scholarly journals African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Malith Kur
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
The West ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Theology ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Cultural Dominance ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The Relationship

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

scholarly journals African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Malith Kur
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
The West ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Theology ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Cultural Dominance ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The Relationship

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

scholarly journals China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Will it Make or Mar Development in the Central and West Africa Subregions?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
William G. Dzekashu ◽  
Julius N. Anyu
Keyword(s):  
Growth Dynamics ◽  
Sustainable Growth ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
The West ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Domestic Products

The West, chiefly Europe, left political footmarks in Africa from the Colonial Era, along with varying economic footprints and surviving engagements in the immediate Post-colonial Era. However, the relationships between Africa and her former colonial masters have hardly yielded much to the former following the wave of independence, leading to the perception of failed relationships. This perception of failure to deliver on their undertakings has left Africa with only one option—China. The latter has been addressing some of Africa’s urgent infrastructure needs in return for natural resources and agricultural products. These engagements on the surface appear to be good business, but on further examination seem questionable notably as it relates to debt distress on vulnerable economies. To increase her footprint within the continent, China extended her Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to most African nations who have signed a memorandum of understanding for future development projects. Though the commitments usually are unspecified, China’s investments have seen rapid growth since the early 2000s, largely owing to the implementation of the BRI. The memoranda have had the potential to strengthen ties with partner nations. The expansion to include Africa in its economic participation in the BRI has left the West questioning China’s motives while reinforcing suspicions about possible future US-China conflict. The impact of BRI on the African continent is quite visible in all the subregions, especially in their improved gross domestic products. A burning question has been whether these partnerships represent win-win relationships for sustainable growth or debt-growth dynamics.

Protest and Music

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumangala Damodaran
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Protest Music ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Music And Politics ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between music and politics and specifically that between music and protest has been relatively under-researched in the social sciences in a systematic manner, even if actual experiences of music being used to express protest have been innumerable. Further, the conceptual analysis that has been thrown up from the limited work that is available focuses mostly on Euro-American experiences with protest music. However, in societies where most music is not written down or notated formally, the discussions on the distinct role that music can play as an art form, as a vehicle through which questions of artistic representation can be addressed, and the specific questions that are addressed and responded to when music is used for political purposes, have been reflected in the music itself, and not always in formal debates. It is only in using the music itself as text and a whole range of information around its creation—often, largely anecdotal and highly context dependent—that such music can be understood. Doing so across a whole range of non-Western experiences brings out the role of music in societal change quite distinctly from the Euro-American cases. Discussions are presented about the informed perceptions about what protest music is and should be across varied, yet specific experiences. It is based on the literature that has come out of the Euro-American world as well as from parts that experienced European colonialism and made the transition to post-colonial contexts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

scholarly journals N. C. Ejituwu and the Historiography of Niger Delta Inter-Group Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
O. C. Asuk
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Colonialism

The Niger Delta has an interesting history of inter-group relations with attendant interchange of ideas and influences that reflected its heterogeneous and multi-polar character. However, the apparent predominant historiography of these inter-group relations tend to demonstrate an inherent prejudice against Andoni (Obolo) contrary to historical facts that portray her military exploits and significant influences on the evolution and peopling of the region and beyond. Primarily, this work aims at analyzing the role of Nkparom Claude Ejituwu in the historical reconstruction narratives of the complex inter-group relations woven around inter-marriages, inter-related migrations, commercial rivalries or competitions for economic resources, wars and fluid alliances, and traditional diplomacies with intricate outcomes. The study utilized primary and secondary sources to demonstrate the terrific historical, cultural, economic and political exchanges between Andoni and her neighbours as well as the strength of Ejituwu's scholarship in the deconstruction of orthodox stereotypes in the historiography of Niger Delta inter-group interactions. It concludes that Andoni had developed significant relations with and radically impacted her neighbours before European colonialism altered it to produce critical implications for Andoni in the post-colonial era.

scholarly journals KIRAN DESAI’S NOVEL, THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS, A RICH PROJECTION TO THE POSTCOLONIAL PANORAMA IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
MS. J. LAXMEE KANTAMMA
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
General Concept ◽  
First Century ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
The West ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
The Impact

The present paper aims to bring forth the perception of the world in the postcolonial period in Kiran Desai’s Award winning novel, The Inheritance of Loss. The euphoria of liberalization and celebration of globalization have been skillfully denuded by Kiran Desai in her work. She demonstrated that though the advancement of technology professed to create wealth and well-being in integrating the cultural diversities, the fact is that there is a darker side where innumerable people are deprived of their basic human rights. Desai’s motive in writing The Inheritance of loss was to look beyond the general concept of globalization. With her optimism Desai finds the other disordered side of global economy, which are less discussed. In the background of colonial neurosis and multiculturalism, Kiran Desai explores the impact of globalization expressed in terms of financial security in alien lands, racial discrimination, bitterness of immigration, complexity of the high society and disenchantment borrowed out of the opulence of the West in the post-colonial era.  

scholarly journals Jonas Adelin Jorgensen, Jesus Imandars and Christ Bhaktas: Two Case Studies of Interreligious Hermeneutics and Identity in Global Christianity. Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity 146

ICR Journal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 416-417
Author(s):  
Mika Vahakangas
Keyword(s):  
High Tide ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
Global Christianity ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

The end of colonialism, the previously unparalleled level of religious plurality due to both migration and internal diversification of various societies, and lastly the shift of the centre of gravity to the global South in terms of the membership of Christian churches are changes with which Western academic Christian theology has to come to grips with. The high tide of colonialism, and its theological equivalent - ethnocentric religious arrogance - was followed by the end of colonial era, reflected also in theology. When one combined the suddenly grown religious pluralism in the West and the remorse for the colonial past an outcome was a number of liberal (or, at times, seemingly liberal) pluralistic or relativistic theologies of religion. That could be called ‘post-colonial’ in the sense of being epi-colonial.

The Queer Third World

2020 ◽  
pp. 214-235
Author(s):  
Ilan Kapoor
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Third World ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Nation States ◽  
World Nation ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Sides

This chapter assesses the relationship between the concepts of “queer” and “Third World,” and attempts to group them in their common inheritance of subjugation and disparagement and their shared allegiance precisely to nonalignment and a radical politics (of development). In assembling both terms one is struck by how, in the mainstream discourse of international development, the Third World comes off looking remarkably queer: under Western eyes, it has often been constructed as perverse, abnormal, and passive. Its sociocultural values and institutions are seen as deviantly strange — backward, effete, even effeminate. Its economic development is depicted as abnormal, always needing to emulate the West, yet never living up to the mark. For their part, post-colonial Third World nation-states have tended to disown and purge such queering — by denying their queerness and, in fact, often characterizing it as a “Western import” — yet at the same time imitating the West, modernizing or Westernizing sociocultural institutions, and pursuing neoliberal capitalist growth. The chapter claims that the Western and Third World stances are two sides of the same discourse but, drawing on Lacanian queer theory, also suggests that a “queer Third World” would better transgress this discourse by embracing queerness as the site of structural negativity and destabilizing politics.

Mission in a Post Modern World: Issues of Language and Dependency in Post-Colonial Africa

Exchange ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 309-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Harries
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Theology ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Indigenous Development ◽  
Cultural Components ◽  
Ways Of Life

AbstractThe communication revolution has made texts and languages available to people who, it is here suggested, might not have the cultural components needed to use them in the same way as native speakers. Introduced languages have in much of Africa eclipsed indigenous knowledge from opportunity for home grown development. Africans flocking to Western languages supported by numerous Western subsidies, leaves African ways of life concealed from the West. Western languages can be used to undermine the West. The inadequacy of English in Africa is illustrated by the contrast between the holistic and dualistic worldviews; English being dualistic is a poor means for expressing African holism. This makes the use of English in and for Africa inherently confusing. It is proposed that indigenous development be encouraged through challenging and encouraging African theology on its own terms, by encouraging some Western missionaries to use African languages and resources in their task.

The Bible, Its Status and African Christian Theologies: Foundational Document or Stumbling Block?

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Punt
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
African Theology ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe relationship between the Bible and Christianity, including Christian theology, is traditionally strong and undisputed; however, in Christian theology in Africa, as elsewhere, the status of the biblical texts is contested. A brief consideration of the Bible as 'canon' leads to a broader discussion of how the Bible has to a certain extent become a 'problem' in African theology also, both because of theological claims made about its status, and - and in conjunction with - its perceived complicity in justifying human suffering and hardship. The legacy of the Bible as legitimating agent is dealt with from the vantage point of the history of interpretation; but the latter also provides for a 'rehumanising' of Scripture. In the end, this article is also an attempt to explain some of the different views of the Bible's status in Africa, and to address and mediate the resulting conflict by attending to proposals to view the biblical canon as 'historical prototype', foundational document' - as scripture. A number of important aspects regarding the continuing role of the Bible in African theologies in particular, conclude the essay.

scholarly journals Beyond denial and exclusion: The history of relations between Christians and Muslims in the Cape Colony during the 17th–18th centuries with lessons for a post-colonial theology of religions

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco Beyers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Relationship

Learning from the past prepares one for being able to cope with the future. History is made up of strings of relationships. This article follows a historical line from colonialism, through apartheid to post-colonialism in order to illustrate inter-religious relations in South-Africa and how each context determines these relations. Social cohesion is enhanced by a post-colonial theology of religions based on the current context. By describing the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the 17th–18th centuries in the Cape Colony, lessons can be deduced to guide inter-religious relations in a post-colonial era in South Africa. One of the most prominent Muslim leaders during the 17th century in the Cape Colony was Sheik Yusuf al-Makassari. His influence determined the future face of Islam in the Cape Colony and here, during the 18th century, ethics started playing a crucial role in determining the relationship between Christians and Muslims. The ethical guidance of the Imams formed the Muslim communities whilst ethical decline was apparent amongst the Christian colonists during the same period. The place of ethics as determinative of future inter-religious dialogue is emphasised. Denial and exclusion characterised relationships between Christians and Muslims. According to a post-colonial understanding of inter-religious contact the equality and dignity of non-Christian religions are to be acknowledged. In the postcolonial and postapartheid struggle for equality, also of religions, prof Graham Duncan, to whom this article is dedicated, contributed to the process of acknowledging the plurality of the religious reality in South Africa.

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