3.6. Liberation and reconstruction: An overview
3.6.1. Liberation
3.6.1.2. Historical background of the concept of liberation
Mugambi traces the historical background of the concept of liberation from the Exodus narrative in the Hebrew bible, to a paradigm in African theology. As noted earlier, this theme is derived from Exodus 3:7ff when God told Moses:
I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out ' because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So have I come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey - the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go. I am sending you to pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.
In this text, the people of Israel are portrayed as having been "delivered from bondage in Egypt through the divinely inspired leadership of Moses" whom God spoke to and commanded "let my people go" (Mugambi 1995:2). Accordingly, this story appeals to the victims of colonialism and other forms of domination such as cultural supremacy (1995:2).
It makes it easy for such victims of oppression to identify themselves with the Israelites, and their leaders with Moses, the hero who confronts the oppressor (Exodus 10:1-6).
Mugambi's outlook agrees with Nfhamburi who goes a step further and says that, in this Exodus event, "God took the side of the exploited ones, the downtrodden, the marginalised and the powerless" (1991:35).
Nthamburi wrote before the dismantling of apartheid. His close analysis of the Exodus event agrees with that of Mugambi:
African Christians identified with such a theme quite naturally. They had seen oppression on their people through the political struggles that led to independence.
The struggle was seen as a necessary midwife that would give birth to freedom;
this is still the feeling of the people in South Africa. They see the exodus as a paradigm, a departure from inflexible position of oppression to freedom. They recognise that "pharaoh" must struggle and through his reactions many people may suffer and die. But this is not the end of the story. In the end the will of the people will triumph because God will deliver them from oppression and lead them to freedom (Nthamburi 1991:36).
With regard to people who find themselves victims of oppression, the Exodus event becomes a liberating and inspiring experience. Nthamburi adds that when the oppressed people find obstacles in their way, the exodus event brings reassurance that God will act (Nthamburi 1991:37). He goes on to say that, the oppressed always see themselves as people on the journey to the Promised Land:
African Theology finds the exodus event a powerful paradigm for the oppressed people. Not only does it give them hope of victory, it encourages them to continue
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struggling for justice. They are confident that somehow God will intervene to save them from the sin of oppression (: 37).
Mugambi traces the historical background of the concept of liberation, by citing the case of Latin American liberation theology. He refers to the dictatorial regimes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the important role of Catholic theologians and social scientists in mobilising the people in the quest for human liberation (1995:2). He goes on to refer to the Exodus motif as an effective clarion call. By so doing, he introduces Gustavo Gutierrez in this study. Gutierrez, a leading Peruvian theologian articulated his liberative approach within the context of an oppressive and brutal regime. Mugambi also cites the civil rights movement in North America where Martin Luther King Jnr was likened to Moses for championing the rights of oppressed African-Americans in the 1950's and 1960's (1995:3). He explains that by the time the World Council of Churches held its Fifth Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1975, the theme of liberation had become a household phrase in Africa. This concept remained in spite of the fact that "Portugal had abandoned her colonies of Angola and Mozambique, and the struggle for majority rule in Zimbabwe had accelerated" (1995: 4).
As noted above, it was at the Nairobi meeting, March 30, 1990, where the concept of reconstruction was officially42 introduced for the first time in African theological studies as a paradigm. It is here that Mugambi explained that the "the twenty-first century should be a century of reconstruction in Africa, building on old foundations which though strong, may have to be renovated" (1995:5). Since then, the debate on whether to shift the theological paradigm to reconstruction has been with us in African theology. Was his call timely and appropriate for African theology in the twenty-first century?
Mugambi, thus, became the pioneer or father of reconstruction theology in Africa.
Together with J B Chipenda, A Karamaga and C K Omari, they published, The Church of Africa: Towards a Theology of Reconstruction, (1991). Afterwards, Charles Villa- Vicencio, a White South African, published his, A Theology of Reconstruction, (1992).
Later, Mugambi published a second book on reconstruction theology entitled, From liberation to Reconstruction, (1995). And two years later Mugambi edited the book, The
42 This study insists on utilising the word "officially" as it considers that the theology of reconstruction or the paradigm of reconstruction has always been a part of Africa, therefore before Jesse Mugambi re-launched it on March 30, 1990. Liberation has been the dominant paradigm, while reconstruction has been a minor paradigm together with other minor paradigms such as inculturation.
Church and Reconstruction of Africa (1997); Other important theological contributions to the debate include, Ukuchukwu Chris Manus, Intercultural hermeneutics in Africa:
Methods and Approaches (2003); Valentin Dedji, Reconstruction & Renewal in African Christian Theology, (2003); Stein Villumstad, Social Reconstruction of Africa:
Perspectives from Within and Without (2005); Aquiline Tarimo's Applied Ethics And Africa's Social Reconstruction (2005).
Similarly, various theses, at postgraduate level, have been completed on this subject, in various Universities across the world. These include, Isaac M. T. Mwase, "A Critical Evaluation of J N K Mugambi's Correlation of Christianity with the African Heritage,"
Ph.D. Dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, 1993;
Valentin Dedji, "Reconstruction and renewal in African Christian theology," PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge, England, (1999); Claudia Nolte, "The efficacy of a contextual theology of the cross for reconciliation and reconstruction in South Africa," MA Thesis, Graduate Theological Union, (2000); Elelwani Bethuel Farisani, "The use of Ezra- Nehemiah in a quest for a theology of renewal, transformation and reconstruction in the (South) African context," PhD Thesis, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (2002); Tyro Tyni, "Theology of Reconstruction," MTh Thesis, University of Helsinki, (2002-4);
George Fihavango, "Theology of Reconstruction," ThD Thesis, University of Erlangen, (2002-5), and Julius Mutugi Gathogo's "Liberation and Reconstruction in the Works of J.
N. K Mugambi: A critical analysis in African theology," PhD thesis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004-2006.43
3.6.2. Reconstruction
As Mugambi observes, the terms construction and reconstruction are terminologies from engineering. In practice, an engineer "constructs and reconstructs when the existing complex becomes dysfunctional" (1995:12). Consequently, new specifications may be engineered in the new designs, "while some aspects of the old complex are retained in the new" (: 12). In African Christianity, Mugambi feels that new specifications need to be made to redesign African theology for the twenty-first century.
It is no wonder that these researches are becoming part of the sources of theology of reconstruction in Africa. Other "new" sources include the published journal articles where different ideas are being published every now and then (see bibliography).
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Sociologically, Mugambi sees the notion of social reconstruction as belonging to the social sciences. Consequently, he borrows from Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann who describe social reconstruction as "the reorganisation of some aspects of a society in order to make it more responsive to changed circumstances" (Ngugi 2002:73). Mugambi, like Berger and Luckmann (1967), is convinced that religion has an important role in the social reconstruction of a society. As both object and agent of social reconstruction, he feels that,
"religion provides the world view which synthesises everything cherished by the individuals as corporate members of the community" (Mugambi 1995: 17). Hence, for Mugambi, religion is the single most vital project for people who are undergoing rapid change, such as that in post-colonial Africa. Mugambi however fails to acknowledge that as much as religion can be a tool of social transformation, it can also be used as an agent of de-construction.
In turning to the inter-relationship between African social history and biblical tradition in his quest to locate the process of social reconstruction, Mugambi highlights various biblical motifs such as the exilic motif in Jeremiah, the Deutoronomic motif associated with King Josiah, the restorative motif expressed in Isaiah 61:4, and the reconstructive motif exemplified by Ezra, Haggai and Nehemiah (1995: 13). He contrasts these motifs with the exodus, existentialist and Utopian motifs (1996:33-36). He thus states:
After the Babylonian exile, a new nation was reconstructed under the direction of Ezra and Nehemiah. The role of Nehemiah as the director of the reconstruction project is lucidly explained in the book bearing his name. Nehemiah becomes the central text of the new theological paradigm in African Christian Theology, as a logical development from the Exodus motif (2003:40).
As noted earlier, at the March 30, 1990 meeting in Nairobi, Mugambi reminded his audience that the future of the church in Africa would require a new Christian theological emphasis. He recalled that the theologians of the 1970's and 1980's had highlighted the Exodus metaphor and emphasised the theme of liberation. In so doing, African people were metaphorically likened to the people of Israel on their way from bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land in Canaan. In utilising this powerful metaphor, the Egyptian regime was equated with the colonial regime whereas the Promised Land was seen as the liberated nation. Mugambi further notes that most African countries became independent in the 1960's and further explains that after Zimbabwe received its independence in 1980, Namibia in 1990, and the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 paving the way for the last
non-independent African nation to move towards freedom, the liberation motif should not remain as if nothing had happened to Africa (1991:34).
For Mugambi, Mandela was the most prominent symbol of the Exodus metaphor in African Christian theology (Mugambi 1991:35). This however hardens the debate; for after the demise of apartheid, what biblical images do we use to view Mandela? Will he still represent Moses the liberator or Nehemiah the re-constructor? Following his release, did he loose his status as the symbol of liberation or did he shift from being the symbol of liberation to the symbol of reconstruction? How different is Mandela from the African leaders of the 1960s such as Nkrumah, Nyerere, Kenyatta, Kaunda, and Banda? Does the contribution of African leaders in post-independence Africa of the 1960s translate to the reconstruction of newly independent countries?
In directing his attention to theological reconstruction, Mugambi calls for African Christians to focus their energies on the "new frontiers of mission," including, theological reconstruction, epistemological reconstruction, placing more emphasis on technological advancement, and placing greater emphasis upon pastoral care (1991:40-43). Additionally, Mugambi puts greater emphasis upon the need for renewed commitment towards healing, ecumenism and proper management in all sectors of society and business. These new frontiers of mission, he argues, will mean the rehabilitation of the neediest cases that Africa is grappling with, including, the refugee crisis, gender discrimination, youth and students, the disabled and the hungry (1991:46-50) and the debt crisis (1991:31).
In summary, Mugambi describes the theology of reconstruction in the following terms:
This theology should be reconstructive rather than destructive; inclusive rather than exclusive; proactive rather than reactive; complementary rather than competitive;
integrative rather than disintegrative; pro gramme-driven rather than project-driven;
people centred rather than institution-centred; deed-oriented rather than word- oriented; participatory rather than autocratic; regenerative rather than degenerative;
future-sensitive rather than past-sensitive; co-operative rather than confrontational;
consultative rather than impositional (1995:xv).
Mugambi argues that the shift from liberation to reconstruction, begun in the 1990s, involves discerning alternative social structures, symbols, rituals, myths and interpretations of Africa's social reality by Africans themselves, "irrespective of what others have to say about the continent and its people" (1991:40). The resources for this re-
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interpretation "are multi-disciplinary, analyses involving social scientists, philosophers, creative writers and artists, biological and physical scientists" (1991:40).
In Mugambi's view, African theology cannot be over concerned with the theme of liberation, that has dominated Africa since the Cold War of the 1960s, when Africa was divided into two ideological blocks (East vis-a-vis West). In the absence of "outsiders"
maintaining the so-called dictators in Africa; and encouraging African patriots to languish in prison (as was the case of Nelson Mandela) or face death and torture (as was the case with Patrice Lumumba of DRC), depending on which side of the ideological block that one stands. With political pluralism being encouraged throughout Africa, thereby opening socio-religious space for everyone including the propagators of the Christian gospel, African theology should not fail to take cognisance of the new scenario, for theology is never done in a vacuum. African theology has to play a renewed role of being the beacon of God's stewardship of creation amongst the people of tropical Africa and the Continent as a whole.
How suitable is Mugambi's call for a paradigm shift from liberation to reconstruction in African theology of the twenty-first century? How timely is this call? These problem issues still remain to be answered.