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A NOTE ON AFRICAN THEOLOGY

By E. T. Zewde

Introductory Remarks
Christianity is one of the world's major religions. And Africa is closely attached to its
origin and recent expansion. The recent phenomenal expansion of Christianity in Africa
explains what some scholars of world Christianity referred to as a shift in the center of
gravity of the religion. Be it as it may, Africa has its own experience of God and its way
of doing theology, given the context of Christianity. Before defining what African
theology is all about, I would like to discuss the nature and contextuality/locality of
theology.

Theology is a discourse about God – his being, nature and dealings with the created
order. It is talk-about God. This nature entails a presupposition of the cultural milieu, the
social, existential (and, sometimes, economic) consciousnesses and historical background
of the context in which it is constructed. Well, from the evangelicalism‟s perspective one
may counter Hodgson‟s idea that theology has „no foundation other than itself‟. From the
perspective of St. Anselm‟s definition of theology as „faith seeking understanding‟ (Lat.:
fides quaerens intellectum), it seems that theology and faith have internal relationship.
The corollary is that if the ground of faith is the revelation of God, then the ground of
Christian theology is also the revelation of God. Evangelicals even go further with
qualifying „revelation‟ with the notion of special revelation, thereby centering their
theology with following four assumptive parameters:
1. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture.
2. The uniqueness of redemption through the death of Christ upon the cross.
3. The need for personal conversion.
4. The necessity, propriety, and urgency of evangelism.

Although theology has such a foundation, it by nature is constructive one. It is like

constructing a building upon solid foundation. And whenever the way it is constructed
seems inconvenient or unfit to the living conditions of its inhabitants the building may be
demolished and re-constructed, yet upon the same foundation. Theology is nothing but
expressing the foundation in an intelligible manner using contemporary language and
philosophical expressions. Its foundation is solid but its forms and tools of expression are
subject to change. Perhaps we can modify Hodgson's liberal constructivist analogical
definition of theology like this: The ship of theology has faith – special revelation – as its
foundation, which enable it to float and sail; and its structural integrity and interplay of its
components parts are but its tools of operation. Intermittently the ship has to be taken into
port for repairs and refitting. Once theology got such a groundbreaking definition, the one
who exercise it will become sensitive of the question of prolegomena (adopted from
Greek meaning „forewords‟), that is, theological method and contextual relevance. Let us
see each of these aspects.

Method in Theology
Method in theology is, in the first place, a defining factor of the nature and character of
theology in question. Occupation with method is like clearing your throat before
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delivering a speech. It serves as the starting point of any theological enterprise. In the
Patristic and medieval theologies, the starting point was God; hence, theology was „a
word from God, a story about God, a testimony concerning God, a prayer to God‟1
Theology was from „above‟. However, with dawn of Enlightenment whereby reason
became the governing epistemological principle of perceiving reality, theology came to
be regarded as from „below‟. Theologians heavily influenced by Enlightenment
philosophy began to make human beings the starting point of theology. We do find one
important example of such a move in F. D. E. Schleiermacher. For Schleiermacher,
human experience has a common feature – „the feeling of absolute dependence‟. Out of
his Pietistic and Romanticist backgrounds (the latter emphasized feeling and experience),
Schleiermacher removed religion from theology, rationality and ethics and related it to
feeling and experience – the consciousness of being absolutely dependent on something
infinite, which is identified as God.2 He also proposed to base theology on this religious
feeling of being dependent. Therefore, in his magnum opus entitled The Christian Faith
(1830), he proposed that „all doctrines properly so called must be extracted from the
Christian religious self-consciousness, i.e. the inward experience of Christian People‟.3
Theology for Schleiermacher was an attempt to systematize such a „feeling of absolute
dependence‟ on God; it is an effort to understand God – his being, nature and relationship
to the world – starting from one‟s religious experience. The movement of theology thus
starts from „below‟.

For a person who is well aware of the context of 20th-century theology, it can be
characterized as the tension between „transcendence‟ and „immanence‟. The territory of
the 20th-century theology was divided into two blocs that were identified as
transcendental and immanentic theologies and theologians of the two blocs had labored to
defend their positions. Liberal theology upheld the notion of theology from „below‟,
whereas the conservative bloc went after the idea of theology from „above‟. One of the
spokesperson of the latter was Karl Barth, the founder of neo-orthodoxy.
This discussion is indicative of how the issue of method in theology came to be one of
the significant loci of theology. Schleiermacher, in the 19th century, argued for
dependence upon one‟s religious feeling in constructing theology. Paul Tillich, in the
post-WW II setting, developed his famous „method of correlation‟. Tillich described the
„method‟ like this:
It makes an analysis of the human situation out of which the existential questions arise,
and it demonstrates that the symbols used in the Christian message are the answers to
these questions…. The analysis of the human situation employs materials made available
by man‟s creative self-interpretation in all realms of culture. Philosophy contributes, but

1
Geoffrey Wainwright, „Method in Theology‟, in Alister E. McGrath (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of
Modern Christian Thought (Oxford, UK.: Blackwell Publishers, 1993) 369.
2
William Raeper and Linda Smith, A Brief Guide to Ideas: Turning Points in the History of Human
Thought (Oxford, UK.: Lion Publishing Plc., 1991) 78; Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, 20th-Century
Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992) 43-46;
Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans/Vancouver, BC: Regent
College Publishing, 1994) 47.
3
Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. by H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart (Edinburgh,
UK.: T & T Clark, 1928) 265. See also Grenz and Olson, 20th-Century Theology, 47.
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so do poetry, drama, the novel, therapeutic psychology, and sociology. The theologian
organizes these materials in relation to the answer given by the Christian message.4

In the line of theology from „above‟ come certain prominent theologians like K. Barth
and those in the Barthian school called „neo-orthodoxy‟ – E. Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr
and his brother H. Richard Niebuhr, and so on. They affirmed that theology is dependent
upon the self-revelation of God, and that is all. What is done in theology is a systematic
exposition of this self-revelation of God in Christ through Scripture. Later on in the post-
WW II period, theologians from quite a different tradition (Catholic), yet in the same line
of reaction towards the idea of theology from „below‟ also developed what is known as
the „transcendental method‟. This can be seen in the works of notable Catholic scholars,
such as Karl Rahner (1904-1984) and the Canadian Jesuit theologian, Bernard Lonergan
(1904-1984). In the post-modern theologies, on the other hand, there is no unified
principle or such thing as „below‟ or „above‟; dwelling on universals is regarded
somewhat an old-fashioned, at best, and irrelevant, at worst. There is not absolute truth
but relative one. Post-liberal theologians – such as Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, Ronald
Thiemann and Stanley Hauerwas – thought that Christian faith is like a language;
theology thus has to be culturally and linguistically conditioned.

In the middle of this transcendence-immanence tension is found the recently-emerged

African theology. Ever since the dawn of post-colonial era in the 1960s and 1970s, there
was a growing interest in the re-appropriation of African culture and values, which had
once been downplayed and, indeed, suppressed by the European colonial powers. It was
out of this context that brilliant indigenous theologians such as the Kenyan John S. Mbiti
and the Ghanaian Kwame Bediako. They labored to develop a non-Western African
Christian theology, characterized by interaction of traditional African culture and
Christian faith. But one question is recurrent in this interaction is the contextuality or
locality of theology.

The Contextuality/Locality of Theology

Together with method they constitute the preliminaries of the modus operandi of
theology. As it was noted earlier, while method has to do with keeping the coherence of
theology, contextualization works towards making theology relevant.

Methodology Coherence
Theology

Contextualization Relevance

To begin with the meaning of the word itself, the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary
defines what it means to „contextualize‟ as „to consider something in relation to the
situation in which it happens or exists‟. In the context of theorizing the word
„contextualization‟ denotes „taking a critical look at the local context (with its historical,
socioeconomic, political, cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious dimensions) as well as the
impact of outside forces (such as the imposition of global market and a homogenized

4
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. I (Chicago, IL.: University of Chicago Press, 1951) 62-63.
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culture) on the people‟.5 Again, when the scope of the term narrows to Christian
theology, it means the translation of the unchanging (timeless) content of the tenets of
Christian faith into expressions meaningful to people in their separate cultures and within
their particular existential situations.

Christianity for its onset could be said to have been contextual. In other words, the
Christian message of the gospel was proclaimed in a manner intelligible to its audience. It
began with the event of Pentecost where the people heard the good news of Jesus Christ
in their own languages. Acts 2:6-11 puts the occasion like this: „And at this sound the
crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native
language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, „Are not all these who are
speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
Parthinas, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Lybia belonging to
Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – in our
own languages we hear them speaking about God‟s deeds of power‟. The scope of
contextualization increased as the enterprise moves from linguistic level to that of
conceptual, as the church found itself expanding into the wider Greco-Roman world and
realized that it should translate the timeless truths of Christian faith into intelligible and
meaningful forms. That was the first turning. The second to follow was that which took
place with the arrival of the Enlightenment, when the Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who
developed a kind of complementary approach. This complementary approach took
observation as an epistemological tool. That is, deductive methods gave way to inductive
and/or empirical methods. When the methods were introduced to ecclesial and
theological circles, „creeds and dogmas were no longer judged on the basis of their
conformity to eternal truth but in terms of their usefulness‟.6 Undoubtedly, the question of
usefulness entails the question of relevance. The third turning point took place with the
consolidation of mission theologies during the early 20th century, which marked the rise
of contextual theologies and growing contextual-missiological awareness.

Contextualization - An Epistemological Break?

Quite a number of theologians argue that contextual theology can be referred to as an
epistemological break with the traditional way of doing theology. Bosch rightly points
out the difference:
Whereas, at least since the time of Constantine, theology was conducted from
above as an elitist enterprise (except in the case of minority Christian
communities, commonly referred to as sects), its main source (apart from
Scripture and tradition) was philosophy, and its main interlocutor the educated
non-believer, contextual theology is theology “from below”, “from the underside
of history”, its main source (apart from Scripture and tradition) is the social
sciences, and its main interlocutor the poor or the culturally marginalized.7

5
Virginia Fabella, „Contextualization‟, in Virginia Fabella and R. S. Sugirtharajah (eds.), Dictionary of
Third World Theologies (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 2000) 58.
6
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, American Society of
Missiology Series, No. 16 (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis Books, 1991) 422. Emphasis added.
7
Bosch, Transforming, 423.
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The Continuity-Discontinuity Debate

When African theology began to evolve during the post-colonial era, the issue of
epistemological break with the past came to the surface. Particularly, ever since scholarly
(theological) awareness arose towards the phenomenon of African Initiatives in
Christianity (henceforth AICs),8 the subject of continuity and/or discontinuity has been at
the centre of heated debates. In the following we will probe into the heart of the debate in
current African theological scholarship.

1) Continuity
Continuity has to do with an understanding that there is a common ground between
„historic‟ religions such as Christianity and Islam, and primal or traditional religions of
native people in different parts of the southern hemisphere. When it comes to the
situation of Christianity in Africa, continuity represents the understanding that
Christianity could be considered as the continuation of what has been started with
traditional beliefs of God.9

Continuity Both continuity and Discontinuity

Proponents: discontinuity Proponents:
- John S. Mbiti Proponents: - Byang H. Kato
- E. Bolaji Idowu - Kwame Bediako - T. Adeyemo
- Tite Tiénou
- Most Spirit-type AICs

One of the proponents of the „continuity‟ line, John S. Mbiti, explains the supposed
phenomenon that common grounds have become recognized, in the course of time: „…it
is becoming clear that Christianity and African Religion have many features which do not
conflict…. African Religion and Christianity have become allies, at least unofficially.
One has prepared the ground for the accommodation of the other‟.10 Mbiti further thinks
that the very cause of the emergence of AICs was a search for continuity, in such a way
that Africans could in the end be able to express their religiosity in an African emblem.11
Thus, summons Mbiti, „African religious background is not a rotten heap of superstitions,

8
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. See John S. Pobee and Gabriel Ositelu II, African Initiatives in Christianity: The growth, gifts
and diversities of indigenous African churches - a challenge to the ecumenical movement, Risk Book Series
(Geneva: WCC Publications, 1998) 3.
9
According to T. Adeyemo‟s assessment, „Some of the theologians even claim that Jesus came to fulfil not
only the Old Testament but also African expectations‟. Tokunboh Adeyemo, Salvation in African Tradition
(Nairobi: Evangel Publishing House, 1979) 13.
10
John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (London: Heinemann, 1975) 190. Emphasis added. As a
reinforcement of his position, Mbiti draws parallels between African religions and Christianity. For
instance, the notion of the church as the Christian family parallels with the centre of African traditional life,
namely, kinship and extended family. Ibid.
11
Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1969) 232-239.
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taboos and magic: it has a great deal of value in it. On this valuable heritage, Christianity
should adapt itself and not be dependent exclusively on imported goods‟.12

2) Discontinuity
On the opposite side of the „continuity‟ line lies the camp of „discontinuity‟. According to
the asseveration of this view‟s supporters, with one‟s being converted into Christianity
there comes a distinct break with her or his traditional, in this case, African, religio-
cultural heritage.13 One of the proponents of this line, Byang H. Kato, affirms: „While
every effort should be made to make Christianity relevant to every people in their
situations, this must be placed in its right perspective. The unique nature of Biblical
Christianity must be maintained…. [and] Christianity as a uniquely revealed faith must
not be compromised with any local religion‟.14 On the basis of this conservative
evangelical premise, Kato goes further to criticize that the enthusiasm of Mbiti as well as
others on the „continuity‟ line, to „Africanize‟ Christianity poses a menace to what he
believes to be the faith „that was once for all entrusted to the saints‟ (Jude 3, NRSV).15
From this, it could be understood that Kato‟s main concern was not the issue of
discontinuity as such; instead, he was much concerned of making the Christian message
relevant without letting the local culture set the agenda for (the total) understanding of
relevance. Far beyond Kato‟s position are there many Pentecostal „hardliners‟ (mostly in
the circle of AICs) who teach conversion to be a „complete break with the past‟.16 The
key factor for such an emphasis is „the notion of rupture‟, as Brigit Meyer‟s research
among Ghanaian Pentecostals indicates.17 Tokunboh Adeyemo, who is also a
conservative evangelical leader and is another voice in the line of „discontinuity‟,
laments:
Biblical ignorance in the churches of Africa today with lack of deep theological
education have led to confusion concerning New Testament „separateness‟ from

12
Mbiti, „Christianity and Traditional Religions in Africa‟, International Review of Mission 59 (1970) 432.
13
Taken from the „Abstract‟ in Matthew Engelko, „Discontinuity and the Discourse of Conversion‟,
Journal of Religion in Africa 34 (2004) 82. The issue of separation and continuity was the headache of the
foreign evangelical missionaries in the southern part of Ethiopia, when mass conversions into evangelical
Christianity began to occur. For a detailed understanding of the situation see Brian L. Fargher, The Origins
of the New Churches Movement in Southern Ethiopia, 1927-1944, Studies of Religion in Africa,
Supplements to the Journal of Religion in Africa XVI (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996) 127-201.
14
Byang H. Kato, Theological Pitfalls in Africa (Kisumu, Kenya: Evangel Publishing House, 1975) 29.
Emphasis added. One may have to notice that Kato‟s rejection of „continuity‟ is due to his fear of what he
referred to as the blow of a „prevailing wind of universalism‟ into the continent of Africa. Kato,
Theological Pitfalls, 11. His conservative theological upbringing (he had earned his Th.D. from Dallas
Theological Seminary) seems to have compelled him to raise his voice against every permeating arena of
universalism to Africa. See also idem, African Cultural Revolution and the Christian Faith (Jos, Nigeria:
Challenge Publications, 1976) 32-39.
15
Kato, Theological Pitfalls, 57. Scriptural reference is Kato‟s. To „Africanise‟ means, according to the
understanding of the „discontinuity‟ bloc, to make relevant or „translate‟ Christian message into local
African traditional worldviews. The concept appears to be closer to indigenization, a concept in its broadest
sense would describe the „“translatability” of the universal Christian faith into the forms and symbols of the
particular cultures of the world‟. Harvie M. Conn, „Indigenisation‟, in A. Scott Moreau et al. (eds.),
Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker
Books/Carlisle, UK.: Paternoster Press, 2000) 481.
16
Brigit Meyer, “Make a Complete Break with the Past‟: Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in
Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse‟, Journal of Religion in Africa 28 (1998) 316.
17
Meyer, „Make a Complete Break‟, 317. See also Engelke, „Discontinuity‟, 83.
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traditional idolatry….[Hence] a reaffirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the

fact that Christianity cannot cohabit with idolatry in the guise of culture is necessary.18

The argument for discontinuity is found not only in the scholarly circles nor is it only a
modern concern; but one can spot it in some AICs. The argument for it finds a
considerable expression in some Zionist churches. In his book entitled Zulu Zion and
some Swazi Zionists, Bengt Sundkler appears to recognize that in the eyes of the
adherents of these AICs „Zion meant newness of life, health and wholeness, a new
identity‟, which is appropriated at the moment of conversion.19

3) Both Continuity and Discontinuity

There is a middle position, as it were, which recognizes the presence of both continuity
and discontinuity in the dialectics of African traditional religions and Christianity.
Kwame Bediako, a frontline proponent of this view, affirms that „African Christian
experience is not totally discontinuous with the pre-Christian heritage‟.20 Bediako further
sees the whole enterprise of the presentation of the Christian gospel as incarnational, and
the chief pre-occupation of theology as indigenization.21 The fact that Bediako highlights
a discontinuity can be conversely extracted from his implicit emphasis on the uniqueness
of Christ, his „ultimate and irreplaceable significance…for African religious tradition‟.22
Therefore, this position, while being highly sensitive of the positive values of ATR, is
inclined to establish the unique significance of Jesus Christ. Interestingly, however, some
of the AICs also share the same line of argument. That is to say, some Pentecostalist or
Spirit-type AICs emphasize or teach that Christians are to make a „complete break with
the past‟, while retaining some of the religious expressions dominant in African
traditional religions in their worship, prayer, singing and so on.23 Thus, it can be inferred
from this point that there is a strange combination of continuity and discontinuity with the
local cultures in some AICs, where discontinuity is expressed in words and statements,
but where continuity is confirmed in praxis.24

18
Adeyemo, Salvation in African Tradition, 14. Emphasis added.
19
Bengt Sundkler, Zulu Zion and some Swazi Zionists (Oxford, UK.: Oxford University Press, 1976) 305;
as quoted in Engelke, „Discontinuity‟, 83.
20
Kwame Bediako, Theology & Identity: The impact of culture upon Christian thought in the second
century and modern Africa (Oxford, UK.: Regnum Books, 1992) 436; idem, Jesus in Africa: The Christian
Gospel in African History and Experience (Yaoundé, Cameroun: Editions Clé/Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana:
Regnum Africa, 2000) 71. Emphasis added.
21
Bediako, Theology & Identity, 434-436; also idem, Jesus in Africa, 69-70.
22
Bediako, Christianity in Africa, 217.
23
This can be inferred from what has been discussed above under the section „African Initiatives in
Christianity‟.
24
Irene John, in her study on the charismatics of Sierra Leone, points out a number of examples that there
is both conflict and harmony between charismatics and the traditional culture. Particularly, the conflicts
(discontinuity) imply the breaking down of traditional society and „to create a new society with different
cultural and integrative values‟. Irene John, „Charismatics and Community‟, in John Parratt (ed.), A Reader
in African Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1997) 133.