Bringing Love to Africa

WCIU Journal: Cross-Cultural Communications Topic, 2019

Exorcism, a much valued, rational and sensible ministry as far as many African Christians are concerned, is frequently not appreciated in the West. This results from linguistic naivety, and the West’s concealment of their own religious history to undergird secular ideologies. Both African faith in God, and indigenous languages, must be taken seriously in Western scholarship. A case study considering the use of the term “spirit” in Western English (that is misappropriated into African discourse) graphically illustrates errors being made when considering deliverance ministries in African Christian churches. There is an urgent need to overcome linguistic naivety and secular hegemony in this regard. Careful exploration of the literature on gift-giving, in light of African people’s affinity for ministries of exorcism, reveals the means by which “material” and “spiritual” are, in Africa, not mutually exclusive.

academia.edu, 2022

Use of a non-indigenous language for formal purposes in Africa results in the presence of a double standard. One standard, often considered traditional, that is upheld through correct understanding and use of indigenous languages. Use of a non-indigenous European language for formal purposes implies that there is another standard that should also be upheld. The resulting duplicity is a never-ending problem.

PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, UK. , 2007

Linguistic research showing dependence on context in deriving language meaning discloses the integral linking of the Luo language with their departed ancestors and the upholding of customary laws. Meaning and impact being transformed in the process of translation from one context to another explains the severe limitations found in previous attempts at cross- cultural understanding between Western and Luo (African) peoples. Studying Luo people’s understanding of ‘bad’ in the light of the above reveals much that often remains invisible to Westerners. ‘Bad’ arises from the activities of ghosts acting through people’s hearts often as a result of breaking taboos. Cleansing, especially of ghosts, through prayer, keeping customary laws and salvation are used to counteract such ‘bad’. Conventional Biblical and mission hermeneutics are, in failing to account for pragmatic linguistics, found seriously wanting. Forces and powers being spiritually based in a monistic worldview amongst the Luo render clear cross-cultural communication with a rationalist and monotheist West impossible. Theological education based on African languages is advocated as the way to engage the challenges of Christianity with Luo ways of life in a way that will result in a deeply rooted African church, and a moral, vibrant, intellectually and economically active African society.

Transformation , 2015

Western dualism’s tendency to naturalism at times appears to do away with a need for God. African monism’s co-identification of material and spiritual profoundly affects presupposed aspects of Western reality, such as notions of holiness. Enormous misinformation arising from the global hegemony of Western languages conceals important complexities of African life from view to planners of mission and development. Particularly in focus is the centrality of feast and celebration in Africa’s economic and social life. Current efforts at exporting useful dualistic principles to Africa may be building on a misguided foundation. The current downward spiral of misinformation and the resulting confused practice can best be arrested by a reconsideration of biblical injunctions to generosity in the light of realities brought to light through sufficient vulnerability to non-Western contexts.

World of Theology Series, 2016

The natural world alone provides an insufficient foundation for life. African people , as others, look elsewhere for guidance. The secularism implicitly taught in educational systems throughout the African continent frequently fails to engage with weaknesses in today's status quo. Here-uncovered Christian roots of secularism can provide a means to interact with African and majority world realities. It is time for dominant western scholars to stop ignoring activity in the divine realm. This book starts by delving deeply into indigenous African Christian expression. Through discussion on the English category religion, it throws light on pressing issues in the contemporary world.

Harries, Jim. 2013. ‘The Need for Indigenous Languages and Resources in Mission to Africa in Light of the Presence of Monism/Witchcraft.’ Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis 4, vol. 1 (February 2013) http://missiodeijournal.com/article.php?issue=md-4-1&author=md-4-1-harries

At the moment, globally speaking, we seem to be in an endless cycle. The West has grasped the means of being materially productive that has resulted in its amassing wealth. Africa in the meantime engages monism, that perpetuates poverty but demands equality. The interaction of the West that seeks to alleviate the poverty of Africa in ignoring its root causes perpetuates it. The fact that the same interaction empowers Western languages gives African people distorted economic signals. It is in the economic interest of many African people to rote-learn foreign wisdom that makes little sense while neglecting locally rooted intelligence and disregarding efforts at countering African monism.

Evangelical Review of Theology, 2019

Endless dilemmas, conflicts, and unhealthy dependencies created by Western aid to Africa become the death knell to Western workers on the ground. Exploring these contexts requires a unique research approach. Because donors do not usually understand the local context, donor-control over resources results in ineffective utilisation. English being used in Africa as well as in the West, leads to any one text or discourse being understood in two radically different ways. African ways of understanding are routinely concealed to facilitate resource flows. Gospel advocacy and development are as a result thwarted. The insights into intercultural communication of experienced Western missionaries and development workers who speak local languages can be uniquely enabling.

Evangelical Review of Theology, 2018

The author’s teaching experience at a theological college in Kenya helped him to grasp the western character of ATR (African Traditional Religion) and WRs’ (World Religions’) discourse, that produces western Christianised versions of what they describe. WRs are valued as ‘respectable equivalents’ to Christianity. ATR is assumed to be inferior to WRs, including Christianity. WRs and ATR are sustained by western inputs, financial and other, and only ‘work’ in western languages. Implications of the non-indigenous nature of discourse on WRs and ATR are explored in some detail. The fact that ATR or WRs discourse tends to block evangelism reinforces advantages of the use of indigenous languages by missionaries, to help them to bypass such. A critique of the contemporary monolithic view of others’ ‘religions’ is articulated. A largely invisible but very pervasive co-identification between other WRs and Christianity is shown to be greatly problematic. Widespread use of English in scholarship prevents the articulation of profound African theology. Use of African languages would enable Westerners to listen. Western scholarship on the African Christian-other would benefit from ‘vulnerable’ exposure to at least one African language.

Global Missiology (globalmissiology.org), 2018

Using examples such as " love, " " health, " " democracy, " " witches, " and " miracles, " the author shows the disastrous results of speaking " English " out of context, that is, trying to use English as the language of education and power in the vastly different cultural contexts of Africa. Dominant use of English in Africa is shown to be proscribing the development of a community of contextually relevant scholars in Africa, especially in the area of theology. The weaknesses of Western people's efforts at stretching their language uses inter-culturally are identified. A pincer mechanism squeezes out serious efforts at implementation of even those cultural differences that are recognised. Ways in which African people's writing in English is made captive to gross inaccuracy are illustrated. All the above point to an immorality inherent in subsidy of the use of Western languages amongst non-native speakers, especially if English is to be used to displace indigenous languages in governance, church, education, and other formal functions. A few suggestions are made as to what a counterfactual to English might look like.

Transformation, 2019

When the only advice on offer is unhelpful, a potential missionary might need to be advised to seek for an alternative. Jesus, we take it, was not building a worldly-empire (John 18:36). Christian mission has become associated with colonialism. Dominant advice often pushes Western missionaries to positions of strength. In order to be vulnerable, one needs an alternative to such advice. Economic domination of Africa by the West makes it hard to know when Africa’s people, long engrossed in patron / client relationships, are not talking for power. Use of English to describe Africa leads to massive false imputing of Western histories onto African societies. A little linguistic wisdom exposes the naivety of many contemporary understandings of the acumen of translation.