II.

African Theologies Definitions and Concepts

2.1 Introduction
In the previous lecture we have seen the nature of theology its humanity and contextuality/locality. On top of that, we have also looked into the essentiality of theological method in doing theology. It is like clearing ones throat before delivering a speech. The question of method is one of the substantial issues in the development of African theologies, as we have seen in the continuity-discontinuity debate among key African theologians and philosophers of religion. One way the other, exploring African theologies is one fascinating venture. It is not merely about understanding about African theologies but also about seeing the position of African theologies within the global theological discourse. In fact African religious worldview constitutes an invaluable part of the latter, which is exhibited in its exceptionally communal character. J. Mbiti is correct in saying, Africans are notoriously religious, and each people has its own religious system with a set of beliefs and practices. Religion permeates into all the departments of life so fully that it is not easy or possible always to isolate it.1 But, what do we mean by African Theologies? What does it constitute? What makes a theology African? Is there diversity in African theologies or are there monophonic? These are but few questions that always arise regarding the nature and status of theology in the continent of Africa. In the following, these and other questions will be explored.

2.2 What is African Theology?

The question as to what is meant by African theology is a matter of argument, at best, and/or dispute, at worst. There is some degree of fluidity with the phrase itself. Some read it to mean African Christian theology, whereas others tend to understand it in more general or generic sense as to include African Traditional religious thought, including African Islamic thought. However, for the sake of specificity we take the other avenue. That is, it is about the discourse which is being conducted by Africans, in order to relate their own cultural and religious heritage to Christianity.2 In African religious heritage the experience of God is more practical, rather than being a theoretical fad. In a way, Africans live their God-talk (theology) instead of theorizing or verbalizing it.3 In a way, African theology is theology developed and thereby lived out of the experience of God in the real life. God, so to say, is not an abstract figure for African mind; rather, he is an all-pervading reality. Africa is geographically, ethnically, and linguistically diverse and, thus, the idea of a single African theology is far from being tenable. Put rightly, there is no single
1 2

John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: Anchor Books, 1970) 1. J. N. K. Mugambi, African Christian Theology: An Introduction (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1989) 9. 3 Ibid.

African Theology; instead there are African theologies. 4 The diversity ranges between such notable scholars as Byang H. Kato and E. Bolaji Idowu. Let us see some forms of the diversity. 1. According to Mbiti, African theologies have various forms, namely, oral, symbolic, and written. By written theology, he meant the contributions of few Christian theologians who have had considerable education and who generally articulate their theological reflections in articles and books. Oral theology results from the masses, in vernacular languages, through song, sermon, teaching, prayer, conversation, and so on. Symbolic theology is expressed through art, sculpture, drama, symbols, rituals, dance, colors, numbers, and so on.5 2. With regard to basic orientation, there are three possible varieties (although they are not the only ones). One theological orientation is that that recognizes that traditional religions are preparatio evangelii preparation for the gospel. The other critical theological orientation that sees the totality of the social, economic, and political reality of Africa against the background of the Christian revelation.6 The third orientation is perhaps geographically limited to South Africa: Black theology is predominately focused on racial identities and inspired by the experiences of North American black theologians such as James H. Cone. Nevertheless, such recognition of the diversity should not be an excuse to overlook the homogeneity in African religious worldview. Entailed with the question of homogeneity is the question of identity African identity. African identity is marked by religious, sociological, cultural, and politico-economical factors. One may ask at this stage how African Christian theology is related to African identity and reality. First of all, some kind of recognition is in place that the wider aim of postmissionary/post-independence theological discourse in Africa was to achieve some integration between the African pre-Christian religious experience and African Christian commitment in ways that would ensure the integrity of African Christian identity and selfhood.7 The South African theologian and clergyman, Desmond Tutu, thinks of this goal as the rehabilitation of Africas rich cultural heritage and religious consciousness.8 Out of this conception could come the following functional definition of African theology: African theology is engaged to shape Christianity in an African way by adapting and using traditional concepts.

2.3African Theology and the Hermeneutic of Identity

As is mentioned above, African theologies primarily target on the rehabilitation of Africans rich cultural heritage and religious consciousness, but in a self-consciously
4 5

Later on, we will explore some of the representative schools of thought in African theologies. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1986) 46-47. 6 Georg Evers, African Theology, in Erwin Fahlbusch et al. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans/Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1999) 30. 7 Kwame Bediako, African Theology, in David E. Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians: An Introduction nd to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, 2 ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) 426. 8 As quoted in Bediako, Op. cit., 427.

Christian and theologically active manner. As such, they aim at demonstrating the character of African Christian identity. With loaded cultural heritage and religious consciousness, Africans has a religious past. This is not a matter of chronology but that of the organic connection between African past and African present. Set in the context of the Christian experience of Africans, the whole idea could mean the history of the religious consciousness of the African Christian.9 Therefore, it is a matter of theological concern study pre-Christian African religious heritage in order to understand the nature and meaning of African Christian identity. One cannot deny the necessity of the past in order to understand and/or explain the present. The Edinburgh conference on world mission, the first ever of its kind, after the dominating European value-setting of the Christian faith, was not able to recognize that African traditional religions were not the preparation evangelii. This attempt to look African Christianity from its traditional religious past stirred up a consciousness among African theologians about the persisting presence of the European valuesetting of the Christian faith. The outlook of the absence of any preparation of Christianity coupled with the fact that most churches in Africa were missionestablished resulted in the traumatic identity loss experienced by the postmissionary Christian context in Africa. According to Mbitis observation, the post missionary church in Africa has been a Church without theology and without theological consciousness.10 Memory is integral to identity and tradition builds upon memory; and tradition is one of the presuppositions of theological consciousness. As a matter of fact, is not but theology an interpretation of texts and existence? In close connection to the question of identity, several factors helped to shape African theology:11 The need to make some response to the sense of the theological problematic in African Christianity produced by the widespread and much-publicized perception that the Western value-setting of the Christian faith in the missionary era had also entailed far-reaching underestimation of the African knowledge and sense of God. The Western missionaries either belonged to the fundamentalism of early 20th-century or they were from theological backgrounds that affirmed a discontinuity, in its absolute sense, between Christianity and every culture. For instance, conversion for these missionaries was often a radical breaking away from the past and being set in a new pattern of life though the cultural and social situatedness remains unaltered.12 The unavoidable element of Africas continuing primal religions, not as the remnants of an outworn and primitive mentality, but, in terms of their worldview, as living realities in the experience of vast numbers of African
9

Bediako, Op. cit., 428. Mbiti, Some African Concepts of Christology, in Georg F. Vicedom (ed.), Christ and the Younger Churches; as quoted in ibid. 11 The following list is based on Bediako, op. cit., 429. 12 E. W. Fashole-Luke, The Quest for an African Christianity, The Ecumenical Review 27:3 (July, 1975) 261.
10

Christians in all the churches, and not only in the so-called independent churches. The intellectual struggle for and the feeling after a theological method in a field of enquiry which had hitherto been charted largely by Western anthropological scholarship.13 Last but not least, the growth of political independence and the mushrooming of African instituted churches across the sub-Sahara region gave way for the quickening of the quest for a relevant ecclesial presence in the continent.

Among African theologians who were alert enough to discern these factors and use them were E. Bolaji Idowu and John S. Mbiti. In their works, they significantly attempted to undo Edinburhgs verdict that African traditional religions did not have any element that could be regarded as preparation evangelii. While they received much criticism from writers in the West as well as their African counterparts, their aim, in fact, was to describe the relationship between their perception of their preChristian cultural and religious heritage and their Christian loyalty.14 After firmly establishing the legitimacy of Africas religious past in doing theology, such writers turned to the development of theological method, which in turn anticipated the coming of age of African theology. The question of identity took the center stage of the development, which itself came to be perceived as a theological category, and which therefore entailed confronting constantly the question as to how far the old and the new in African religious consciousness could become integrated into a unified vision of what it meant to be African and Christian.15 This question of identity has made the theologian the locus of her struggle to understand her African and, indeed, Christian self, which Bediako calls the unavoidable by-product of the process.

2.4 African Initiatives in Christianity (AICs) and the Quest of Selfhood

The terminologies African Initiatives in Christianity, African Independent Churches, African Indigenous Churches or African Instituted Churches all serve to designate a category of church in Africa that is different from what are commonly referred to as mission or historic or mainline or established churches.16 The AICs are classified into two broad types - the Spirit-type and the Ethiopian-type. The latter are non-prophetic, linking themselves both religiously and ideologically
13

What is pointed out here is Western anthropologists apparent down -looking of African religiosity in terms of such derogative terms as fetish, animist, polytheistic, primitive, uncivilized, lower, and so on. 14 Ibid. 15 Bediako, op.cit., 430. His emphasis. 16 Pobee and Ositelu, African Initiatives, 3. H. W. Turner also assumes that the presence of AICs has given the history of Christianity in Africa a unique status. Harold W. Turner, History of An African Independent Church, 2 vols. (Oxford, UK.: Clarendon Press, 1967) I:xiii. See also an exploration of AICs in about thirty-four nations in David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1968) 18-36.

with the state of Ethiopia, which becomes the symbol of black people everywhere.17 The other category, the Spirit-type churches whose core emphasis is on the work of and experience of the Holy Spirit, manifested in prophecies, baptism and faith-healing.18 Virtually all Spirit-type AICs are prophetic both in their selfunderstanding and in their practice.19 Such facts lead Anderson to hail AICs as a genuinely African manifestation of Christian pneumatology.20 The major of the Spirit-type churches is the Zionist church (or movement?) among the indigenous people in South Africa, whose weapons of influence were prophecy and healing. According to Adrian Hastings explanation, this movement struggled for independence and Africanization of Christianity by substituting healing for literacy, to which the then missionaries were preoccupied.21 Hastings observes the very reason for the substitution to have been the high status of healing in se in the traditional religions of most Africans.22 This reason is but among the list of factors that led to the flourishing of AICs. M. C. Kitshoff bluntly lists down the factors:
the phenomena of social change, industrialization and urbanization; the relationship between black and white; Western denominationalism; a prohibitive and prescriptive missionary attitude; the lack of meaningful rituals in the historical churches; the need for small groups offering security and fellowship; traditional structures that stress decentralization; lack of other opportunities for black leadership; a search for African identity lost in the Westernized world; and the Bible.23

Bearing in mind that the two elements - prophecy and healing also are part and parcel of teaching of the Holy Spirits work in the mainline churches, Bengt Sundkler contends that the Holy Spirit (or pneumatology) is the fundamental concept in Zionist ideology.24 Such a pneumatological emphasis within the AICs is not confined to the Southern Africa. Turner, for example, shows how AICs in West Africa, in general, and Nigeria, in particular, had been influenced by the Pentecostal movement from America and Britain.25 Concerning the origin of Spirit-type AICs, contrary to the less than reasonable contention of Kitshoff, Barrett gives a survey of about eight factors that gave way to the rise of AICs in a moderate way historical, political, economic, sociological, ethnic, non-religious, religious and theological

17 18

Pobee and Ositelu, African Initiatives, 35. Ibid. According to M. L. Daneel who coined this terminology, it designates prophetic movements which emphasize the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit. M. L. Daneel, Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, vol. 1 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971) 285; as quoted in Allan Anderson, Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African Context (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1991) 3. 19 Pobee and Ositelu, African Initiatives, 35. 20 Anderson, Moya, 3. 21 Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450-1950, Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford, UK.: Clarendon Press, 1994) 502. 22 Ibid. 23 M. C. Kitshoff, African Independent Churches: A Mighty Movement, in Margaret S. Larom (ed.), Claiming the Promise: African Churches Speak (New York: Friendship Press, 1994) 97. 24 nd Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 2 ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961) 242. 25 Turner, History of An African Independent Church , I:10-14, II:3.

factors.26 Whatever causes or reasons there may be, the AICs have developed through their long history a type of worship, organization and community life rooted in African culture and touching the daily life of the people.27 Such factors made the close study of AICs as significant part of African theology, because of the common goal, which they share with the latter, of bringing Africans to Christianity through ways understandable to Africans and through relevant messages that well meet the needs of Africans.28

26

Barrett, Schism and Renewal, 93-96. The same survey is also shared by Cornelius Olowola, An Introduction to African Independent Churches, in Samuel Ngewa et a l. (eds.), Issues in African Christian Theology (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1998) 288-289. Anderson limits the main reasons for the rise of the AICs to religious ones - not socio-political, economic or ethnic factors, as such. Anderson, Moya, 29-30. Anderson reinforces his idea by quoting K. Appiah-Kubi who remarks on the main reason for the emergence of Spirit-type AICs to be spiritual hunger...and not political, social, economic, and racial factors. Kofi Appiah-Kubi, Indigenous African Christian Churches: Signs of Authority, in Kofi Appiah-Kubi and Sergio Torres (eds.), African Theology en route (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1979) 117-118; as quoted in Anderson, Moya, 30. 27 Taken from the Final Communiqu of Pan African Conference of Third World Theologians, December 17-23, 1977, Accra, Ghana; as it appears in Appiah-Kubi and Torres (eds.), African Theology en route, 193. 28 Olowola, Introduction, 289.