3.1. What is Africa (n)?
3.1.1. Diversity
Mugambi (1989b: 3f; 2003:112) acknowledges that African theology is done within the context of theo-social pluralism. Africa has indeed a number of faith traditions, including, African Traditional Religion {Hereafter, ATR),1 Christianity and Islam. With respect to these traditional religions, Mugambi (1989b: 4) approvingly quotes Mbiti, who says:
Traditional religions are not universal: they are tribal or national. Each religion is bound and limited to the people among whom it has evolved. One traditional religion cannot be propagated in another tribal group. This does not rule out the fact that religious ideas may spread from one people to another. But such ideas, spread spontaneously, especially through migrations, intermarriage, conquest, or expert knowledge being sought by individuals of one tribal group from another.
Traditional religions have no missionaries to propagate them; and one individual does not preach his (or her) religion to another (1969:4).
Even within the Christian churches, African diversity is also experienced. As Mugambi says, African Christianity is too often described in terms of Catholicism, Protestantism and African Instituted churches. He goes on to say:
However, it is important to appreciate that the first "African Independent Church"3
was the Coptic Church, which traces its origin to the apostolic period. The
1 The phrase African Traditional Religion (ATR) is a contested description of African religiosity. To some, the term "traditional" reveals Christian bias and is intended to portray African religiosity as being outdated and irrelevant. Some have advanced the view that it should simply be referred to as "African Religion"
(Hereafter, AR) as for instance, the Muslim or Hindu Religion. Whatever description is preferred, it refers to an indigenous system of beliefs and practices that are integrated into the culture and worldviews of the African peoples (see, Mwakabana 1997:21-24; cf. Mbiti 1969:lff). As in other primal religions, a person is born into it as a way of life with all its associated cultural manifestations and religious implications. AR is thus an integral part of the African ethos and culture. The debate however goes beyond these explanations.
Some may argue that with the centre of Christian gravity having shifted to Africa, it is imprecise to talk of AR, as Christianity has itself become an African Religion (cf. Bediako 1992). How do we differentiate between Christianity and pre-Christian or pre-Muslim religious discourse in Africa?
2 John Mbiti explains that, "we speak of African traditional religions in the plural because there are about one thousand African peoples (tribe), and each has its own religious system" (1969:1). This thought however can be contested on the basis that we have, in Africa and beyond, various Christian denominations although we do not refer to them as "Christianities." Africa may have one religion that is expressed in diversity since it possesses common elements among the various African tribal groupings.
3 The phrase African Independent Churches, like African Traditional Religion, is a contested description, and as such is somewhat confusing. Nthamburi (1991, 1995) rejects it totally and sees it as being misleading.
From whom are AICs independent? God or God's creation? To some, it has a negative connotation, as it gives the impression that these churches are necessarily independent from scriptural dictates and are therefore heretical. John Pobee, as with Nthamburi, prefers to call them African Instituted Churches (AIC) and sees the initials AIC as the designation of a genre of a number and variety of African expressions of the Christian faith (2002:12). He says that the description "African Independent Churches" signals that they are independent in their origin and organisation, "though since the historic churches founded by missionaries in Africa are at least juridically independent from their mother churches, this description is somewhat confusing" (2002:12). It would thus seem best that the abbreviation AIC stand for either the African Initiated Churches or the African Instituted Churches or even the African Indigenous Churches.
Ethiopian Orthodox Church also traces its history to Old Testament times. Both its ecclesiology and its liturgy are characteristically African, manifesting many affinities with the African Instituted Churches despite its very long history (2003:113).
For Mugambi, the terms "Africa" and "African" should be interpreted ideologically, rather than racially (2003:113). This is however a revision of his earlier works (before 1990) where in his book, African Christian Theology, 1989; he almost excludes the non-black Africans from articulating African theology. In so doing, Mugambi appears to be saying
"in adopting the new paradigm of reconstruction, we in Africa and beyond must redefine ourselves in the new dispensation, as we must now see our diversity as strength rather than as a weakness." He thus states:
At the beginning of the third millennium, it is important to strongly affirm that (the) African identity transcends race and religion. While it is true that the continent is the native home of one large community with numerous representatives in the Diaspora scattered throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, it is also true that there are cultural minorities who have made their home in the continent and interacted with their voluntary and involuntary hosts.
The rich diversity of African culture and identity may become the salvation of the human race in the third millennium (2003:112f).
Mugambi is alluding to a situation as in South Africa following the demise of Apartheid where there are Black-Africans, Indo-Africans, Euro-Africans and so on. Some South Africans would refer to this as the "rainbow nation," that is, a nation where all colours of Africa and beyond have congregated. In such scenarios, there are Africans who are coloureds, Dutch in origin, British in origin, Indian in origin and of course, the vast majority being Black South Africans. In such circumstances, the "cultural minorities who have made their home in the continent and interacted with their voluntary and involuntary hosts" are also Africans in the sense that they have made Africa their new home.
This is reminiscent of the situation in North America where former African slaves remained after the demise of slave trade. They are today referred to as African-Americans.
Here, Mugambi is following in the footsteps of the Ghanaian philosopher, Kwame Appiah, who scoffs at such notions of a united, homogeneous Africa and African identity and what he calls racialist Pan Africanism, declaring that Africa is like "my father's house in which there are many mansions" - which simply means that there are many ways of being an African (Appiah 1992). Likewise, the South African theologian Tinyiko Maluleke seems to build on this viewpoint when he "maintains that you are an African if you so claim"
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(West 2005:3). Sipho Mtetwa partially agrees with Maluleke and Mugambi but insists that in addition to this self-claim, there is need for "your black neighbours, who own the place where you have settled to proclaim it" (: 3).
The post-liberation paradigmatic definition of who constitutes an African complicates the question. For does one become an African by simply deciding to make Africa his or her new home? What then makes a person authentically African? Suppose an alien army attacks the continent and eliminates all the people of Africa (as colonialism invaded Africa) and then occupies Africa. Would we call them Africans even if they came from China? In making his post liberation definition, Mugambi appears to avoid the hard question as to who is an African in the light of ever-changing continental and global scenarios.
Apart from cultural factors, geographical factors also contribute to the diversity of Africa.
As Mugambi (2003:112) says, "Africa" was the name of province covering the present- day Tunisia, and sometimes referred to the entire region adjoining the Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In our current context, Africa, which is constituted by fifty four Nation States, "has an area of about eleven and a half million square miles," a population of more than seven hundred million and "ethnic identity comprising more than one thousand groups"4 (Mugambi 1989b: 3). As Mugambi further states, it would be idealistic to suppose that in such an outsized continent, with so many people, there are no differences. The fact is that there are "many distinguishing differences between the ethnic groups" (: 3).
The diversity of the African people is further compounded by the history of the colonial experience in each particular African Nation State. Hence we have Lusophone Africa, Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, and Arabphone Africa. Added to this, we have South Africa and Namibia who have been under Afrikaans control from 1948-1994. This creates a diversity of peoples within continental Africa as different powers had different ways of orienting their subjects (see Mugambi 1989b: 4). The Arab slave traders, for
4 Obviously, the population of African peoples has increased measurably to about 800 million by 2006.
example, in the East Coast of Africa intermarried with the local inhabitants and produced the Swahili people.5
Apart from colonial history, the emigrational patterns of the people of Africa from one region to another also contribute to the diversity of Africa. For example, while colonialists partitioned Africa following the Berlin Conference of 1884/5, dividing the continent in various Nation States under European control, the internal rivalries and warfare amongst African people also contributed to the current diversity that defines the Africa of today.
Examples of this phenomenon can be found in the Maasai who were in Kenya and Tanzania; the Luo in Uganda, Kenya and Sudan; the Chewa in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia and so forth (see Nthamburi 1991:39). On the other hand, following the Zulu wars of the nineteenth century saw the Nguni peoples migrate from South Africa to Malawi, Zambia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania.6
The above analysis shows that even within one particular African State, there is cultural plurality due to the migrations and interactions of various communities. Mbiti in his book, African Religions and Philosophy (1969), contends that within African religiosity, there are various religions, which are expressed differently despite sharing some commonalities.
His view of "African religions" has however been contested on the grounds that Africa traditionally has only one religious faith, namely ATR which is expressed diversely by various communities living in Africa just as Christianity is expressed differently by various practitioners of the Christian faith.
Mugambi (1989b: 4) recognises another facet of African diversity through the existence of linguistic groups. He borrows from language analysts, contending that Africa's population may be grouped into clusters according to similarities in the linguistic structures of their mother tongue. From the above discussion, it is apparent that Africa is dissimilar in terms of ideas, backgrounds, customs, languages, environment, and in its histories. Mugambi laments that the invention and propagation of the myth of African homogeneity by,
"European and North American propagandists - is partly responsible for the stagnation in African thought, in social innovation, in technological inventiveness" and for the religious
5 This is reminiscent of the situation in South Africa where the sexual engagements between Blacks and Whites produced the so-called Coloured race of peoples.
6 King Shaka was a military genius of the nineteenth century who believed in conquering the whole of Africa he would ensure that the whole of Africa spoke the Zulu language.
imitation of European and American missionaries "by African converts, leading to a degradation of African cultural and religious values" (1989b: 5).
In today's Africa, influenced as it is by globalisation, scientific advancements and political ideologies it is important to ask, How African is African? How indigenous is indigenous?
How traditional is traditional? Africa has to acknowledge the changing scenarios within the framework of its continental plurality. It is within this debate that Mugambi's proposal for a change of theological paradigm, from liberation to reconstruction, can best be assessed.
African theology is done within a plural context; and in view of this, if it (African theology) is to serve towards the coherence and peace of African society, then it has to become dialectical and dialogical. In view of this, the question of developing the exact contours of the dialectic and the dialogue remains an important task. According to Gabriel Setiloane, the task of African theology is to grapple seriously with the central question of Christology, namely, who is Jesus in the context of pluralism? How did he become the supreme human manifestation of divinity, the Messiah of Judaism, and the Christos of Hellenistic faith? (Setiloane 1991:12). The question of the divinity of Christ is clearly a contentious issue, and in particular the terminologies of the "finality" and "absoluteness"
of Christ. I believe African theology has yet to address the uniqueness or centrality of Christ, even though Mugambi appears keen to draw his concepts from the Hebrew bible.
John Pobee appreciates African diversity as a positive factor in African theology when he states:
This fact of pluralism in society, not least in African society, appears to be part of the divine economy. First, the historical nature of revelation implies a pluralistic situation. Second, the whole theology of love operating through human life implies pluralism, because love can be accepted only freely and not by imposition.
Freedom and the possibility of choice and variety go together. Third, the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 2:1-9) affirms pluralism as part of God's economy for the World (Pobee 1997:24).
Pobee notes the distinctive marks that make a black African appear different from a Euro- African (referring to a non-black African who has made Africa his or her new home).
Hence, he can state:
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Nevertheless, one would still maintain there is a sense in which an African (read a black person)1 is marked off from the Asian or the European or the American.
There is a certain Africannes about the culture and religious beliefs and practices which can be so recognised. Only let us consciously find out how and to what extent African countries and African people have changed, lest we waste time preparing to evangelise the Africa of 1800, which no longer exists (Pobee
1997:24).
Even within the field of theology, one expects to find a plurality of African theologies rather than one modality of African theology that purports to address all conditions of homo Africanus. It is for this reason that we have addressed the African theologies of liberation as African theology, African Women's theology and Black theology of South Africa (see, Chapter 4).
This diversity makes the task of doing theology more difficult. It calls for careful correlations and assessments in the quest for an authentic theology that will speak to the particular conditions of homo Africanus effectively. It is for that reason that this study wishes to assess Mugambi's call for a change of paradigm in African theology, from liberation to reconstruction. The study is cautious with the difficulty or complexity that has been caused by the presence of diversity in Africa. This point is clearly spelt out by Musimbi Kanyoro with regard to African women's theology when she delivered her keynote speech to the Pan-African Conference of The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians {Hereafter, Circle) when she said:
From the beginning, The Circle's Concerns have been multi-religious, reflective of the religious plurality of our continent. Thus, The Circle also seeks to promote a dialogical approach to religious and cultural tensions in Africa by practically working together with all women who are deeply concerned for peace, justice, equality and development of our continent ...we are professors, lecturers, students, pastors, church workers, medical and legal experts. We come from all walks of life, but we are united by being concerned with theology on this continent (Kanyoro
1997:10f).