theology, 27, 2930, 54, 85, 89, 115, 143, 180, 204 Inculturated, x-xi, 28, 96-98, 100, 119 Independence, ix, 17, 27, 37, 48, 55, 65, 85-86, 88, 109-110, 117, 138, 147, 153, 155 India/Indian, x, 14, 122, 133 (see footnote 31) Indigenization, 31, 41 Indigenized, 69 Indigenous, ix, xi, 4 (see footnote 9), 7, 16-17, 19, 25, 27, 29 (see footnote 75), 31 (see footnote 79), 32, 39, 41 (see footnote 23), 53, 66 (see footnote 3), 100, 138, 149, 190-99 Individualism, 95, 101, 104-5, 121, 144, 153, 180 Infrastructure, 86, 128, 131-32, 134, 138, 145, 148, 152, 155, 157, 161, 173, 177

213

Injustice, 38-39, 75, 83, 85, 104, 107, 125, 138, 151-53, 155, 160, 184 Integrate/Integrated, 22, 24 (see footnote 61), 101, 128, 143, 154, 175, 185, 187 Integrator, 4, 157 Intelligible, 22, 157, 170 Intercultrual/Interculturation, 3-4, 21, 54, 64, 166, 173, 180, 187 Interfaith, 38 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 117 (see footnote 60), 126 Intersubjective, xi, 26, 161 Intolerance, 61, 85 Ireland, xi, 19 Irish, xi Islam, 7, 14, 63, 108, 116, 118 J Japan, 2, 38, 124 Jenkins, Philip, 2 (see footnote 4), 19, 58, 109, 116, 194 Jesus (Christ), xi, 7, 10, 19, 28, 38, 41, 43 (see footnote 30), 44, 52, 56, 58, 61-62, 68-71, 77-79, 81, 103, 106-7, 112, 114, 119, 14041, 182, 184, 190-91, 199, 202 Jesuits, 115 Jews, 19, 45 John Paul II, x, 20-21, 107, 109, 119, 141, 194, 201 Judaism, 7, 19 Justice, 8, 30, 39, 47, 65, 72-73, 75, 79, 82, 88, 91-92, 100, 106-7, 112, 121, 124-25, 129, 140-41, 145, 171, 184-86, 197, 201 (see also injustice); Social justice, 30, 79, 88, 106, 121, 125, 141, 171 K Kairos Document, 82-83, 87, 192, 195, 197, 204 Kalu, Ogbu, 52-53, 195 Kampala, 55

214 Kant, Immanuel, 10 Kenya, 28, 31 (see footnote 79), 86 Kingdom of God, 30 Knowledge, 3, 10, 21 (see footnote 49), 22, 24 (see footnote 59), 104, 128, 131, 135, 168, 193, 198 Komonchak, Joseph, 49, 113, 196 Kwanzaa, 88 L Lagos Plan of Action, 130 Language, 9, 14, 15 (see footnote 30), 20, 25 (see footnote 63), 26, 28, 41, 44-45, 48, 90 (see footnote, 72), 110, 118, 140-41, 148, 164, 180-81, 193-94, 198, 202, 204; European languages, x, 166, 181; Hermeneutic language, 70 Latin America/Latin Americans, 3, 36-37, 39-41, 48, 66, 70, 73, 87, 123, 142, 180. 186 Latin American Liberation Theology, 41, 66, 70, 73, 186 Lausanne, 35 Liberation, 30, 38-42, 48, 51, 58, 61, 63, 65-70, 73-77, 79-81, 83, 85-89, 143, 146, 172, 190-91, 197, 200, 203 Liberation theology/theologian, 12, 29; African liberation theology, 30, 41, 66, 87, 176, 193; Black liberation theology, 68, 72 (see footnote 21 and 23), 73-76, 81 (see footnote 55), 166, 191, 198 Liturgy, x, 28, 86, 111, 115, 143, 190, 198, 204; Liturgical laws, 16, Local, 4, 22, 24, 33, 42-43, 60, 84, 109-11, 113-15, 118, 183, 193; Local cultures, 2, 15, 21 (see footnote 30), Local African traditions, 19, 62 Lonergan, Bernard, ix, xi, 47, 156, 169-77, 179, 183, 187-88, 191,

Index 196, 199-200; Lonergan’s notion of culture, 4 (see footnote 9), 5, 23-27, 33, 35, 48-49, 64; Lonergan’s interpretation of the role of theology, 23; Lonergan’s notion of intellectual conversion, 24 (see footnote 59); Lonergan’s call for mutual mediation, 89; Lonergan’s cosmopolis, 158-60; the already-out-there-now real, 168 Long, Stephen, 12, 196 Lumen Gentium (see Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), 49 (see footnote 58), 113, 196 M Madagascar, 108 Magesa, Laurenti, 28, 110, 164-65, 169-71, 175, 187, 196 Majority World Church, vii, 4, 33, 35-41, 43, 46-50, 119 Malaria, 60 Malawi, 16, 133 Malcolm X, 68 Margins/Marginality, 138, 157 Marginalizing/marginalization, xi, 39, 60, 68-69, 74-75, 79, 88, 98, 104-5, 112, 119, 145-46, 149, 158, 160 Maronite, x Marriage, 95-96, 100 Martin Luther King, Jr., 67, 140-41, 195 Marxist/marxism, 41, 123 Massai, 192 Materials/Materialist, ix, 56, 107, 116, 121, 129-30, 142, 150167; Materialism, 105; Materialize, 99 Mbiti, John, 7, 31 (see footnote 79), 41, 57-59, 93, 95, 163, 166-67, 175, 197 Meaning, 8, 13, 17-18, 21-23, 2527, 29, 37, 41, 46, 49-50, 59, 61-62, 66, 68-69, 77, 85, 95-96,

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity 119, 121-23, 140, 144, 148, 157, 161, 170, 173-76, 182-84, 187, 190, 196, 202-3 Common Meaning, 4, 9; Constitutive Meaning, xi, 29; Incarnate Meaning, 26; Meaning-Making, 22-23, 50, 183-84 Method, vii, 3, 16, 24 (see footnotes 59-62), 58-59, 62, 80, 161, 163, 166-68, 171-77, 180, 182-83, 188-89, 196, 200, 202, 204; Method in African theology, 5, 166, 168, 172-73 Methodology, 51, 83, 94, 99, 16466, 169, 186, 193, 204 Methodist, 31 (see footnote 79) Metz, Johann Baptist, 49 Migrants/Immigrants, 79, 88-89, 107 Millennium Development Goals, 127, 132-33, 204 Missional, 1 Missionary, x, 7, 14-17, 32, 36, 44, 52-53, 57, 62, 86, 103, 108-9, 113-15, 172, 186, 190, 192, 199, 201-2 Missionary option, 103 Modernity, 1, 26, 41, 101, 104, 116, 135-36 Modernization, 18, 123, 125, 128, 135-36, 147 Monica, 19 Monochromatic, ix Monocultural/Monoculturalism 1314, 110, 117 Monotone, x Mutual self-mediation (see also Lonergan), 89, 173, 186 Mveng, Engelbert, 40-42, 198 Mystery, 14, 47 Mystical, 12, 175 Myth, 24 (see footnote 59), 72 N Narrative, 30, 59, 137, 194 Nation building, xi, 17, 161

215

Nation-state, 104 New era, vii, 103, New Evangelization, 16, 18, 46, 105, 112, 114, 119 New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), 145 New Testament, 55 New Zealand, 2 Neocolonial/Neocolonialism, 131, 137, 145 Neoliberalism, 142; Neoliberal capitalism, 104, 112, 126, 141; Neoliberal Economy, 123, 125, 128, 147 Neo-Scholasticism, ix New International Economic Order (NIEO), 129 Nicene, 107 Niebuhr, Richard H, 9-13, 99, 199 Nietzsche, Frederick, 26 Nigeria, 16-17, 20, 22, 31, 91-92, 111, 115, 130, 133, 137, 148-61, 179, 189, 194-95, 197, 199-200, 203 Nkrumah Kwame, 86, 145 North Africa, 10, 19, 52 (see footnote 2), 108, 116, 131 Nubia, 108 Nyamiti, Charles, 28, 182, 199 Nyerere, Julius, 86, 131, 199 O Oduyoye, Mercy, 57, 199 Okolo, Chukwudum, 184, 199 Oppressed/Oppression/Oppressors, 12-13, 30, 38-39, 41, 48, 67-70, 72, 75, 78-83, 87-88, 170, 185, 190-1 Orobator, A, 92-93, 164-65, 196, 200 Organization of African Union (OAU), see African Union Origen, 52 Orthodox, 108, 139 (see footnote 48), 185, 195 Orthodoxy, 185

216 P Pagan, x, 29, 32, 62, 101, 105 Palaver, 95-98 Pan-African, 20, 88; PanAfricanism, 55 Pan African Conference of Third World Theologians, 51, 58, 176 Partition of Africa, 140 Pastoral, 3, 41, 62, 72, 104, 110, 119, 167, 171-72, 179, 191 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), 18, 49 (see footnote 55), 141, 201 Paternalism, 15, 127, 137 Paul VI, 20, 110, 201 Paradigm, 49, 65-66, 88, 123, 13738, 184, 190, 200; Theological paradigm, 47 Paradigm shift, 19, 83-84, 87, 193 Parish, 70, 115-16 Pentecostal, 31-32 Perspective, 4, 31, 36-37, 39-40, 42, 49, 59, 61, 70-71, 78, 80, 92-93, 105, 110, 113, 139, 141-42, 150, 153, 164, 169, 171, 180, 186-87, 191-95, 200; African perspectives on culture, ix; Hermeneutical perspective, 142; Black perspective, 70; Crosscultural perspective, 187 Pew research, 1-2 Phenomenon, 39, 73, 106-7, 134 Philosophia perennis, ix Pluralism, 1, 20, 46, 105, 110; Cultural pluralism, 32, 44, 114; Religious pluralism, 83 Polygamy, 100, 164 Polyphony, x Pontifical Council for Culture, 2021, 203 Poor, 13, 18, 37-39, 42, 48, 51, 60, 66, 69-70, 72, 78-79, 82, 84, 86, 98, 105, 107, 112-13, 117-19, 122-30, 133-34, 142-45, 148,

Index 151-52, 155, 171, 180, 186, 193-94 Pope, ix-x, 15, 20, 46, 48, 103, 10710, 114, 185, 201 Pope Alexander VI, 107 Pope Francis, 20, 46, 48, 103, 107, 114, 185, 201 Portuguese, 40, 108, 135 Positive, 16, 31-32, 37, 53, 56, 64, 105, 115, 133 9see footnote 31), 143, 175 Post-Christian, 1, 104 Postcolonial, 59 (see footnote 23), 62, 122-23, 145 Postmodernism/postmodernity, 1, 104 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation (see Ecclesia in Africa), 15 (see footnote 31), 100, 108 (see footnote 23), 111, 201 Poverty, 30, 38-41, 51, 66, 72, 8385, 88-89, 112, 116, 118, 122, 125-27, 133-34, 138, 145-47, 152, 154, 184, 199 (See also Anthropological poverty) Power/Powerful, 3, 8, 14, 20, 37-40, 58-59, 67-70, 73-74, 78, 80, 86, 104-7, 112-14, 122-23, 125-27, 130, 138, 140, 142, 144, 150, 154, 157-58, 191 (See also Black power) Pradoado Treaty, 107 Praxis, xi, 40, 51, 68, 76, 94, 16061, 164, 168, 180, 186 Prayer, 57, 62, 166 Preaching, 7, 18, 47, 58, 64, 79, 119, 186 Prebend/Prebendalism, 149-51, 157, 160, 195 Preparatio evangelica, 31, 99, 165 Private/Privatization, 1, 31, 83, 94, 132, 151, 153 Priest/priesthood, 16-17, 31, 54 (see footnote 7), 58, 116 Privilege, 65, 68, 74, 104, 166

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity Progress, 10, 18, 29, 54, 65, 77, 102, 121-23, 132, 134-35, 137, 14243, 147, 158-60 Protestant, 70, 75, 86; Protestant clergy, 32; Protestant Reformation, x, 58 R Race, x, 4, 13, 20, 29 (see footnote 75), 40, 55, 65-66, 71-72, 78-79, 88, 125, 127, 129, 135, 139, 191, 196-97 Racism/racist, 39, 65-68, 70-79, 8183, 88, 125, 191, 197 Rahner, Karl, S.J., ix, 20, 45-46, 172, 200-1 Ramsay, Paul, 12 Reconciliation, 65, 82, 84-85, 87, 100, 112, 184, 190, 197 Reconstruction, 52, 60, 65, 77, 8385, 87, 117, 134, 145, 152, 184, 192-93 Redemptive/Redemption, 14, 47 Reduction 129 (see footnote 19), 134 Religion, xi, 1-4, 7-13, 15-16, 2122, 26-32, 36, 39-41, 44, 48, 53, 55, 57, 59, 63, 66, 68, 77, 80, 83, 86-87, 92-93, 98, 101, 1089, 114, 117-18, 138, 141, 159, 163-65, 169, 172-75, 177, 179, 181-82, 185, 190-91, 193-94, 196-98, 200-3 Resurgence, 1 Revelation, 10, 14-15, 18-19, 26, 41, 55-56, 58, 69, 138, 140-42, 167, 192, 194 Rite, x, 9, 57, 111, 187; Zairean rite, 28 Revisionist theories, 97; Revisionist theories of ethics, 99 Roman Catholicism, see Catholic Church and Catholicism, Romanticism, 25-26, 53 Romanticization, 97, 159 Rustow, W.W., 136

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Russia, 38, 132 Rwanda, 111, 133 S Sahara, 52; Sub-Saharan Africa, 2, 4, 19, 63, 65-66, 88-89, 108, 110, 115-16, 131-34, 164, 180 Salvation, 11, 18, 30, 51, 58, 81-82, 114, 142, 165 Sanneh, Lamin, 1, 2 (see footnote 4), 5, 8, 14-15, 19, 36, 43-44, 109, 201-2 Sannyasi,x Sarpong, Peter, 183, 202 Scale of values, 4 Scholasticism (see NeoScholasticism) Scotland,19 Schineller, Peter, 115, 202 Scripture, 14-15, 55, 58, 63, 140 Second African Synod, 57, 100, 111, 145, 182 Secularism/Secularization, 1, 7, 101, 104-5, 144 Self-mediating (see Mutual selfmediation) Senghor, Leopold, 86 Shorter, Aylward, 13-14, 168, 182, 202 Signs, 44, 103 Sin, 42, 51, 58, 72-73, 75, 81; Sinners, 25, 197; Sinful 32; Structures of sin, 66 Slave/slavery, 11, 17, 69-71, 76, 77 (see footnote 40), 78, 92, 98, 135, 140; Enslavement, 45, 67, 70, 72, 76, 128 (see footnote 16), 142 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 8-9, 202 Social gospel, 10 Social justice (see justice) Socialism, 123 Socialization, 92 Social malaise, vii, 147, 160 Social order, 4, 52, 57, 89, 91-92, 148, 157

218 Social transformation, xi, 18, 30, 135, 158, 160-61 Sociological, 122, 182, 184, 187; Sociologist, 129 (see footnote 20) Solidarity, 75, 78-79, 84, 117, 119, 141-44, 146, 154, 190, 193, 200 South Africa, 4, 12, 29 (see footnote 75), 41, 44, 59-61, 63-67, 77, 79-89, 101, 108, 139-40, 144, 164, 169, 180, 186, 190, 193-95, 197-98; Black theology of South Africa, 4, 41, 63-66, 77, 79-86, 88-89, 193 South African Students Organization (SASO), 79 Spirituality, ix, xi, 10, 23, 28, 39, 65, 73, 105, 116, 118-19, 161, 164-65, 168, 170, 175, 186-87, 191, 196-97; African spirituality, 170, 175, 186-87, 197; Christian spirituality, 116, 119, 165, 168, 191, 196; Ecological spirituality, 118; Squandering/Squandermania, 5, 152 Structural Adjustment Program (SAP),118, 126, 131, 204 Sub-Saharan (see Sahara) Subsidiarity, 144 Sudan, 65 Superstition/Superstitious, xi, 122, 159, 175 Superstructure, 19, 156-57, 161, 173, 177 Swami, Arul Anandar, x Symbol/Symbolism, x, 18, 21, 23, 26-28, 32, 68-70, 100, 116, 135, 156, 164, 166-67, 182, 192 Syncretism, 16, 30, 115, 202 Syriac,x Systematic theology, 12, 28, 35, 39, 101, 143, 165, 167-68, 172; Functional specialty systematics, 173, 176-77

Index T Tanzania, 28, 38-39, 86, 133, 203 Technology/Technological culture/structure, xi, 4, 26, 29, 37, 103-6, 117, 122, 125, 12731, 134-35, 147, 157, 161 Tertullian, 10, 52 Thick description, 22, Tillich, Paul, 9, 203 Thailand, 35-36 Third World, 14, 29, 37-42, 45-46, 51-52, 58, 62, 128-29, 136, 176, 179-80, 187, 190, 192-94, 198, 203 Thomistic, ix-x, 10, 181 Traditions, ix-xi, 8, 10, 19, 31, 43, 45, 71-72, 76-78, 82, 86, 88, 91, 98-101, 109, 111, 118, 136, 163-65, 176, 182, 185-87, 191; Christian tradition, 68, 72, 99, 118, 139, 186; Cultural traditions, x, 91, 100, 118, 163 Transcendent, 7-8, 73, 140 Transcendental Precepts, 24, 156 Transformation, 5, 7-8, 11, 15, 21, 51, 61, 86, 103, 131, 148, 15861, 169, 204; Cultural transformation, xi, 24 (see footnote 61), 109; Social transformation, xi, 18, 30, 135, 158, 160-1 Translate/Translatable, 14-15, 4344, 133, 180-81, 198, 200-1, 203 Translation, 14-15 Transnational Corporation, 104, 106, 116, 129 Transparency International (TI), 148, 155 Tribe, 19, 111, 149, 153, 156 Troeltsch, Ernst, 11-12, 192, 203 Truman, President, 121-23, 127, 129, 135 Truth, xi, 3, 14, 24, 68, 70, 77-79, 82-83, 93, 96-97, 103, 122, 124, 142, 167, 170-71, 174-76, 185

African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity Tutu, Desmond, 29, 41, 44-45, 66, 84, 203 Typologies, 11-12, 185, 192 U Ubuntu, x, 5, 88, 121, 123, 139, 143-46, 198 Uganda, 20, 28, 133 Ukpong, Justin, 59-61, 165-69, 17374, 180-82, 184-85, 203 Underdevelopment, 37, 39, 102, 134-35, 137, 147-48, 152, 15455 Unjust structures, vii, 147-48, 160 United States, 64, 67, 80, 86-89, 117, 121-22, 130, 136, 141, 179, 194, 202 United Nations, 126-27, 130-33, 204 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 140, 194 Uzukwu, Eugene, 28, 110, 165-66, 204 V Values, 5, 7-9, 16, 33, 58, 70, 85, 98, 106, 110, 117-18, 139, 14244, 146-47, 153, 156-57, 161, 167, 180; Cultural values, 13, 29-30, 88-89, 92-93, 100, 118, 142, 157; Scale of values, 4 Vanhoozer, Kevin J., 3, 204 Vatican Council II, x, 7, 11, 14, 16, 18-20, 27, 32-33, 45-46, 50, 119, 141, 189-91, 194, 201

219

W Walls, Andrew, 3, 15, 36-37, 43-44, 50, 202, 204 Walter, Kasper, ix West Africa, 28, 76, 165, 204 Western thought, viii, 97, 102, 179, 186 Westernization, 29 White/Whiteness, 64, 66-70, 72-76, 78, 81-82, 84, 135, 144, 191, 199; White privilege, 65, 74 Witches/Witchcraft, 3, 56, 92, 164, 182, 202 Wizards, 56 Womanist theology, 85 World Bank, 117 (see footnote 60), 118, 126, 132-34, 195, 202-3 World Christianity, ix, 2-6, 19, 3536, 43-44, 48, 109, 172, 201-4 World Council of Churches (WCC), 54, 129 World Trade, 112, 146 World Trade Organization (WTO), 126 Y Yoruba, 31, 135 Youth, 100 Z Zairean rite, 28 Zambia, 86 Zimbabwe, 135 Zulu, 139, 144, 198