CHAPTER THREE
3. RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they no longer have any share in all that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:4-6).
The power of African theology is the bridge from African traditional religion to African theological empowerment. Mbiti argues that:
African religion could not produce that which the Gospel offers to African peoples. Yet, it tutored them so that they could find genuine fulfilment in the Gospel. The Christian faith comes therefore, to judge, to save and sanctify, to enrich, to fulfill, to crown, and to say "Yes to African religion", and not to destroy it. (1978:311)
As the Gospel says "Yes to African religion", African theology needs to have a thorough introspection of the religious things which are more cultural than religious. I don't mean that the Gospel is not able to sift out all that is cultural in African traditional religion. What I mean is that, as we theologise in an African world view, we need to be careful not to overlook things which are in discontinuity with the Gospel. As I mentioned in the first chapter, Mbiti sees things that are in continuity and in discontinuity with the Gospel.
Therefore, an African theology of Mbiti that will be able to empower the poor and the marginalised people ofSouth Africa will have to emphasize those things that are in continuity with the Gospel. Richard Niebuhr also agrees with Mbiti in the continuity and discontinuity ofthe Gospel with Culture, when he says: "Christ is, indeed, a Christ of Culture, but He is also a Christ above culture. He is discontinuous and continuous with social life and its culture" (1951 :42).
Any contextual theology has to clearly know the issues that are pertinent to the situation ofthe people and, therefore, be able to separate the crucial issues from those that are irrelevant. A theology that would properly identify with the poor and marginalized would have to be clear of the religious issues that need to be discarded, and those that need to be embraced in the pursuit of empowerment.
The great influence that the African world view still enjoys on the individuals in the community in spite ofthe numerous modem changes makes me more emphatic in cutting offthings which are not in continuity with the Gospel. Religious identity can be a powerful launching pad for the Gospel. Therefore, African theology can build on that opportunity and proclaim the power of Christ which empowers the poor and the marginalised.
African theology as a reflection of African spirituality needs to fully understand African religiosity so that it may enter the African world view and have an impact. Itshould not miss the point of communicating Christ as did European theology.
European theology failed to understand the indigenous cultures, religions and traditions of Africa, and to relate to them in a respectful way or to enter into a creative dialogue with them. Such theology was too statement-oriented and speculative. Itdid not get involved in the real drama of African people's lives or speak in the religious and cultural idioms and expressions of the Africans in a meaningful way. Itremained academic, elitist and individualistic. (Pato, 1994: 154)
Religious identity is the key to the spirituality of any people group. If any spiritually related thing is going to be communicated to a people group, communicators need to know quite well the spirituality of that group. For the empowerment ofthe poor and the marginalised, we have to understand their spirituality and communicate with their religious reality. Therefore, Mbiti's African theology has to search and understand properly the religious identity of the poor and marginalised people of South Africa.
In this way it will not fail to facilitate a process of empowerment, as European theology failed to do.Itwill have to get involved in the real drama of people's lives and scratch them where they are itching. In fact, it will have to ask them in what ways they should be empowered:Itshould come from them. Mbiti's theology
does not have to dictate what South Africa's poor and marginalised people need to do in order to realise their empowerment. They are people who can relate it to their experiences and their felt needs. Itis in this situation that Cochrane suggests:
Theology only becomes real to those who actually suffer poverty, oppression and marginalisation in any society if it also connects with the quite specific material and historical conditions which shape their local contexts of life. Itis from this "base" that the living force of any adequate contextual theology will have to come. (1994:34)
As it "connects" with the concrete reality ofthe people, the Gospel or theology does not lose its true nature as the Gospel but it takes upon itself the identity of the local community or culture. This enables theology to earn the right to speak in that particular situation or community. It has to be owned by the people and, therefore, people theologise from the basis of information that this theology gives, because it is able to identify with the felt needs of the people. In reality it becomes a contextual theology. Talking about the Gospel embracing the felt needs of a community, David Bosch says:
The Gospel must remain good news while becoming, up to a certain point, a cultural phenomenon, while it takes into account the meaning systems already present in the context. On the one hand, it offers the cultures "the knowledge of the Divine mystery" while on the other hand it helps them "to bring forth from their own living tradition original expressions of Christian life, celebration and thought." (1991:454)