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- African Christologies
- Naming Jesus
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- Roman coin of
Jesus
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- by Yvon C. Elenga
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- A summary account of the various aspects
of African christology, the principles used to develop it through
simultaneous attention to African anthropology and culture and
the data of revelation, and how this theology enriches and relates
to the received formulations of faith. ["African Descriptive
Christologies on Naming Jesus", Vidyajyoti: Journal of Theological
Reflection 65 (2001): 667-76].
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- This essay is about the recapture of Jesus,
his deeds, his images, and the understanding people have of him.
I will analyze the description and results of African Jesus research
and show how and why this research is so inspired by African
cultural anthropology that it does not question the ontological
reality of a man whose "friends" claimed that he was
Christ, the Son of God. The analysis will have three sections.
First, I will relocate the manifestation of the Jesus research.
This will allow me, in the second section, to define the conditions
and methods generally used in African christologies. Third, I
will discuss the various names given to Jesus in Africa, such
as Ancestor par excellence, Ancestor who-gives-life, Great Ancestor,
and Unique Ancestor.
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- This leads me to point out the main effects
of giving Jesus such titles as the above. 1)
Jesus' person is more concrete, and his presence is better
felt in people's lives. 2) Jesus' person is connected
to his relationship with human life. In Ewe-Mina, Togo, he is
called Djoto-Ancestor (Ancestor-who-is-the-source-of-life); in
Kikuyu, Kenya, Brother, in Luba, D. R. Congo, Elder Brother Par
Excellence. 3) The authority of Jesus' person is
manifested. People see him as Chief of Chiefs (Luba), King (Akan,
Ghana), Victor Over Death (Sukuma, Tanzania). 4)
Jesus is seen as a bearer of life: Chief Diviner (Luo, Kenya),
Deliverer (Akan, Ghana), Healer (Kirundi, Burundi), Supreme Healer
(Luo, Kenya/Tanzania). In Africa a person is his name; names
are projections of one's life, and they design an agenda that
is transmitted from generation to generation. When this principle
is applied to Jesus, his names have a strong impact on believers.
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- Relocating christological themes
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- African christologies are influenced by
the places where they are formulated. They must be relocated
in those places if one wants to comprehend their inner significance.
This can be done by means of:
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- Contextualization. Jesus is given specific attributes in specific
situations (true Ancestor, perfect Healer, unique Brother, and
so on). He is one of us though still beyond the prototypes.
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- Relation.
African christologies describe Jesus as always in relationship
with God and with Christians. A fundamental assumption of African
anthropology is: I am because we are. The attainment of the fullness
of a person is conditioned by the relationships that make a community.
A person is son/daughter of, brother/sister of. In the case of
Jesus, he is mediator because he is related to God and to humankind
at the same time. That is why encounter with Christ, the Son
of God, is the only way to enter God's mystery. Such a mediation
partakes deeply of the African worldview; thus, the intercessional
role played by Jesus confines his being among us as God-with-us.
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- Re-appropriation. The attempt to present an African christology
results from an extended debate on whether or not there is/will
be an African theology. Years ago when the question emerged,
the main effort was to prove that there were seeds of theology
in Africa. The application of basic biblical and theological
insights served as evidence for the possibility of an African
christology. After that, themes, language, and even the philosophical
background were supposed to convince anyone still in doubt. Though
such an effort deserves respectful consideration, a question
remains: why should African christology follow unchangeably the
same development as non African christology? By doing so, it
fails to take the necessary distance from what has been framed
and shaped abroad. In other words, non-African christology was
taken almost as the obvious standard, and this influenced the
reformulation of Jesus' images and names.
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- Liberation and salvation. These two themes could be called the soil on
which African christologies are growing. They are the aim of
life, and they represent ultimate glorification in God's kingdom.
It is well known that the understanding of existence as struggle
between Life and Death is at the center of what I have called
the cosmotheandric dimension of the person. In presenting Jesus
as victor over death, there is actually no gap between christology
and African cultural elements; that is why the doctrine of Jesus'
resurrection appears to be accommodated without serious misunderstanding.
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- Conditions and methods
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- The conditions and methods of African
christology have been shaped by contestation and claim With this
in mind we should be able more easily to identify the stakes
involved In the post-colonial era, the claim and contestation
were against the general trends of "hegemony" and "imperialism"
in Western theology. One can distinguish at least three groups
that found themselves operating as intellectual circles in Africa.
The Kinshasa school (V Mulago, O. Bimwenyi-Kweshi, et al.) wanted
to define some "specific values" to legitimatize an
African theology. In these temps, the quest for an authentic
Christianity passes through a re-appropriation of theological
and cultural values. In the Yaoundé school (M. Hebga,
J.-M. Ela, et al.), theologians opted for a more historical and
political approach. They were sensitive to the "afflicted
social memory" of the victims of history; that is why the
option for a total liberation seems to be more functional. In
Abidjan on the Côte d'Ivoire, fundamental theology operated
on the concept of "inculturation". The methods used
in these schools and the conditions in which theologians addressed
various issues could correct the opinion that African theology
first took place in a mode of self-affirmation. It does not suffice
to argue that one can "theologize" or has to "theologize"
to affirm that one does effectively "theologize":
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- Adaptation and correlation
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- What, then, are the characteristic methods
of African christologies? Basically, there is tacit agreement
on the legacy of Nicaea and Chalcedon. The doctrines and definitions
of these two councils are adapted and correlated to prove the
"feasibility" of christology in the African context.
Thus did Nyaniti; thus also did most of the contributors to the-volume
edited by R Gibellini, Paths of African Theology.
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- To my knowledge the only African author
who has examined the ontological aspect of Jesus and called for
the recapture of a Jesus beyond the dogmas is F. Eboussi Boulaga.
His stirring book, Christianity without Fetish, suggests a re-reading
of the person of Jesus in light of the history of religions.
Here he presents the religionist historical background which
is the framework for any messiah or hero:
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The
hero is not a god Jesus Christ is not simply God and nothing
more. He is the child of the Mother, the Son of man, before he
is the Son of the Father or Son of God. He is the figure of fulfilled
humanity for us. But humanity is fulfilled only in identifying
with the life of the Spirit animating the community, for the
Spirit is life. Jesus is not everything. He is not the Father.
His glory, his definitive being are received by him from the
Father, in an everlasting being-together-With the Father. The
communion of Father and Son has not yet appeared. Christ in glory
is yet to come, at the consummation of the ages, according to
the faith that is hope. (144)
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- Thus, according to Eboussi Boulaga, Jesus'
humanity is prior to his divinity, and it cannot be otherwise.
As may be appreciated, Eboussi Boulaga did not transpose into
an African language any word confirming the correlation or adaptation
of Western theology. Rather, he questioned the very being of
Jesus as God, Son of God, the Christ.
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- Location in traditional theology
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- Where is, therefore, the consistency of
African christologies in respect to traditional theology? I will
use the framework drawn by R. Haight as criteria for christology:
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- Humanity and divinity. In African christology both the humanity and
the divinity of Jesus are recognized; however-being Brother,
Ancestor, Proto-ancestor, Healer, Diviner-Jesus is portrayed
as superhuman. His divinity overshadows his humanity and downplays
his historical insertion into the human race. Thus the model
of the incarnate God follows the Chalcedon christological doctrine
of two natures (human and divine). C. Nyamiti, whose anthropological
background appears clearly in his christology, is still marked
by the scholastic and Chalcedonian doctrines, to say the least.
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- Resurrection. That we pass from death to new life is a common
belief in African traditions. The christologist B. Bujo holds
that the Proto-ancestor is the unique source of life and the
"One From Whom All Life Flows". God's risen Son brings
the plenitude of life as a consequence of his journey through
death. To witness to new life in Christ, the paschal mystery
is lived through struggle and suffering, which are overcome by
life without end. Thus change and transformation are the means
of overcoming obstacles. The Christian adaptation of these beliefs
in an African Christian context follows quite easily: the resurrection
of Jesus is then the glorification of the "powerful hero."
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- Trinity.
Considering what matters in Christian theology-namely the data
of revelation-an attempt has been made to find correlations between
the Trinity and African beliefs and relationship with God. The
trinitarian ancestral relations, for instance, provide some cultural
elements to define an analogous relationship in the triune God
They involve kinship, the superhuman sacred status, the mediating
role, exemplarity, and the right to sacred communication. For
Nyamiti these characteristics offer a good parallel between basic
structures of the human person and the inner life of God. [Editor's
note: see Charles Nyamiti, 'The Trinity: an African ancestral
perspective;' Theology Digest 45 (1998): 21 26].
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- Intelligibility. The coherence and readability of African christology
rely on the knowledge one has of both christology and African
cultural elements. But an objection can be raised about the possibility
of a contemporary critical interpretation of Nicaea and Chalcedon,
since they are still the fixed references in christology. In
R. Haight's words,
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- They
[Nicaea and Chalcedon] represent the first major inculturation
of the Christian message regarding Jesus Christ into Greek and
Roman cultures in the early centuries of the Common Era... Because
they have become and remain classics of the Christian faith,
these doctrines have to be interpreted. (Jesus Symbol of God
297)
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- In sum, the descriptions of Jesus in African
christologies are an effort to re-appropriate the central figure
of Christian faith in a context that entails new vision. Probably
this vision could be more suitable in reinterpreting the legacies
of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Unlike many of today's christologies,
African christologies are adaptations, with African tools and
languages, of traditional declarations. In raising this issue,
I do not intend to call for a radical rejection of what we believe.
The point is that if Nicaea and Chalcedon have to be meaningful
for us, they should be read with new eyes in a new language.
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- Ancient Hebrews
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- Ref.: Theology Digest (A Publication of
Saint Louis University), Vol. 49, n. 3, Fall 2002, pp. 229-232
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