Lecture 5: Out of Africa

Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 2013

This essay reviews the recently published memoirs of three leading African intellectuals: Chinua Achebe, Lamin Sanneh, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

International Journal of Academic Research in Business, Arts and Science, 2023

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's groundbreaking work, "Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature," challenges the dominant Eurocentric and American-centric narratives that have long overshadowed African voices and experiences. The essence of Thiong'o's book is shedding light on his impassioned call to decolonize African history, dismantle harmful stereotypes, and usher in a new perspective on the continent. "Decolonizing the Mind" is a potent call to action, urging readers to engage in the collective effort to liberate Africa from historical misrepresentations. It underscores the resilience, cultural richness, and determination of the continent and its people. Through these efforts, we can contribute to a more equitable and just future for Africa and its diverse population.

Berkeley Journal of Religion and Theology, 2017

Book Review of Ronald Burris, Wisdom from Africa: Theological Reflections on the Confessions of St. Augustine. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2016

1991

The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 2022

Logos, 2016

Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, 2016

Apostolic Academic Series, 2023

Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter points to ways in which African people’s innate avenues of thinking are increasingly considered taboo—so ignored—and allowed to fester rather than to develop, grow, and blossom. Chapter 2: I was struck by the contents of a sermon in 2010 at a church in Kenya. It was presented in the Luo language and translated into Swahili. The categories being employed by the speaker were, in terms of Western language(s), especially English, incongruous. This is despite their apparently tallying with four very ordinary English words; money, hope, fear, and love. Correct comprehension of what was being said required me to draw on learning I had achieved impressionistically, i.e., insights I had picked up “subjectively” through sharing life with Luo people over an extended period. I could not easily quantify or even outline these insights, that certainly had no objective origins. Chapter 3. This short chapter imagines Africans as dairy farmers and Westerners as sheep farmers. Contrasting two different husbandry practices clarifies differences that may be less clear-cut between cultures. Thus the folly of the use of one language across cultural difference, i.e., use of Western languages in Africa, is exposed. Chapter 4. The notion that literacy might be of other than religious / esoteric value (being a product of Protestantism) raises questions regarding its contemporary spread, and the extent to which literacy may still be considered inherently religious / esoteric. This chapter proposes profound implications arising from consideration of this, arguably, contextual difference between Western and non-Western Englishes. Chapter 5. Many scholars producing academic writing on Africa quickly learn to beware the “sin of generalizing”—which is essentially to assume that diverse African peoples have things in common, that are not found in the West. Such prohibition of so-called “generalization” is used to maintain an apparent universal direct relevance of Western scholarship in Africa. Chapter 6. This chapter contains a fuller articulation of a greater number of arguments that seek to qualify today’s prohibition of generalization. It thus renders both African communality, cultural facets of people’s lives that are similar across Africa, and the work of the gospel, visible. Chapter 7. A general invisibility of translation has, in recent decades, popularized the incorrect assumption that profound bodies of interconnected knowledge that affect the whole of life, can simply be transferred wholesale from one language to another. Because information is always domesticated into its target language and culture, a process that requires a very profound knowledge of that target, translation from unknown to known, must always be prioritized over that from known to unknown. The impact of this vitally important principle being these days largely ignored is potentially catastrophic! Chapter 8. Human satisfaction is often supplemented by the suffering, failure, or even death of others. This is metonymically represented by the shedding of blood. The rejection by modern thinking of “traditional” logic—that sees shedding blood as healing—has transformed African solutions to coronavirus into fake news. This chapter explores implications of this kind of transformation. Chapter 9. Conventional Western and modern ways of considering and evaluating Africa are faulty. This chapter points to the nature of such faultiness, such as the expectation that use of English can be adequate and helpful for delineating indigenous African categories. The chapter draws on work of the late French scholar René Girard as the basis for a proposal regarding how to make sense of what is unconventional. Chapter 10. Drawing heavily on insights from René Girard, “aggression” in African worship (shouting, screaming, noise in general, aggressive dancing, and so on) is connected to a desire for cleansing by imitating the lynching of a witch. When correctly focused as a reenactment of Christ’s death on the cross, this kind of activity should be understood as being a means of bringing healing / cleansing. Chapter 11. This chapter explores theology as an alternative to rainmaking as foundation for leadership in Africa. Some peculiarities of African styles of worship appear to arise from rainmaking traditions, to which adherence to the Bible should be a marked improvement. Chapter 12. While Bible translations are these days prolifically being produced, production of associated study texts in indigenous languages has to date proven stubbornly difficult. This chapter articulates such difficulty—and how to overcome it—with reference to Study Bible production. Chapter 13. This chapter suggests that largely unrecognized sleight of hand has contributed to, if not formed, today’s logic in the West, that has many accepting the bogus straw-man category of “religion.” Once defined and accepted, “religion” can be considered no more than a primitive relic, and condemned! Associated historical naivety is denying people a knowledge of Christ! Chapter 14. An impassioned plea is made for the reader of this chapter to cease being hoodwinked and misled by contemporary secular society, when it is evident that all that humans do is “religious,” including the roots of secularism itself. Chapter 15. That African people might believe that God can protect them from the coronavirus might seem incredible in the West, but is very normal in parts of the continent. This coronavirus case study, written in 2020, considers numerous important ways in which policy makers must take African people’s belief in God seriously. Chapter 16. Was pre-colonial Africa peaceful, healthy, and prosperous? Today’s problems in Africa are often blamed on colonialism, modernity, and even Christianity. Pre-colonial Africa, though, was not free from fujo (a Swahili term meaning destructive mayhem). This chapter draws heavily on the work of the late Tanzanian novelist Euphrase Kezilahabi, interpreted through a lens of long-term close living and exposure to East African people. Chapter 17. Compulsory church attendance was once widespread in Europe. This historical requirement makes up part of the history of the contemporary West. Contemporary deploring and mockery of the notion that perhaps “religion” should be enforced at government level may or may not be appropriate in today’s West, but mocking the role of government in “religion” may not be helpful for some in the non-West. Such disparaging of government involvement can be considered “evil” if it results in a wanton depreciation of something that carries many important benefits to human society. Chapter 18. The West is adamant that racism is wrong. It rarely considers, however, the foundations on which its opposition to racism is built. One such foundation I here critique, is secularism. That is, the assumption of normality to which racism is considered antagonistic, is secular. The power of the West is such as to spread this assumption globally: African people must be treated as if they are secular, wherever they are! This conceals the religiosity of African people, in the interests of not being racist. Chapter 19. Digging a little into the nature of some indigenous African categories of thought related to the English concept of emotion, reveals ways of identifying what Africans mean by “poverty.” Comprehensions of African terms frequently used to translate English terms like that of poverty may seem, from a secular vantage point, to be out of this world! Amongst other things, exploration of implicit indigenous African categories of thought and understanding reveal English comprehensions of African ways of life, and the concomitant prescriptions for action, to be compromised by their own illogicality. Chapter 20. “Vulnerable” approaches to majority world people, as defined in this text, permit an otherwise largely unmatched deep level of cultural comprehension. This chapter considers the implications of such an approach’s revealing that world religions, considered by many to have some kind of objective existence, are reifications of the meeting of non-Western ways of life and Christianity. The implications of this nature of world religions are explored in this chapter. Chapter 21. How one uses language is key to on-the-ground ministry. Asking questions for which no answers are available or admissible reveals one’s ignorance. Language can reflect truth, or it can build truth. The availability of funding can create its own truths. Telling the truth about Africans can be interpreted as theft if the truth would result in a potential donor not supporting a project. Telling the truth to Africans about how people live in the West can generate envy. Some truths are plainly untranslatable. Chapter 22. Well-connected Western missionaries carrying out ministry drawing on access they have to outside resources, and their mastery of the globalized language of English, build on what is not locally available. All too often this, unhelpfully, forces them to minister through saying, “do what I say,” rather than “do what I do.” Chapter 23. While “guilt” may be an unpleasant feeling, this chapter points to ways in which it is much more desirable than are either fear or shame. The chapter explains, in relation to evident characteristics of many contemporary African communities, how Christianity is appreciated for moving people from fear of ancestral revenge, and from fear of shame, to guilt, for which they can be forgiven. Chapter 24. It may not be helpful for talking to jump ahead of action. Verbally declaring something to be the case, before it actually is the case, may deter those who are preoccupied into making it the case from their endeavor. So use of Western languages that presuppose open altruism can delay adoption of open altruism by African people. Chapter 25. This chapter is a study of the amazing love of God in intercultural context.

Africa Review of Books, 2017

La Revue Africaine des Livres présente une revue semestrielle de travaux sur l'Afrique dans le domaine des sciences sociales, des sciences humaines et des arts créatifs. Elle a pour but de servir de forum pour des analyses critiques, des réflexions et des débats sur l'Afrique. À ce titre, la Revue souhaiterait recevoir des articles critiques, des essais et des comptes-rendus de livres. Les contributions qui transcendent les barrières disciplinaires et encouragent le dialogue interdisciplinaire et les débats sont particulièrement les bienvenues.