Bulletin of Ecumenical Theology, vol.

23 (2011),53-95

Rethinking the Other in

Contemporary African Christian Theology

By

David Tonghou Ngong

Baylor University, Waco, Texas

Abstract

From the inception of African Christian theology, there has been

the tendency to pit a supposedly African way of being against a
supposedly Westem one. The African way of being is usually seen
as characterized by orality and spirituality, for instance, while the

Westem way of being is seen as characterized by literacy and

rationality. This paper argues that positioning a supposedly African

oral or vitalistic cosmology against a supposedly Western literate
or rationalistic one is currently neither relevant nor wise in the

African context. The reason for this is pragmatic: one of the most
profound weaknesses of contemporary African societies, as African
philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Marcien Towa, and Paulin
Hountondji have seen, is their limited scientific and technological"
development. This generally limited scientific and technological
development is troubling given that societies can hardly flourish
economically if they are not scientifically and technologically
strong. That is why these philosophers have problematized such
facile dichotomy. The paper suggests that African theologians need
to borrow from the methodological premises of these African

philosophers who problematize the dualistic wedge that some

African scholars place between Africa and the we«.'

1
This paper was presented at conferences in Oxford University,
England, and the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia, in
September and October of 2010, respectively. I want to thank all those who
raised questions about the paper during these sessions. I address pertinent aspects
of those questions in the postscript below.
54 David Tonghou Ngong

Contemporary African Christian theology has largely reacted

against Western representations of the continent and its peoples.
Crucial to these representations are the demonization of African
traditional religious cultures and the denial that Africans have any
coherent cosrnology.' It is against this background that the Belgian
missionary, Father Placide Tempels, endeavoured to show in his
Bantu Philosophy that Africans have a coherent religious
worldview.:' Central to this cosmology is the now popular and
4
much criticized notion of vital force or power. This vitalistic
cosmology is one in which there is an intricate interconnection
between the physical and
spiritual so that the forces that
realms
threaten or sustain life are not only physical but also spiritual.
Tempels' Bantu Philosophy was intended to serve missionary and
colonialist purposes but its vision has remained the mainstay of a
very influential form of African theology called the theology of
inculturation. This theology of inculturation has morphed into
African Pentecostal theology today in a Christianity that is
spreading throughout the continent like wild fire.
Tempels' work became an important moment in the
development of African theology and philosophy as some African
theologians began to argue that in order for Africans to feel at
home in the Christian faith, Christian beliefs must be expressed in
African vitalistic cosmological idioms. This has been the case with

2
For more on the contemptuous missionary background to which
contemporary African Christian thought reacted, see K warne Bediako, Theology
and Identity: The Impact of Culture Upon Christian Thought in the Second
Century and in Modern Africa (U.K.: Regnum Books, 1992 and 1999), 225-266.
3
Placide Tempels, Bantu Philosophy (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1959).
The book was first published in French as Philosophie Bantoue (Elizabethville:
Lovania, 1945). For more on the background to the development of African
theology see John Parratt, Reinventing Christianity: African Theology Today
(GrandRapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 1-13; Gwinyai Muzorewa, The Origins of
African Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 1985).
4
See Didier Njirayamanda Kaphagawani, "African Conceptions of a
Person: A Critical Survey," in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi
Wiredu (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),335-337.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 55

the work of influential African theologians

Kagame, such as Alexis
Vincent Mulago, John Mbiti, Kwame Bediako, and many others."
These theologians maintain a firm distinction between what they
see as the African cosmology, which is intensely spiritual, and the

Western cosmology, which they see as having been rendered

religiously barren by Enlightenment rationality. Thus it is that in
much of African theology, like in much of Western theology in the
last thirty years or so, there is an apparent disdain for
Enlightenment rationality or anything that sounds like it. The
apparent decline of religion (Christianity) in Europe and the present
significant growth of Christianity in Africa have led some of these
scholars, such as K warne Bediako, to argue that the so-called
African traditional religious cosmology is more conducive to the
spread of
Christianity than Western Enlightenment rationality.
There is therefore an apparent call for the jettisoning of anything
that sounds like Enlightenment rationality in African Christian
theological discourse.6
This paper argues that positioning a supposedly African
vitalistic cosmology against a supposedly Western rationalistic
cosmology is currently neither relevant nor wise in the African
context. The reason for this is pragmatic: one of the most profound

weaknesses of contemporary African societies, as African

philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Marcien Towa, and Paulin

Hountondji have seen, is their limited scientific and technological

development. This generally limited scientific and technological
development is troubling given that societies can hardly flourish
economically if they are not scientifically and technologically
5
For more on some of these African theologians see, Benezet Bujo and
Juvenal Ilunga Muya, ed. African Theology in the 2FtCentury: The Contribution
of the Pioneers, vol II, trans. Silvano Borruso (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines
Publications Africa, 2006).
6
For a Western ululating praise of African Christianity as justifiably
and helpfully antithetical to
apparently corrupt liberal, "post-Enlightenment
an

Christians in the West," see Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity:
Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),
98-127.
56 David Tonghou Ngong

strong. African theologians, like other postcolonial scholars, must

not focus on supposedly pristine identity
maintaining a and culture
against a Western Other their own people perish. In fact,
even as

African theologians must borrow from some trends in postcolonial

studies that see identities, both at the centre and peripheries of the
world, as mixed.' Borrowing from theories of hybridity in
postcolonial studies will help African theologians see that they
must be at the forefront of advocating for the development of

science and technology in the continent rather than limiting their

vision mostly to the so-called African spiritualized worldview. It
will help them not to present the scientific imagination as the Other
to an otherwise spiritualized African imagination. In order to do
this African theologians must stress scientific rationality which, as
philosophers such as Hountondji and Odera Oruka have shown, is
not, in fact, a primarily Western phenomenon; it is also rooted
within the African context. Stressing scientific rationality, of
course, does not mean that religion should adopt the method of
science. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that some things may be
better addressed through scientific methods than mainly through
religion. Continuously positing a vitalistic Africa against a
rationalistic Western Other inadvertently subordinates Africans to
the West in the modem, globalized world where scientific and

7
For more on the complex nature of identity in postcolonial studies, see

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, ed. The Postcolonial Studies
Reader, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 11. Drawing from the
work of Homi K. Bhabha, they point out that "hybrid modalities also challenge
the assumption of the 'pure' and the 'authentic', concepts upon which resistance
to imperialism often stands. Indeed hybridity, rather than indicating corruption or

decline, may, be the most common and effective form of subversive opposition
...

since it displays the 'necessary deformation and displacement of all sites of

discrimination and domination'." Also see Horni K. Bhabha, "Signs Taken For
Wonders," in The Postcolonial Studies Reader, ed. Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin
(London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 38-43 and Nikos Papastergiadis,
"Hybridity and Ambivalence: Places and Flows in Contemporary Art and
Culture," Theory, Culture and Society 22:39 (2005), 39-64.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 57

technological power increasingly determine the value of human

beings.
In arguing for the thesis of this paper, I shall first demonstrate
that although some African theologians are aware of the
complexity of African identity, the emphasis on difference has
come to dominate their work. This is seen, first, in the suggestion

that evangelism in the African context should be characterized by

orality. Its second and most obvious manifestation is the tendency
to appropriate a supposedly African spiritualized cosmology in
African Christian salvific discourse. This tendency has dominated
African Christian theological discourse and is currently flowering
in the rapid spread of Pentecostalism in the continent. I shall then
discuss how some African philosophers are challenging this
essentialistic worldview that has been embraced by African
theologians, arguing that African theologians will do well to
borrow from the methodological premises of these philosophers.

In Search of an African Theological Idiom

Some leading African theologians have always been aware of the

complexity of African identity even if such awareness has not
gained widespread recognition in the discipline. This is especially
evident in early discussions about the nature of African theology.
The Sierra Leonean theologian, Harry Sawyerr, had argued as early
as the late 1960s that African theology must not be uncritically

wedded to the idioms of African traditional religious culture but

8
must seek to be both particular and universal. The Ghanaian
theologian, John Pobee, also argued that African identity is
multiple not only because it has been affected by Western
education, science, and technology, but also because of the cultural
difference that exist among individual ethnic groups in Africa.

8
Harry Sawyerr, "What is African Theology?" in A Reader in African
Christian Theology, cd. John Parratt, New Edition (London: SPCK, 1997),9-22.
58 David Tonghou Ngong
Because of this complexity multiplicity of African identity,
and
Pobee suggests, even the idea of the 'indigenous' and the
'traditional' must be taken with a pinch of salt." However, in the
argument dealing with the particularity and universality of the
African theological enterprise, advocates for an essentialistic
African identity have apparently carried the [Link] In fact, even
those theologians, such as Pobee, who argue that African identity
must be seen as complex, sometimes talk in terms of "a certain
Africanness."!' It is thus this Africanness that makes Africans
different from others; it must therefore be emphasized.
However, when it comes to defining what this Africanness is,
one realizes that it is based on race and traditional religious

cultures. Thus it is that whenever African theology is defined,

North Africa is neatly cordoned off as "properly belonging to the
Mediterranean world." Early North African Christianity is seen as
belonging to Africa only in a "geographical sense," but culturally
distinct from black Africa.12 However, this racial understanding of
African identity, which has its provenance in a racialized African
Diaspora, has been trenchantl y critiqued by the Ghanaian
philosopher, Kwame Appiah.':' In fact, to claim that African
theology is theology written by black people, for black people, flies
III the face of much contemporary African theology because

9
John Pobee, "The Sources of African Theology," in A Reader in
African Christian Theology, 23-28.
10
The debate onparticularity and universality of African theological
the
discourse in francophone Africa is
epitomized by the debate between Tshibangu
and Vanneste at the 1968 colloquium organized by the Faculty of Catholic
Theology at Kinshasa. While Tshibangu took the particularistic position,
Vanneste took the universalistic position. For more on this debate, see John
Parratt, Reinventing Christianity, 11.
11
Pobee, "The Sources of African Theology," 25.
12
John Parratt, Reinventing Christianity, 34. For a recent attempt to
disabuse the academy from this assumption, see Thomas C. Oden, How Africa
Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western
Christianity (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2007).
13
Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the
Philosophy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 59

contemporary African theologians traverse various pigmentation.

That is why, in
spite of his ambivalence on the nature of African
identity, Harry Sawyerr essentially correct to argue that the
was

term 'African' should be seen as"primarily a mythological term,

expressive of love for a continent and commitment to an ideal.,,14
Sawyerr does not say what the ideal is but I would suggest that the
ideal is the well-being of all people on the continent of Africa. It is
not a racialized idea because there has been, and current! yare,
many black people both in the Diaspora and in Africa, who have
been very harmful to the well-being of black people both in and out
of the continent. Some of our past and current political leaders are

good examples.
Connected to the perception of African theology, as the
theology of black people, is the desire to reclaim the traditional
cultures of black people in Africa. This endeavour to reclaim the
traditional religious cultures of black Africans in the theology of
inculturation is understandable given the contempt which these
cultures received from missionary and colonial Christianity. The
problem with tying African Christian theology to the traditional
religious cultures of black Africans is that it has made African
theology to be backward-looking in spite of all protestations to the
contrary. Thus, much of African Christianity, apart from Black
Theology in South Africa and African liberation theology, has
come to be based essentialized African past. It is for this
on an

reason that some ideas that are common to most, if not all,

traditional societies in the world have come to be seen as an

essentially African way of life. Thus, for example, stress has come
to be placed on the orality of African societies. John Mbiti, the
eminent Kenyan theologian, insisted that the orality of African
culture is a good fit for the orality of the biblical world. According
to him, the church can only prosper in African contexts if African
oral cultures are taken seriously. He suggests that Christianity
thrives more among non-literate, oral people than among the

14
Harry Sawyerr, "What is African Theology?" 21.
60 David Tonghou Ngong

educated, pointing negative consequences of missionary

out "some

evangelization that has put much

emphasis on written (school)
forms of communicating Christianity." Among these negative
consequences is the marginalization of the non-literate and the
undermining of the oral traditions that are characteristic of both the
biblical world and African traditional cultures. In fact, for him,
people understand Christianity even when they are not literate. He
goes on to castigate those parts of the world "where written
tradition has subdued and almost killed the oral art.,,15
Now, pointing evangelization in Africa should take
out that
the oral contexts seriously helpful given that many African
is
traditional religious cultures were oral. In fact, given that literacy is
not widespread in Africa, it would be foolish to overlook oral

methods of communicating" the gospel in the continent. However,

to speak as if African cultures are essentially oral and must

continue to remain so or as if oral cultures are somehow better than

literate cultures, even in terms of the spread of Christianity, is a
very contentious matter. First, no culture is essentially oral given
that all cultures were once oral cultures before the development of
writing. African cultures are therefore not essentially oral.
Lamenting the movement away from an oral to a literate culture is
16
not primarily an African thing, either. Most cultures passed

through preserving information largely through memory to writing

the information down. Thus it is that even the 13 ible itself came to

be written that it may be preserved. Rather than extolling orality

so

as if it were a better way to transmit Christianity, it must be

acknowledged that literacy probably does a better job at preserving
the faith. If the books in the Bible were not written, we would
probably not have had much of the information about Christianity

15
John Mbiti, "The Bible in African Culture," in Paths of African
Theology, ed. Rosino Gibellini
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 28-31.
16
Lamentations about the decline of orality goes, at least, as far back as
Socrates, if Plato is to bebelieved. See Gerald A Press, "Plato," in The Columbia
lIistory of Western Philosophy, ed. Richard H. Popkin (New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, 1999),32-52, especially 48.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 61

which we havetoday. In fact, there are elements of the thought of

some significant persons or groups which we would have loved to
have today but we unfortunately cannot have them because their
written forms were destroyed. They could not be preserved orally
either. Although orality must not be demeaned, to speak of it as if it
were somehow better than literacy, even in the transmission of

Christianity, probably makes too much of this means of

communication.
More to the point of this paper, orality undermines the
development of science and technology. As the philosopher
Kwame Appiah has pointed out, the method of reasoning common
in science might not have been developed in an oral culture. This is
because the consistency and descriptive precision demanded of
formal philosophy and science can only be preserved in a written
mode. Writing makes it possible to check and recheck information
to make sure that the information is correct.!' Thus, even though

literacy is not needed for one to become a Christian, it must not be

discounted as Mbiti does. Even though it may sometimes not be the
case, literacy may help people understand their faith better. Who
knows what important insights are being lost because many
illiterate Christians cannot read the Bible for themselves? Who
knows how many Christians are being led astray because they
cannot read the Bible for themselves? Celebrating orality and even

suggesting that it be seen as an ideal context for the spread of

Christianity does not only prevent would-be Christians from
developing insights that can be obtained only by reading the Bible
for themselves, it also promotes an illiterate culture. Given that the
talk in Africa in the last fifty years or so has been about the
economic development of the continent, such celebration of
illiteracy undermines the vision ofdevelopment. While careful
attention must be paid to make sure that the gospel is transmitted to
those who are illiterate, portraying African culture as essentially

17
KwameAnthony Appiah, Thinking It Through: An Introduction 10

Contemporary Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 349-353.

62 David Tonghou Ngong
oral does more harm than good to the modernization of the
continent. All those who see a connection between literacy and
economic development need to cry out against such celebration of
orality. Being an oral culture is not an essentially African
phenomenon-it is characteristic of all pre-literate cultures from
ancient to modern times. It is therefore problematic to see the
orality of African cultures as a phenomenon that has to be
preserved.
Promoting an oral culture in Africa is just one way by which
theologians attempt to reclaim an essential African traditional
culture; a more common way of doing this is the appropriation of
what is believed to be the African spiritualized cosmology. The
appropriation of the African spiritualized cosmology began with
mainline African Christian theology and flowers today in African
Pentecostalism. This appropriation of a supposedly African
spiritualized cosmology is much evident in the understanding of
salvation in African theology.
The point is often made that the churches that were planted by
missionaries failed to adequately address African spiritualized
cosmology. If this charge is correct, however, the blame cannot be
placed at the door of the theologians of these churches because,
from the very inception of contemporary African Christian
theology, these theologians insisted that the understanding of
salvation in African Traditional Religions (ATRs) be taken
seriously. Taking the understanding of salvation in ATRs seriously
was a central concern of the theology of inculturation.i'' Mbiti, the

Anglican priest from Kenya, was instrumental in making the case

when he insisted that the Christian understanding of salvation must

approximate the understanding of salvation in ATRs. Of the
understanding of salvation which Christianity met in Africa, Mbiti
writes:

18
For more on the theology of inculturation in Africa see, Laurenti
Magesa, Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa
(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2004).
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 63

On coming to African peoples, the Christian message of

sal vation found a well established notion that God rescues
people when all other help is exhausted, and that this rescue
is primarily from material and physical dilemmas. God does
not save because he [sic] is Saviour; rather, he becomes
Saviour when he does save. The concept of saving is a
dynamic one which is rooted in a particular moment of
.
19
d esperauon.

The call was therefore that salvation in African Christianity should

reflect the understanding of salvation in ATRs. Mbiti was not alone
inmaking this call.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, the Methodist theologian from
Ghana, insisted that just as salvation is central to ATRs,
Christianity can learn from ATRs by seeing salvation as central to
the Christian faith. She then goes on to suggest some of the issues
that must be included in the understanding of salvation in African
Christianity: "Our salvation theology has to feature the questions of
racism and liberation from material need .... Above all, salvation
is to be salvation from evil, both individual and structural.
seen as

At several points our Christian theology can be aided by African

religious beliefs.,,20 Kwame Bediako, the Presbyterian theologian

from Ghana, insisted that the primal worldview which characterizes
the African imagination must be reclaimed not only in the African
context but also in the West. He insisted that Jesus Christ should be
understood as divine conqueror in the African world, the one who
overcomes the spiritual fears of Africans in the "deep forest.,,21

19
Mbiti, "6 corrnp �[Link] as an African Experience," Christ and Spirit in
the New Testament, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1973),397.
20
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, "The Value of African Religious Beliefs and
Practices for Christian Theology," in African Theology En Route, ed. Kofi
Appiah-Kubi and Sergio Torres (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 115.
21
Kwame Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and
Experience (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 8-17.
64 David Tonghou Ngong
Jean-Marc Ela, the Roman Catholic theologian from Cameroon
who is one of the foremost liberation theologians in Africa, insisted
that liberation theology must go hand in hand with inculturation

theology. This means that African theology must not only address
the socio-political and economic contexts of the continent but also
the cultural context. This cultural context included the spiritualized
cosmology which is common in traditional Africa.r' In fact, a

Roman Catholic leader such Archbishop

as Emmanuel
Milingo,
who became Archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, in 1969, increasingly
"saw his religious vocation in terms of combating the all too real
forces of evil." He stated that "In my tradition, society knew that
,,23
the spirits could cause spiritual disorder in the community. He
then went on to place emphasis on "spiritual healing and
exorcism... combine traditional beliefs with the language of the
charismatic revival.,,24 As a Roman Catholic, Milingo's work is a
one person refutation of the blanket claim usually made by some

advocates of African Pentecostalism, namely, that mission created

churches in Africa could not adequately deal with African
spiritualized cosmology.
In South Africa, one of the leading figures in Black Theology,
the Anglican Manas Buthelezi, insisted that his view of salvation
was partly based on the understanding of salvation as wholeness in

22
Jean-Marc Ela, My Faith as an African (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1988), originally published as Ma foi d'africain (Paris: Editions Karthala,
1985). For more on African Theology as inculturation and liberation see,
Emmanuel Martey, African Theology: Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1994); Benezet Bujo, African Theology in Its Social Context
(Maryknoll, NY: ORbis Books, 1992).
23
Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global
Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 130. Jenkins cites Edward
Stourton, Absolute Truth (Simon and Schuster, 2000), 183-191 and Niels
Christian Hvidt, "Interview with Archbishop Immanuel Milingo," online at
[Link] Also see, Emmanuel Milingo, The
World in Between (C. Hurst and Company, 1984).
24
Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 130.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 65 .

ATRs.25 It is for this reason Christologies wer�

that various African
constructed that saw Jesus Christ mostly as healer, prophet, priest
or ancestor, with the goal of making Jesus speak to the African

traditional contexts.i" Even the South African theologian, T. S.

Maluleke, who floats the possibility that religion may partly be
responsible for the declining welfare of many Africans, quotes the
theologian Henry Okulu with seeming approval when Okulu claims
that authentic African theology is to be found in the village
churches, in schools and frontiers "where traditional religions meet
with Christianity.T" All of this theologizing, however, appeared
not to have significantly penetrated the mainline churches.
It was rather the theology of the Pentecostal-type churches
that apparently significantly approximated the understanding of
salvation in ATRs_28 The eminent Nigerian church historian, Ogbu
Kalu, has helpfully pointed out that there have been three responses
to Western Christian missions in Africa. The first was the
establishment of the Ethiopian churches, the second was the rise of
the prophet-healing or spirit churches, and the third is the current

neo-Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity that is spreading like

25
Manas Buthelezi, "Salvation Wholeness," in A Reader in African
as

Christian Theology, ed. John Parratt

(London: SPK, 1997), 85-90.
26
See, Robert J. Schreiter, Faces of Jesus in Africa (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1991); Diane B. Stinton, Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary
African Christology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004).
27
Tinyiko Sam Maluleke, "Half A Century of African Christian
Theologies: Elements of the Emerging Agenda for the Twenty-first Century," in
African Christianity, 411-412. Maluleke cites Henry Okulu, Church and Politics
in East Africa (Nairobi: Uzima Press, 1974),54.
28
By Pentecostal-type churches I mean those churches that stress the
role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. In Africa these churches include the
prophet-healing/spiritual or Zionist Churches and their current incarnation in
neo-Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. See Allan H. Anderson, African
Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (Trenton,
NJ: Africa World Press, 2001),3-22.
66 David Tonghou Ngong
29
wildfire on the continent. All these churches fall under what has
variously been called African Independent Churches, African
Instituted Churches or African Initiated Churches (AICs), but the
Pentecostal-type churches belong
..
to the second and the third
responses. Thesecond response, known as the prophet-healing or
spirit churches, have variously been referred to as Zionist (South
Africa), Aladura (Nigeria) or Roho (Kenya) Churches, among
others.r" These churches started in the 1920s and 1930s, partly
propelled by the healings which their charismatic founders were
believed to have effected during the 1918 influenza epidemic in
Africa. Thus it is that, like the ATRs, these churches demonstrated
a "pragmatic approach to the Christian life through their prayers

and rituals." Of these churches Adogame and Jafta write:

The AIC belief systems should be understood in light of

/
their respective socio-cultural contexts. Belief in spiritual
agency remains a cornerstone of the AIC's worldview, a
worldview that incorporates both this-worldly and other­
worldly orientation. Special emphasis and attention is
placed on spiritual healing, prophecy, visions
and dreams,
trance, exorcism. A feature germane to AIC worldview is
the acquisition, retention and manipulation of spiritual
power to conquer myriad of "evil" forces that populate the
world around them. Members accept the traditional
'I
explanation for diseases, illnesses, and misfortunes but
jettison the modus operandi of traditional healing. Through
effectual and elaborate ritual action, members
prayers
attention, power and action of the benevolent
attract the
forces (God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit and the angelic

'29
Ogbu Kalu, "The Third Response: Pentecostalism and the
Reconstruction of Christian Experience in Africa," Journal of African Christian
Thought 1 2 (December 1998): 1-21.
no.
30
See, Afe Adogame and Lazio Jafta, "Zionists, Aladura, and Roho:
African Initiated Churches," in African Christianity: An African Story, ed. Ogbu
U. Kalu (Trenton, �J: Africa World Press, 2007), 271-287.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 67

forces) against the malicious, evil forces that parade the

cosmos.3}

Thus it is that these churches came to embrace the worldview of

ATRs while rejecting the means through which this worldview was

to be dealt with. Salvation for them came to include the

appropriation ofthe power of the Spirit of Christ to overcome the
many spiritual forces that may attempt to do them harm.
Charismatic leaders like the Liberian William Wade Harris, who is
one of the most significant African missionaries because he
preached from Liberia to Ivory Coast and Ghana, and initiated the
Harrist Church, attracted much following. He attracted much
following because he, as Jenkins points out, unlike the Western
"missionaries, who called witchcraft a delusion knew its power all ...

too well, and called upon his followers to spurn occult practices.,,32

"In the eyes of his followers," Anderson writes, Harris

"demonstrated that the God of the Bible was more powerful than
the ancient divinities," ancestors, an� nature spirits.33 Simon
Kimbangu, from the Congo, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to
become a prophet healer during the 1918 influenza and so he
attracted many followers, giving birth to the Church of the Lord
Jesus Christ on Earth of the Prophet Simon Kimbangu (abbreviated
in French as EJCSK). In the same way, the Zionist churches
developed in South Africa, the Aladura in Nigeria; and the Roho in
Kenya.
A singular characteristic of all these churches was that
they
saw some elements of the worldview of ATRs as a challenge to
their followers and appropriated Christian spiritual discourses to
address them. Because these churches accepted the worldview of
ATRs, proposing Christian spirituality as the best means to deal

31
Ibid., 280-81. For one of the earliest studies of these churches, see

Bengt O. M. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London: Oxford

University Press, 1961, first published by Lutterworth Press, 1948).
32
Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 48--49.
33
Anderson, African Reformation, 73.
68 David Tonghou Ngong
with it, many scholars, especially historians of religion, church
historians, anthropologists, and some theologians, came to see them
as the quintessential expression of African Christianity. The
mission planted churches were seen as having failed to effectively
meet the spiritual needs of African Christians because, like the
missionaries that planted them, they tended to question or
downplay the validity of traditional religious worldview. The
prophet-healing or spirit churches came to be seen as authentic
African churches because they catered to what appeared essential
to the African worldview. The assumption here is apparently that
the best way to address the various issues raised by the African
spiritualized cosmology is not to raise the fundamental question
relative to their validity (as missionaries and mission churches did)
but is rather to accept them and then propose Jesus Christ or the
Holy Spirit as the ultimate power that overcomes the malevolent
forces that threaten people. Because the African imagination is
believed to be essentially spiritual, critically interrogating it is
tantamount to corrupting this imagination with a distasteful
Western rationality.
The conclusion in the literature was therefore unanimous: the
missionaries and the mission churches had approach to the
a wrong
African cosmology while the prophet-healing spirit churches had
or

the correct one. A leading scholar of the prophet healing and spirit
churches in Zimbabwe concludes:

The failure of Missions to cope with the real issues

frequent
in the lives of the traditionalists or of their African converts
left a vacuum which the Independent Church leaders were

well equipped to fill. In this respect the [prophet-healing

churches] had a distinct
advantage over the [Missions
churches] Familiarity with existing practices and beliefs
.

facilitates their task of presenting the tenets of Christianity

 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 69

to the African mind, if not at a deeper level, then at least in

a more appropriate idiom.34

How did it become obvious that the prophet-healing churches had

the more appropriate approach to the African cultural context? It
became obvious because most people flocked to them.
People
flocked to them especially because of "the supernatural powers of
the prophets and healing miracles that counteract the forces of evil,
disease, and witchcraft." This has special appeal especially to those
who are "unhappy and dissatisfied with the strictly western nature
,,35
of most mission churches.
However, apart from South Africa, these prophet-healing and
spirit churches have beendeclining in much of Africa in recent
years. Their place is now being taken by the neo-Pentecostal­
Charismatic churchesr'" What used to be said of the prophet­
healing and spirit churches is now being said of the neo­
Pentecostal-Charismatic churches, namely that people are fleeing
from the mission created or mainline churches (and in some cases
from the older prophet-healing or spirit churches 37) to them
because these mission churches cannot adequately address their
needs. Again, these needs are issues raised by the spiritualized
African cosmology.

34
Daneel, Old and New, 451. Daneel has recently argued that the
world view of these prophet-healing or spirit churches could help address some of
the ecological issues of our time. See his African Earthkeepers: Wholistic
Interfaitli Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001).
35
Appiah-Kubi, "Indigenous African Christian Churches: Signs of
Authenticity," in African Theology En Route, ed. Kofi Appiah-Kubi and Sergio
Torres (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 120.
36
For more on these new churches, see, J. K wabena Asamoah-Gyadu,
African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous
Pentecostalism in Ghana (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), chapters two and
three; Allan Anderson, African Reformation; Ogbu Kalu, African
Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
37
Some flee the older prophet-healing or spirit churches to the neo­
Pentecostal-Charismatic churches because some of these older churches are seen

as too cosy with some elements of ATRs.

70 David Tonghou Ngong
One of the leading voices that defend neo- Pentecostal­
Charismatic Christianity in Africa is the scholar of Pentecostalism,
Allan Anderson. He rightfully points out that central to the African
worldview is the concept of power or "vital force," as Tempels
38
calls it. In this context a person is seen as a "living force" who is
able to increase or decrease in vital force and who can influence or

be influenced by other forces. To be, then, is to have power or

force; to lack power or force is tantamount to lacking being. Since
these forces, both' personal and otherwise, are spiritual, it goes
without saying that one's materiality and spirituality are
inseparable. People have to be able to effectively "manage" the
spirit world in order to foster their well being. That is why,
Anderson avers, in times of crisis, Africans visit prophets, diviners,
and seers who are believed to have a deeper perception of the
spiritual realm and who can thus help them achieve cosmological
balance. But the reliance on power in traditional African religious
thought, he points out, produces a "vicious cycle" that leaves the
African in constant "helplessness and weakness." This is because
ATRs understand God as unpredictable and capricious; the
ancestors on whom they sometimes rely for protection and security
are not omnipotent. This leaves the African in constant need of a

power that is reliable and omnipotent, a power that can adequately

address their religious context.
Anderson also charges the missionary churches for having
largel y discounted this context and therefore caused the African to
have a split personality-they were partly Christians and partly
adherents 'of ATRs. In this context, the Pentecostal-type churches'
presentation of the Holy Spirit as the power that is stronger than
any other power is good news to African ears. These churches

38
Allan Anderson, Moya: The Holy Spirit in an African Context
(Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1991), 58-73. Also see Placide Tempels,
"Bantu Ontology," in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze (ed), African Philosophy: An
Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 429-434. Like all ideas that
appear to generalize what "Africans" think, Tempels' notion of vital force has
also been critiqued for essentializing African identity.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 71

introduced the idea of the Holy Spirit as the ultimate power that
grants the believer the ability to overcome all other powers that sap
the life of human beings. The Holy Spirit gives humans the power
to be. In fact, the experience of the power of the Spirit can be seen

as the hermeneutic key for understanding the theology of the

Pentecostal-type churches. Anderson notes that

experiencing the power of the Spirit is a common

characteristic of these churches, where the Holy Spirit is the

agent of healing and deliverance. In this regard, the
experience of the Spirit becomes a self-authenticating key
in the hermeneutic process. In these churches therefore, the
experience of the Spirit becomes an essential and perhaps
the most important key in the hermeneutic. It might even be
said that this experience of the Spirit is the dominant theme
of the gospel as understood by Pentecostal AICs. The gifts
of the Spirit are proof that the gospel is true and the
confirmation of the written word of the Bible.39

Anderson insists that thispneumatology is more relevant in the

African context than the sterile
one imported into the continent by

the West. The dynamic or power pneumatology that the

Pentecostal-type AICs preach is relevant because it provides the
solution that Africans seek. He continues:

The African traditionalist is in a situation of weakness, or of

utter dependance [sic] power operating
on a from outside to
which one does not have permanent access, and which is
always conditional. In short, a person's need for power
which will cater for the necessities of life and protect from
its vicissitudes-a life that is full, prosperous, healthy,
peaceful and secure .... The message that the Spirit-type

39
Anderson, African Reformation, 222.
72 David Tonghou Ngong
churches proclaimed was the power of the Spirit given to a

person permanently and unconditionally."

Thus, according Anderson, the Pentecostal-type AICs provide a

to
"holistic theology of salvation," a "pnematological soteriology"
that sees salvation not "exclusively in terms of salvation from
sinful acts and from eternal condemnation in the hereafter ... but also
in terms of salvation from sickness (healing), from evil spirits
(exorcism), and from other forms of misfortunes.,,41 Hear him
again:

People want to celebrate life to the full and triumph over

prevailing adversity, particularly disease, poverty, and
injustice. Sickness and affliction prevent the fullness of life
that Christ came to bring, and like the "leprosy" in biblical
times, they isolate people from full participation in the
community and disturb the social equilibrium. AICs offer
solutions seemingly more powerful than those offered either
by traditional means or by Western Christianity, and they
claim in the name of Christ deliverance from this
adversity.V
As such, Anderson believes that prophecy, deliverance, and even
the so-called gospel of prosperity (in spite of all its weaknesses)
are, in fact, proclamation of the salvific work of God through
Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. This pneumatological
soteriology, for him, does something that is hardly done in
Christian mission-it combines proclamation and demonstration of
the power of the gospel. In fact, unlike Western theology that is
highly theoretical, Anderson points out, the theology of the AICs is

40
Anderson, Moya, 69.
41
Anderson, African Reformation, 233.
42
Anderson, African Reformation, 233-234.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 73

practical theology.f In this context the healing and deliverance

activities of the charismatic leaders of these churches become the
important work of pastoral care. Here again the similarity of this
understanding of salvation and that of African traditional religious
thought is unmistakable. According to Anderson, this view of
salvation does not only adequately address the African worldview
but is also deeply biblical.l" For him, engaging this worldview has
helped these AICs, especially its most recent manifestations, to
grow exponentially in Africa, thus preventing Africans from
relapsing into their pre-Christian religion as happened to them
when all they had was Western Christianity. By taking their
worldview serious I y, this Christianity has also prevented Africans
from the secularism that characterizes Western Christianity. The
fact that these churches are growing at the expense of Western
mission churches, Anderson points out, shows that they are doing

something right-they are meeting the felt needs of the people."

In fact, some scholars have now documented how the
mainline churches are being Pentecostalized because these
churches they may die out if they do not go the
fear that
Pentecostal way. "In Ghana today," as Asamoah-Gyadu points out,
"the historic mission churches now organize prayer pilgrimages for
members. They hold national evangelistic/healing crusades,
anointing services, and other renewal-oriented programs meant to
empower people in the Spirit.,,46
Thus the power of the Holy Spirit

43
Anderson calls it "theology in practice," a "dynamic, enacted
theology." See, Ibid., 215-219,120.
44
Allan Anderson, "The Prosperity Message in the Eschatology of
Some New Charismatic Churches in South Africa," Missionalia 15 no. 2(1987):
72-83; African Reformation, 220-224, 256. The church, Anderson insists, needs
to reclaim the emphasis on "biblical holism" characteristic of this Christianity.
See P. 1. Grabe, 'The Pentecostal Discovery of the New Testament Theme of
God's Power and Its Relevance to the African Context', Pneuma: The Journal of
the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 24 no. 2 (Fall 2002), 225-242.
45
Anderson, African Reformation, 250-253.
46
1. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, '''I Will Put My Breath in You, and
You Will Come to Life': Charismatic Renewal in Ghanaian Mainline Churches
74 David Tonghou Ngong
seems to be sweeping through Africa being apparently
demonstrated mostly in miracles of salvation that. entails
transformed life, healing and deliverance, prosperity and
[Link] thus appears that those churches that do not think in
these terms are portrayed as either on their way to extinction or
failing to address the felt needs of the
people.
The felt needs. of the
people, in this case, are cone ... 'led
mainly in terms of their spiritualized cosmology, a cosmology that
is regularly compared unfavourably with a supposedly decadent
Western rationalistic worldview. This decadent Western
rationalistic worldview is often seen as being outside what it means

to be an African. Thus, the fact that some of the felt needs of the
people (such as healthcare, education, communication, etc.) can be
taken care of through the rationalistic imagination is often ignored,
even as Africans continue to benefit from inventions that owe their
existence to an elaborate promotion of the rationalistic imagination.
Little wonder, then, that many African governments do not see the
urgency to develop science and technology! It is because Africans
stand to benefit significantly from an elaborate promotion of the
rationalisticimagination that this essay insists that African
theologians wrongly pita supposedly spiritualized African
must not

cosmology against a supposedly Western rationalistic worldview.

As African philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Paulin Hountondji,

and ItsImplications for African 'Diasporan' Christianity," in Christianity in

Africa and the
African Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage,
Afe Adogame, Roswith Gerloff and Klaus Hock, ed. (London; Continuum,
2008), 196.
47
Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics; J. Kwabena Asamoah­
See
Gyadu, "'Born of Water and the Spirit': Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in
Africa," in African Christianity, 339-357.E. Kingsley Larbi, Pentecostalism: The
Eddies of Ghanaian Christianity (Accra, Ghana: Center for Pentecostal and
Charismatic Studies, 2001); Roswith Gerloff, "Churches of the Spirit: The
Pentecostal/Charismatic and Africa's Contribution to the Renewal of
Christianity," in
Christianity in Africa and the African Diaspora, 208-220. For
the perception of this form of Christianity as liberation, see Daneel, African
Earthkeepers, 280-283.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 75

and Marcien Towa have shown, the rationalistic and scientific

imagination is not a Western preserve; it is also central to the
African imagination.i" These philosophers have called for the gulf
that is usually made between the so-called African spiritualistic
worldview and a supposedly Western rationalistic worldview to be

bridged for the benefit of Africans in the modem world.

African Philosophy and the Critique of Essentialism

The spiritualized cosmology which is being defended as "African"

in African has been described in African philosophy as
theolo�y
ethnophilosophy." The philosophers who challenged the
ethnophilosophical depiction of African philosophy did so for
many reasons but two of these appear crucial. The first is
reasons

that what was described as the African worldview or cosmology

also passed for
philosophy and the second is that what passed for
African philosophy did not address Africans as their primary
audience and was in fact not conducive to an enhanced African
participation in the modem world. What was hoisted on Africans as

African philosophy, these philosophers argue, was initiated by the

West with the intention of educating the West about how Africans
think and thus facilitate various forms of colonial and even neo­

colonial exploitation. This was especially the case with Tempels'

Bantu Philosophy which was clearly written to help colonial
administrations better understand how Africans think and for
missionaries to have a better grasp of how to present the gospel to

48
For these philosophers, see David T. Ngong, The Holy Spirit
more on

and Salvation inAfrican Christian Theology: Imagining a More Hopeful Future

for Africa (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010), chapters 3 and 4.
49
For more on this see Paulin J. Hountondji, "Knowledge as a

Development Issue," in A
Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Kwasi Wiredu
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 527-537.
76 David Tonghou Ngong
Africans.i'' Even the Negritude movement of Senghor was not
intended for Africans; rather, it aimed at valorizing Africans to
their European counterparts. Because depictions of Africans in
these works were not intended for African consumption, these
depictions focused on things that were not essential to
addressing
some of the major issues that Africans face in the modem world.
Philosophers who critique ethnophilosophy want to talk about
Africa in such a way that addresses contemporary challenges rather
than fixating on an essentialistic African identity that does not

appear to hold much promise for the people in modem times.

Concerning the first reason, because philosophers such as the
Beninois Paulin Hountondji, the Ghanaian Kwasi Wiredu, and the
Cameroonian Marcien Towa had formal training in Western
philosophy and teaching the subject in universities in their
were

various countries, they thought that what passed for African

philosophy was in fact not philosophical enough. They thought that
philosophy emphasizes critical rationality that questions apparent
certainty. For them, to claim that the beliefs of a group of people,
beliefs which have apparently not been critically investigated,
should pass for philosophy, is tantamount to redefining what
philosophy should be in Africa in an improper way. It was for this
reason that Hountondji rejected what he called "ethnophilosophy"

because it was characterized by "unanimism." This unanimism

gives the impression that everyone in a particular African society
agreed on how the world should be viewed. It was for this reason
that Hountondji was among the first to call for what would later
come to be known as "sage philosophy.t''" African sage philosophy

developed as an attempt to challenge unanimism by researching the

50
Hountoundji, "Comments on Contemporary African Philosophy,"
112, [Link] J. Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth and Reality
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983),34.
51
Hountondji, "Comments on Contemporary African Philosophy," 125
n.19.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 77

thought of some African sages who held different views on some of

52
the things that were widely believed in their societies.
Ethnophilosophy included the works of Tempels and his
African followers such as Alexis Kagame and, as Hountondji saw
it, it was "an attempt to reconstruct a hypothetical collective
'philosophy'." For him, therefore, ethnophilosophy did not merit to
be called philosophy but rather should be seen as pre-philosophical,
as raw material for philosophical reflection. Ethnophilosophy is

raw material for philosophical reflection because Hountondji

believed that such collective beliefs are beliefs which have not been
reflected upon and therefore need rigorous reflection for their truth
or falsity to be determined. Under criticism. from some African

philosophers who insisted that collective beliefs are not necessarily

beliefs that have not been reflected upon, Hountondji has come to
acknowledge the validity of some collective beliefs. He has
however not renounced his critique of the apparent unanimism that
is characteristic of ethnophilosophy.i" In fact, for Hountondji,
ethnophilosophy marked a dubious philosophical self-effacement
that makes African ethnophilophers lose themselves in
an apparent

collective mode of thinking. This is because he believes that

ethnophilosophy was largely the creation of the individual
philosopher who wrote them. They purported to be describing the
beliefs of various societies when in fact they were representing
54
their own beliefs.
For Hountondji, this feigned unanimism serves a dangerous
political function in that it stifles freedom of speech and creativity.
52
For more on this see the work of the Kenyan philosopher, Odera
Oruka, ed. Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate
on

African Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1990).

53
See, Paulin 1. Hountondji, "Knowledge as Development," in A
Companion to African Philosophy, 529-531.
54
Hountondji, "Comments on Contemporary African Philosophy," 117.
For further critique of the ethnophilosophical tendencies in African thought see
Achille Mbembe "African Modes of Self-Writing," Public Culture 14 no. I
(2002): 237-273. Also see Mbembe's seminal work On the Postcolony
(Berkeley and :Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2001)
78 David Tonghou Ngong
It stifles freedom of speech because its suggestion that there is a
prescribed view of some important elements of life in a society
forecloses possible objections to that view. However, critical
philosophy cannot be effectively done in a context where freedom
of speech is curtailed because it would be difficult to get at the
55
heart of the truth. Objections to certain ways of life in a particular
society may be dismissed simply by stating that that way of life is
the prescribed way, the way society has always believed and acted.
This forecloses any critical discussion of the matter. Freedom of
speech is also important for creativity and human well-being
because where people are not allowed to develop ways of thinking
that are not prescribed it may not be possible to come up with new
and fruitful ideas that may make the lives of people better. In a
postcolonial African context where the new political elite were
already curtailing freedom of speech and mounting all kinds of
autocratic regimes that continue even to the present,
ethnophilosophy was therefore playing into the hands of these
elites. Thus it was that ethnophilosophy, just like the nation-states
that we now have in Africa, actually serves the interest of the elites
and their foreign patrons rather than the people who are being
spoken about.
Hountondji therefore saw both ethnophilosophy and the
Negritude movement as elitist diversionary tactics. Drawing from
Aime Cesaire, he charged that ethnophilosophy was a diversion
intended to remove the attention of the people from the
fundamental political and economic problems that have arisen from
colonialism and neo-colonialism. Tempels' Bantu Philosophy,
which was apparently intended to valorize African thinking, came
to be seen as an attempt to preserve the colonial order. "Since the
Bantu's thinking was ontological," Cesaire, using considerable
sarcasm, wrote,

55Hountondji, "Comments on Contemporary African Philosophy," 127-

130.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 79

[T]he Bantus only wished for satisfaction of an ontological

kind. Decent pay! Comfortable
living quarters! Food! But
of course these Bantus are such spiritual folks, 'what they
want above everything and before everything is not

improvement of their economic or material situation, but

the white man's recognition of dignity as a man, for their
full human value.' In fact, doff your hats to the Bantu vital
force, wink at the eternal Bantu soul, and you're quitS.56
Another significant African philosopher who critiqued
ethnophilosophy is the Cameroonian, Marcien Towa, For him,
however, the stress on ethnophilosophy is also an unhelpful attempt
to preserve an African originality or authenticity which is believed
to lie in the African past. This past, for Towa, is one that leaves
much to be desired. A basic point of departure for Towa is that of
colonial conquest. For those who are attempting to conjure a
pristine African past in ethnophilosophy and Negritude, Towa
reminds them that the tradition we had in the past is the very

tradition that led to conquest

ourin the past. For him, if this were a.
viable tradition, Africans would not have been colonized, Conquest
exposed weakness in our African tradition that must not be
promoted." For Towa, if Africa is to nurse any hope of
participating in the modern world in a respectful manner, it must
acknowledge the weakness of the cultures that led it to become
subservient in the global order and then learn those elements (or
secrets) of the imperialist West that enabled it to sit on Africa for
this long." For him, African scholars may sing all they want about.

56
Aime Cesaire, Discours sur le colonialisme (Paris: Presence
Africaine, 1950), 45. Cited in Hountondji, "Comments on Contemporary African
Philosophy," 116.
57
This point is also made in Cheikh Hamidou Kane's novel, Ambiguous
Adventure (London: Heinemann, 1972).
58
Towa, Essai problematique philosophique dans l'Afrique
sur La
actuelle,40. Also see, Philosophy and an African Culture
Kwasi Wiredu,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 40.
80 David Tonghou Ngong
the originality of African cultures but it would amount to nothing if
Africans do not have the economic and political power to make its
influence felt in the global order.
Towa draws an expression from Karl Marx to make his point:
"The class which is the dominant power in the society is also the
dominant spiritual power. The class which provides the means of
material production, in the same manner, provides the means of
,,59
intellectual production. Applied to the relation between
contemporary Africa and the rest of the world, especially the West
and the rising powers in Asia such as China, India, and Japan,
Africa is being made to do the bidding of these other powers
because they control the means of production. Even more poignant
for Christianity, it may be interesting to note that although the
number of Christians in Africa is increasing in our time, African
Christian leaders still get much Of their training from the West.
Thus, although the number of Christians in the West (with the
possible exception of the United States) is dwindling while that of
Africa is increasing, Africa is still theologically reliant on the West.
Most books being read in African theological institutions are
published in the West and, using their financial and educational
strength, many scholars still leave the West for brief and sometimes
prolonged teaching periods in seminaries and theological schools in
many African countries. The reverse can hardly be said to be the
case.

Those who leave the West to teach in theological schools and

seminaries in Africa may pretty well teach what they please
because they usually pay their way through the process; in fact,
these scholars teach African students what it means to be correct

Christians, which is usually the Western way. On the other hand,

those who leave Africa to teach in theological schools and
universities in the West are usually policed by these institutions
because these institutions foot the bills and even still claim

59
Towa, Essai sur La problematique philosophique dans l'Afrique
Actuelle, 52. My translation.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 81
[
theological superiority, The issue of gay marriage that has rocked
the Anglican Church has led some churches in the West to align
with churches in Africa and African Anglican churches have
increasingly had significant role to play in the Lambert Conference.
Some have hailed this as African influence in world Christianity.
However, Africa is still largely marginal in the life of the church in
general because the continent is still generally dependent on the
West and now Asia. These are the people who control the world

today. Even though there would soon be more Christians in Africa

and Latin America than anywhere else in the world, these places
are still largely marginal because they do not yet have economic

and political might. (Brazil is an exception in Latin America).

Towa does not make the connection which has been made
above but one can discern it from his Marxian perspective. Towa's
point is that Africans can sing about their cultural difference all
they want but without economic and
political power, the continent
will still remain the backwater of the world, it will still remain
under the subjugation of the dominant powers in the world. The
same can be said of African Christianity: the
optimistic view that
African Christianity is going to influence world Christianity will
come to naught if Africa does not have the economic and political
means to promote what Africans believe. It is often the case that
those with power lord it over those who do not have power both in
church and in society. This is glaringly displayed in the nature of
Western Christian mission in Africa and more dramatically in cases

where a Europeans with guns conquered a mass of

handful of
Africans with spears, bows and arrows, as obtained during colonial
conquests. It is also manifested in the few African elites who lord it
over their people with the help of their Western patrons who send
them guns and' cash. It is therefore important that Africans be
enabled to be economically and politically viable if their
subservient position in the world is to be overturned.
Before leaving to study philosophy in various universities
around the world, Towa was trained in a Catholic seminary in
Cameroon. Thus, when he said that "The people who decided to
 82 David Tonghou Ngong
lose their essence in order to assimilate the secret of the imperialist
West recover themselves
by remaining themselves and, on the
contrary, those who wanted to preserve their originality are in the
process of losing their innermost being (etre 'profond) by losing
themselves/''" he was probably thinking of the statement attributed

to Jesus Christ in Matthew 10:39: "Those who find their life will
lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it"
(NRSV). Here Jesus .Christ is talking about what it takes to
establish a relationship with God through him and this applies to
matters of faith. But when Towa similar idea, he is
conjures a
connecting it to the relation between Western and African cultures.
Towa believes that because Western imperialism has dominated
Africans for very long time, it is incumbent upon Africans to
a
I

learn what makes the West tick if Africans are to secure any future
of well being in the modem world. It is for this reason that Towa
calls for a revolution of world view that mounts a vigorous
challenge to African cultures that do not stand' the test" of the
modem world. He makes his case by showing how Russia and
.
China revolted against traditional modes of thought so as to make
new and enduring cultures for themselves.
He argues that Russian identity was for a long time
characterized by mystical tradition that
a had a "profound spiritual
desire for suffering." In fact, suffering was seen as the avenue

through which Russians would be saved. But by the middle of the

nineteenth century there emerged thinkers such as Belinskij who
.

drew from his "philosophy of lights" to argue that Russia was in

dire "need of education, justice,' 'dignity, and liberty, rather than
. mysticism or piety."?'
Towa sees this challenge to traditional
Russian identity as the. road that led
the. emergence of to
communism in Russia and the transformation of the whole society.
The same could be said for China which, as Towa points out,

60
Towa, Essai sur la problematique philosophique dans
.
l'Afrique
Actuelle,46.
61
Towa, Essai sur la problematique philosophique dans l'Afrique
actuelle, 43.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian' Theology 83

underwent a "formidable cultural revolution" through the activities

of the "May Fourth Movement." This movement is known as May
Fourth Movement because it took place on 4th May 1919 and,
according to Towa, it could be described as the Chinese
Enlightenment. For Towa, this movement challenged traditional
Confucian morality and made it possible for China to adopt
elements of Western philosophical and scientific cultures without
completely dismantling what it means to be Chinese. In fact, the
leaders of the May Fourth Movement translated many Western
works into Chinese and invited many Western scholars to deliver
lectures in China. Towa sees this movement as the starting point for
contemporary China.62 It was only through appropriating "the
secret of European power" that China could develop itself and
promote its ownculture.63 Hence, China and Russia had not
insisted on maintaining a stale tradition that had no relevance for
the times. Even more important, China borrowed from Western
imperialistic culture in order to attain a world status where Chinese
culture could be promoted.
Thus, the paradox in the statement of Jesus obtains in the
interaction of culture, especially the interaction between Western
scientific and technological cultures and African cultures. If Africa
insists on maintaining something called African authenticity that
fails to learn from Western philosophical and scientific rationality,

Africa may soon have no culture to protect. On the other hand, if

Africa learns from Western philosophical and scientific rationality,
that may be a means towards the preservation of African cultures.
One may argue whether Towa's reading of the situation in Russia
and China is accurate but the point he makes is a serious one that
must be meditated upon. The lesson for Africa is therefore. clear:
For Towa, there need to be a revolution that challenges what it
means to be African. Rather than looking for what it means to be

62
Towa, Essai sur La problematique philosophique dans l'Afrique
actuelle, 44-45.
63
Towa, Essai sur La problematique philosophique ·dans l'Afrique
actuelle, 45.
84 David Tonghou Ngong
African in the past, as ethnophilosophy and Negritude did, Africans
should be learning the secret of the power of the V"; est so that it
could improve its lot in the modern world. It is only through such
creative self-destruction that Africa can build a more hopeful

future.
Towa's call for the creative destruction of Africa has led
some to accuse him of buying wholesale into Western culture
without giving much space for anything African.?" This is an
accusation which Wiredu attempts to avoid by critiquing some
elements of African culture while suggesting that others, such as
African communalism should be maintained scientifically
even in a

and technologically advanced Africa. It is for this reason that

-

Wiredu sees philosophy as crucial in reforming, adapting, and

developing African cultures, especially those elements of the
cultures which he describes as "evils" namely, anachronism,
authoritarianism, and supernaturalism. Wiredu defines anachronism
as "anything which outlasts its
suitability," indicating that various
habits of thought and practices and even whole societies can
become anachronistic. He however points out that while ideas and
practices that outlast their suitability can be discarded, societies that
become anachronistic need to be modernized. He thus sees

discourses of development and underdevelopment as discourses

that also relate to societal anachronism. Societies that are not

ue\1e\o1?ec\ are societies that are regarded as not suitable in the

modem context, these societies, many of which are found in Africa,
[Link]. to be ftlOdemized.6S
A:.n important anachronistic element in African culture is the
lack of stress on "logic and rational procedures." Although he
believes that there is place for intuition and emotion in life,
a

Wiredu also faults Senghor for making a virtue of the role of

emotion in African thought, insisting that

64
Irele, "Introduction," 25-26.
oS
K wasi W iredu, Philosophy and African Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1980).
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 85

[I]n Africa anywhere else

as logical, mathematical,
. . .

analytical, experimental procedures are essential in the

quest for the knowledge of, and control over, nature and,
therefore, in any endeavour to improve the condition of man
[sic]. Our traditional culture was somewhat wanting in this
respect and this is largely responsible for the weaknesses of
traditional technology, warfare, architecture, medicine, etc.
There is little doubt that many of the hardships of traditional
life were, and still are, traceable to this cause.i"

Wiredu uses traditional medicine as an example. He acknowledges

that traditional medicine sometimes work even where modem
medicine has failed but he also points out that "traditional medicine
is terribly diagnosis and weaker still in pharmacology."
weak in
This weakness is partly due to the fact that traditional medicine
does not follow scientific procedures in diagnosis and preparation
of medicine. However, "Instead of a sober inquiry into the causes
of disease ... our medicine men [sic] launch into stories of
malevolent witchcraft and necromancy. Meanwhile, both children
and adults, the children in greater numbers, die or are incapacitated
through the administration of scientifically unresearched
prescriptions.t''" He therefore sees "any inclination to glorify the
un analytical cast of mind" in the African context as not just
retrograde but tragic. Unlike many African theologians who see the
promotion of the unanalytical and unscientific cast of mind as a
boon to Christianity, Wiredu correctly believes that it is one of the
anachronisms that must be challenged in Africa. The best way to do
this, Wiredu rightly avers, is through the promotion of the kind of
education that promotes critical thinking. Thus, unlike some
scholars of African studies who claim that education has not been
able to correct the unanalytical way of thinking common in many

66
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 12.
67
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 12-13.
86 David Tonghou Ngong

Africans, Wiredu believes that much of what passes for education

in Africa hardly builds critical minds.
Other anachronistic elements in African cultures which
Wiredu thinks should be challenged includes "the pervasiveness
and stress ceremony and ritual in many aspects of social life,"
on

such as elaborate and expensive funerals for example, which, even

though important in the past, "should now be
kept in more
reasonable bounds." The view that older people necessarily
are

wise is also anachronistic because "the wisdom of uninstructed

longevity is unlikely to prove extensively applicable in the complex
environments of modem life." Wiredu also insists that the
importance fertility in many African societies also has
attached to
to be challenged because "when children are produced without
regard to the means of upkeep and upbringing the consequences
,,68
�an be serious for them and the society. Wiredu is quite on the
mark with regard to these matters for they are matters about which
many African societies do not seem to have given critical and
extensive thought. More specifically, apart from some African
women theologians who still falteringly address the issue of

fertility, for example, given the high status placed on motherhood

in many African societies, African male theologians have hardly
addressed the issue.69
The second "evil" which Wiredu deplores in African societies
is authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is however also anachronistic
because it is not suitable in enabling Africa to participate
effectively in the modem world. He defines authoritarianism
as the

"unjustified overriding of an individual's will.,,7o It is crucial for

Wiredu that people be properly educated in a particular society so
that they may be able to make informed and rational choices. To

68
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 24.
69
See, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, "A Coming Home Myself: The
to
Childless Woman in the West African in
Space," Liberating Eschatology: Essays
in Honor of Letty M. Russell, ed. Margaret E. Farley and Serene Jones
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), 105-20.
70
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 2.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 87

make informed and rational choices means that people are made to
be aware of available alternatives. Thus, where people are not
aware of the alternatives available, they cannot be said to be
making informed and rational choices. Wiredu is aware that
sometimes people's choices are determined for them from birth,
such as when children are born into particular religions, but he
believes that this should not stop African societies from giving their
members the kind of education that makes them aware of
conceptual, practical, and other choices in life. It is for this reason

that he faults traditional African societies for having been very

authoritarian in ways that do not fit our modern context. Thus,
instead of justifying practices in society on the grounds of reason,
these societies have often fallen back explaining these practices
on

simply as explanation, Wiredu believes,

tradition. This mode of
does not promote the kind of imagination conducive for Africa to
flourish in the modern world. The political authoritarianism
rampant in many African societies, Wiredu points out, is only a
symptom of a deeper authoritarianism characteristic of African
cultures. Wiredu correctly believes that this attitude must be
challenged.
A third "evil" which Wiredu insists should be challenged in
Africa is supernaturalism. For him, supernaturalism is not belief in
the existence of supernatural beings but rather the "the tendency to
seek the basis of morality in some supernatural source." Wiredu
contrasts supernaturalism with humanism "according to which

morality is founded exclusively on considerations of human well­

being.,,7l Wiredu's main problem with supernaturalism is that it
does not always seek human well-being. According to him, when
people derive their morality from a supernatural source, it is
possible to do things which are clearly inhuman and yet still claim
a sense of piety or rectitude. The examples of Christians who go to

.
war or kill abortion providers in the name or God or the Islamic

suicide bombers, come to mind. However, when morality is

71
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 5.
88 David Tonghou Ngong
humanistic, Wiredu believes, it is possible to know when one's
actions are harmful because
they clear! y cause harm to people.
Wiredu believes that African morality is clear! y humanistic because
it seeks the well-being of people rather than the satisfaction of a
supernatural being.72 Although Wiredu seems to think that a
humanistic vision is more helpful than a theocentric one, honesty
demands that we acknowledge that the actual record of both is
mixed. His critique of "supernaturalism," however, needs to be
taken seriously rather than simply dismissed as an African example
of a move toward philosophical and intellectual atheism." We must
come to acknowledge in Africa, too, that just as Christianity and

other religions carry critical moral compasses, they may also be

sources of crimes against human beings.

In addition to anachronism, authoritarianism, and

supernaturalism, Wiredu is also concerned with how African
thought is compared with Western thought. Robin Horton
compared traditional African thought to Western philosophical and
scientific thought, claiming that they serve a similar function even
though they belong to different ways of thought. Wiredu is at pains
to point out that traditional African thought should not be compared
with modern Western philosophical and scientific thought but
rather with traditional thought in Western societies. For him all
traditional thought is pre-scientific so it would be inappropriate to
compare the pre-scientific thought of one people to the scientific
thought of another, as Horton does. This rebuttal of Horton's
comparison of African and Western thought leads Weridu to insist
that African thought is not as distinct from Western thought as
Horton would like it to be. The mode of thought which is dominant
in Africa today, Wiredu insists, is pre-scientific; this is a mode of
thought that was dominant in Europe before the emergence of
scientific rationality and is still dominant among many people of
the West to the present. This means that Africans do not have a

72
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 5-6.
73
Bediako sees Wiredu as promoting atheism. See Bediako, Theology
and Identity, 439, 443 n. 42.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 89

monopoly pre-modern ways of thinking and that the West does

on

not have monopoly on the modem mindset.

a

Wiredu refers to the mode of thought which is dominant

among many Africans as "superstition," and defines this as
"rationally unsupported belief in entities of any sort." This is
therefore not limited to the religious imagination even though it
seems to be dominant in this imagination. One can see from this

that rational (that is critical questioning) of belief is crucial for

Wiredu. The point is therefore not that one (or a group of people)
should not believe in entities but rather that one (or group of
a

people) should critically question what is believed. People should

"argue for their beliefs" rather than simply asserting it.74 In much
of Africa, Wiredu avers, beliefs are asserted rather than argued.
This tendency has unfortunately been promoted by respectable
Africans who intended to foster African dignity and difference thus
making this imagination to be a distinctly African phenomenon.
Promoting this uncritical mode of thought, as some influential
Africans and even non-Africans do, is detrimental to Africa's
development. "To develop in any serious sense," Wiredu insists,
"we in Africa must break with our old uncritical habits of thought:
that is to say, we must advance past the stage of traditional
75
thinking."
Passing this stage of traditional thinking does not mean
betraying an African way of thought and embracing a Western one
or accepting the Western narrative of evolutionism. This is because

although critical philosophical and scientific rationality has grown

significantl y in Western cultures, this form of rationality is not
alien to African thought. Wiredu rightly points out that no people
can survive for a significant length of time without the use of

scientific imagination. In fact, for him, the quest for knowledge that
may enhance well-being "is a characteristically human endeavor.t'"

74
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 41, 47.
75
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 44.
76
Kwasi Wiredu, "Our Problem of Knowledge: Brief Reflections on

Knowledge and Development in Africa," in African Philosophy as Cultural

 90 David Tonghou Ngong
The fact of the matter, however, is that Africans are behind the
West in the cultivation of this scientific imagination.i It is for this
reason that Wiredu has tirelessly called for the institution of critical
forms of education that might lead to the growth of science and
technology in Africa. He laments the fact that "much of the
knowledge we need in Africa now is in the hands, and sometimes
in the heads, of non-Africans.v'" This is because the technological
and scientific knowhow which Africa needs in order to better its
situation has been better developed by others rather than by
Africans. It would however be helpful if Africa could increase its
initiative in this endeavour.
This point pressed by Hountondji who argues that in
is also
order to curtail Africa's painful experience of the "logic of
extroversion," the continent must develop its scientific, --pnd
_

technological capabilities." Hountondji describes the logi�-' of

extroversion the various ways Africa's relations with the West
as

has bequeathed on the continent the tendency to be outward

looking rather than inward looking. This means that in the global
geopolitical and economic context, Africa does not so much serve
its own interest but rather the interests of powerful outsiders who
have held the continent in thrall. This is intellectually demonstrated
by the fact that Africa has become more a consumer of knowledge
than a producer of knowledge, especially .scientific knowledge.
Hountondji laments how many African countries lack high level
research laboratories. Even in cases where decent laboratories exist,
the instruments used in them are usually manufactured out of
Africa so that African countries often rely on outside manufacturers
to do what they need to do. Even more, journals, libraries, and.
periodicals through which knowledge is shared are largely
.�
.

Inquiry, ed. Ivan Karp and D. A. Masolo (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2000), 182.
77
Wiredu, Philosophy and African Culture, 42-3.
78
Wiredu, "Our Problem of Knowledge," 181.
79
Paulin J. Hountondji, ed. Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails,
trans. Ayi K wei Armah (Dakar: Senegal: CODESRIA, 1997), 1.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 91

produced outside the continent so that researchers in the continent

have to rely on those outside it in order to do effective work.
Economically, Africa has served largely as an exporter of raw
materials rather than a manufacturer.i" This is painfully obvious in
the exportation of crude oil by oil rich African countries. Because
these countries do not have good oil refineries, the crude oil is
refined elsewhere and sold to African countries at exorbitant prices.
This is also the with rubber that led to the death of many in the
case

Belgian Congo, and coffee, cocoa, diamond, gold, and medicinal

plants that are extracted from Africa, processed abroad and sold to
the people of the continent at
higher prices.
It is for this reasonHountondji insightfully sees what has
that
been described as brain drain, the migration of African intellectuals
out of the continent, as merely a reflection of this extroversion.
Because Africans have been taught all their lives to look for
salvation outside the continent, it is no wonder that they leave for
other places. Even those intellectuals who remain in Africa are not
exempt from this tendency to look for salvation outside. That is
why most of them look for support for their work outside the
continent. This is seen especially in the request for research grants
from foreign organizations rather than from their own countries and
the validation of their work by outsiders. In all this, Hountondji
points out, Africa is playing the classic peripheral role which
colonialism carved for the continent. This means that because
Africa has not developed scientific and technological knowhow
that may. augment its place in the modem world, Africa is still, by
and large under colonialism. Colonialism designed the continent to
be outward-looking and to this day, this has not changed. For this
to change, Hountondji opines, the continent needs to develop its

intellectual, economic and political strength so that it would no

longer be the periphery but one of the centres of the modem world.
Central to all this, is the development of science and technology on
the continent.

80
Hountondji, ed. Endogenous Knowledge, 1-12.
92 David Tonghou Ngong
To show that developing science and technology does not
mean that Africa is aping the West, Hountondji points out that
scientific and technological activities have, in fact, been part of life
in ancient, that is, pre-colonial Africa.81 However, in order to avoid

incongruity in its development of science and technology for the

modern time, Africa needs to develop what Hountondji calls
"endogenous knowlcdge.t'Y Endogenous knowledge is the kind of
knowledge which people have made their own. It is perceived as
fitting in the context even if it did not originate from that context.
Ancient African societies, for example, are known to have
conducted iron smelting and many African societies today see
working with iron (e.g., blacksmithing) as part of their ancestral
heritage. It may well be that iron smelting did not originate in these
societies but these societies have made such activity their own.
This is also the case with a food crop like maize which originated
in the Americas in the 1 ih century. Because many Africans have
made the crop their own, they now see it as somehow indigenous to
their societies. That is the nature of endogenous knowledge. It may
be developed within a particular context, but again, it may not.
What is critical is that particular societies make this knowledge
their own rather than seeing it as alien. "That a cultural borrowing
is assimilated to the point of being one with the collective heritage
thereafter," Hountondji writes, "means that such borrowing is fully
,,83
mastered and integrated into the initial culture itself.
The idea of endogenous knowledge is meant to indicate that
even though Hountondji decries Africa's extroversion, what he

wants is not for Africa to be cut off from the world or insist on its
own form of knowledge, as some may wish. That is why he makes
a distinction between indigenous and endogenous; indigenous
being mainly that which is "a purely local curiosity that has no

81
Hountondji, "Knowledge as a Development Issue," 534-35. Also see,
Peter [Link], ed. The Culture and Technology of African Iron Production
(Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1996).
82
Hountondji, ed. Endogenous Knowledge, 42.
83
Hountondji, ed. Endogenous Knowledge, 42-43.
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 93
,,84
effectiveness outside its particular context. Endogenous
knowledge, however, moves beyond the local to the multi local.
Africa should therefore endeavour to move from the local to the
multilocal, from an unhealthy and conservative stress on difference
tothe proper embrace of complexity. That is why Africa must
move past its pre-colonial science, such as traditional medicine

which it sees as quintessentially African, to see how that science

can apply outside local communities. Thus, the forms of scientific
and technological knowledge which existed in pre-colonial Africa
need to be appropriated (where possible) and/or augmented. All
this is to say that Africans should not be satisfied with something
called "African" if it does not serve the people well in our time. On
the other hand, Africans must not just rely on the outside world or
ape the outside world; they should rather make a creative melange
between what they develop and what comes from outside so that
they may come to see its end product as part of their culture-like
maize and cassava in African societies.
African theologians should therefore connect rationality and
spirituality rather than severing the two as is currently the case. As
has been shown above, rationality is not Western and spirituality
African, as some African theologians would like to think. African
theologians would do well to learn from African philosophers who
have endeavoured to show how Africans may avoid an unhealthy
stress on difference and emphasize scientific rationality for the

well-being of their people. Modem scientific and technological

development did not originate in Africa but appropriating the
rationality that brought them about would not undermine a
supposedly pristine African spiritualistic identity; rather, it will be a
way for the continent to address some of its most pressing felt
needs. As these philosophers have correctly argued, it would be
foolish not to vigorously appropriate such rationality. Stressing a
supposedly African spiritualized cosmology at the expense of
critical scientific rationality will only take the continent back,

84
Hountondji, ed. Endogenous Knowledge, 18.
94 David Tonghou Ngong

subordinating it to the West and Asia. Theologians have to seek

ways to creatively bring the two together rather than pitting one
against another as is presently the case, especially in
Pentecostalism.

Postscript

The central thesis of this essay has been that African theology of
inculturation and its current manifestation in Pentecostal
Christianity on the continent have not promoted the scientific
imagination which is essential to enhancing the economic
development of the continent. One of the questions raised when
this paper was presented related to the education of some of the
founders of neo- Pentecostal churches in Africa and the fact that
some of these neo-Pentecostal churches, such as the Redeemed
Christian church of God (Nigeria) and International Central Gospel
Church (Ghana) have established universities. The fact that some of
the founders of these churches are educated
people and that
they
are establishing universities seem to suggest that they may not be
accused of promoting the. spiritualistic imagination at the expense
of the scientific imagination. My reply to this is that the level of
education does not really matter; it is the kind of education that
matters.
A related question had to do with whether this paper
rejected
the spiritual ways of understanding the world in general and human
beings in particular. It should be stressed that this paper is not
intended to reject spirituality. Rather, it insists that Africans have
come to make an unfounded claim that they are more spiritual than

other people, especially people in the West. Thus, while the West
has come to emphasize science and technology, Africans have
come to think that their gift to the world is spirituality. The cry of

this paper is that the modem world in which Africans live is one
that turns on science and technology. Without rejecting spirituality
(a thing which Africans have no monopoly over, in spite of what
 Rethinking Contemporary African Christian Theology 95

some scholars tend to think) Africans must come to see that science
has a central role in the modern world. For Africans to overcome

their low place in current global geopolitics, the development of

science and technology should be seen as central and should
therefore be promotedby churches.
It was furtherasked whether I am suggesting that Africans
should embrace Enlightenment rationality. Part of what this paper
points out is that, as Hountondju and Odera Oruka have shown,
science and technology and the critical imagination have been part
of African life from ancient times. Enhancing the scientific
imagination in Africa will not simply mean adopting
Enlightenment rationality. It also means reclaiming part of what it
means to be African.
A final question that was raised has to do with where the
history of Africa factor in this paper. It appeared, it was queried,
that this paper does not take into account the legacy of colonialism
as the background to Africa's contemporary woes. It seemed to

place all the blame the

spiritual imagination. My reply to this
on

question is that Africa's

problems have multidimensional causes,
all of which cannot be addressed in every single paper or book.
Scholars always focus on particular segments of an issue and in this
case the pressing issue is the elevation of the spiritual imagination

over the scientific in contemporary African Christian discourses.

This does not mean that the brutal legacy of colonialism does not

have an impact on where Africa finds itself today in the global

political economy. What it means is that that legacy is not central
to this paper. What is central is what Africans can do now to

reclaim their agency and pull themselves out of a situation of

perennial dependence and even humiliation.