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Christian Identity for Cultural Engagement

i.                    Introduction

Trying to be a thoughtful person who is passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implication to all of life, I sometimes find myself agonizing on how I should think of my African identity in the light of being a Christian. The question of identity, I sense, is what can allow me to understand my place in the the history that has shaped my present being, and the consequences of how to live by faith. The central thesis of this reflection is that our unique Christian identity is what will enable us to engage with our wider culture with vibrancy and vitality. Miroslav Volf locates the necessity of identity in the milieu of the Post-Christian west and the multi-cultural setting of the globalized world.[1] Even though Christians are a majority in Kenya, how these Christians identify themselves has a bearing on how they engage with the society and culture around them. Delanyo Adedevoh advocates for transformation of Africa’s socio-economic and political factions as stemming from a new way of thinking about our self-identity.[2] In order to solve the prevailing developmental issues as well as the popular culture, identity is crucial, both for the present and future. However, the question of Christian identity in Africa implies several issues: i) African and Western contexts; ii) Biblical Basis for identity; iii) Implications for cultural engagement.

ii.                  Christian Identity in Africa: African or Western Soil?

            The reality of missionary efforts in implanting of the gospel into African soil may be a good starting point for the reflection of the question of Christian identity in Africa. Missionary enterprise in Africa has been accused of an ethno-centric focus that served to dissolve African identity from Christian identity. Speaking of the western missionary enterprise, Jean Marc Ela observes that “Christianity permanently confronts its peculiar contradictions; throughout the history of missions, it has long practiced a “deculturizing” control over African populations – forcing them brutally to sever their roots and lose their authenticity.”[3] In severing their African roots and authenticity, Lecturer in missiology Keith Ferdinando interacting with Kwame Bediako’s work, observes that being Christian has been the same as being western and this premise founded upon the lack of validity in “transposition of the gospel into African categories.”[4] It is in line with this that Desmond Tutu observes a sort of ‘religious schizophrenia’ among African Christians.[5]
            Ela, Ferdinando, Bediako and Tutu all seem to focus on the idea of Christian identity in an African context. The fact that the missionary enterprise is castigated with the above misgivings, does not necessarily mean that their efforts have been unappreciated. However, their underlying presupposition has been the fact that the gospel has to transcend cultural categories for the Africans to maintain a Christian identity. Kwame Bediako’s work draws on the work of the early church fathers to show the interrelationships between the gospel and the cultural heritage of the fathers – Justin Matyr, Tatian, Tetullian and Clement of Alexandria. Siding with the latter’s view, Bediako sees the African tradition as being preparatory for the gospel, parallel to the role of the Old Testament for Israel.[6] Hence a continuity between culture and gospel can be observed in articulating a Christian identity, according to Bediako.
            However, Ferdinando seems to caution us from focusing on this debate from merely an intellectual foundation to one that has a biblical basis that is for the edification of the Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that he observes that “Christians do not cease in any absolute sense to belong to the cultures in which they were brought up,” he observes that the gospel’s counter-cultural message seeks to bring unity in diversity. This critique of Bediako is based on his thinking being based on an African worldview that is past-oriented instead of being founded on the biblical basis of the eschatological hope that is forward-looking.[7] Hence in summary, our cultural identity is of importance in grounding the gospel categories in ways that are familiar to us, but beyond all, the all-pervasive character of the gospel message transcends all cultures and calls us to unity. Beginning from our experience of conversion, this unity transcends to our faith experiences.[8] This unity is founded on our identity as “Children of God” assured, inspired and transformed by the Holy Spirit of God (1 Jn. 3:1; Rom. 8:16, 12:1-2; Gal. 4:6.). In this regard, African Christians are hence absorbed in the salvific history of the Jews in the Old Testament. This does not necessarily mean that they observe Jewish custom, but that it should influence how they understand their religious and cultural identity (Rom. 4:11, 11:17).[9]

iii.  Christian Identity: The issue of Difference, Reconciliation and Transformation

            Having taken into consideration the issue of Christian identity in an African context, how then should our identity as Christians impact surrounding cultures? In order to do this effectively, we need to take into cognizance the issue of our differences and how we should seek reconciliation and transformation among our own cultures and those that surround us. In a social context where identity is necessary for a Christian culture, Volf outlines the idea of “difference” that marks out the Christian community from other communities:
Christian communities will be able to survive and thrive in contemporary societies only if they attend to their “difference” from surrounding cultures and subcultures. The following principle stands: whoever wants the Christian communities to exist must want their difference from the surrounding culture, not their blending into it. As a consequence, Christian communities must “manage” their identity by actively engaging in “boundary maintenance.”[10]
The premise that Volf posits is relevant for our discussion: Namely, that Christian identity is unique from other communities and cultures that surround the Christian. He seems to be cautioning us from pluralistic and inclusivity ideals that assimilate the exclusivity of the gospel. This was the error of the liberal program, to which G. K. Chesterton rebutted ‘those who marry the spirit of the age will find themselves widows in the next.’[11] Similarly, Africa has always been left bankrupt when she has sought to marry a non-African identity, for in doing this she has failed to address her own issues. Accommodating to surrounding cultures denies them the uniqueness of the Christian message, which is the only hope of change that they would otherwise receive. The spirit of the age is embedded in a spirit of uncanny, craftiness and deceit that shifts allegiances to distort truth and hence collaborating with this spirit leads to dissolution of the Christian identity.
            Volf argues against a postliberal program that seeks to reconstruct all of culture and life. This happens when Christians identify themselves solely from a biblical perspective without consideration of God’s providential sustenance of humankind’s historical progression. In this manner, Christians close themselves from how God may be dealing with the rest of the world. An extreme position becomes a separatist stance where Christians set their own territory from the wider culture and do not interact with it – They are merely present but inactive.
If at all they have any engagement with these surrounding cultures, they become coercive. This stems from their understanding that these surrounding communities are bereft of God.[12] This has been ground for European missionaries being accused of a euro-centric agenda that trampled African identity, with long-standing effects to those who were colonized and beyond.[13] Julius K. Muthengi views this dogmatism as directly proportional to prejudice, where one group has negative beliefs, feelings and orientations towards the other. This he places in the wider context of ethnocentrism, which he loosely defines as the tendency to view others from their own closed-minded perspective, as if other perspectives are assumedly wrong.[14] Our identity in light of these cultural differences is important, but so is reconciliation and transformation.

iv.                Implications for Cultural Engagement as Conclusion            

How then can we maintain our identity in surrounding culture? We can speak languages we have learnt from others and metaphorize its meanings; we can inherit value systems and transform them or reject them altogether; and we can bring new ones into bearing.[15] In this critical engagement with our cultures, we take into consideration the seriousness of the fall even in cultural norms, and we also affirm God’s providential nature in common grace which is seen in the positive things he has deposited in our culture. Needless to say, our identity though shaped by the culture we have been born into, is transformed by God’s renewal in our lives through Christ (Rom. 12:1-2) and looks forward to the eschatological hope of the consummation of all of God’s peoples and diverse cultures. Only through this can we be able to test and approve of God’s overarching dealing with this world. This is based on our reconciliatory mission founded upon our new identity in Jesus Christ which meets the norms and nuances of surrounding and foreign cultures. Our Christian identity is crucial to our public engagement: in its vibrancy and vitality. As Volf warns us, we should not be tempted to think that we can transform the whole culture.[16] However, our Christian identity has implications for “all dimensions of a culture”: In the political arena, in the closed doors of private life, in the playing fields of schools and in the shambas of rural Kenya.




[1] Miroslav Volf “Identity and Difference,” in Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press), 77
[2] Delanyo Adadevoh, Leading Transformation in Africa (Nairobi: ILF Publishers, 2007), 4
[3] Jean-Marc Ela, My Faith as an African (Nairobi, Kenya: Acton Publishers, 2001), xiii
[4] Keith Ferdinando, “Christian Identity in the African Context: Reflections on Kwame Bediako’s Theology and Identity,” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 50.1 (March 2007): 121-143
[5] John Parratt, Reinventing Christianity: African Theology Today (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 14
[6] Keith Ferdinando, 123
[7] Ibid., 136
[8] The issue of conversion and identity is handled well in Keith Ferdinando’s paper as cited above. For another detailed analysis, see Emefi Ikenga-Methu, “The Shattered Microcosm: A Critical Survey of Explanations of Conversions in Africa,” in Kirsten Holst Petersen (ed.), Religion, Development and African Identity (Upsala, Sweden: Ekblad & Co.), 1987: 11-25
[9] Keith Ferdinando, 139
[10] Ibid., 81
[11] Ibid., 84
[12] Volf says that this is similar to the totalitarian tendency proposed by Sayyid Qutb whom he identifies as a strong proponent of radical Islamism, Ibid., 87
[13] As was the agenda of the African Independent Churches, Delanyo Adadevoh argues that a decolonization of the African mind is necessary in re-thing African Christian identity and engagement in the world, Op. cit., 17.
[14] Julius K. Muthengi, “Roots and Consequences of Ethnocentrism,” Evangelical Journal 32/2 (Fall 2014): 82-92.
[15] Ibid., 93
[16] Volf argues that total transformation of culture is impossible and argues for an idea of limited change: That we can make small changes in different spheres of life that can form seed for wider change. This he says is the reason the early church, though in the margins, flourished. Additionally, total transformation will always be opposed by surrounding cultures due to the nature of the fall. 

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