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HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422
Page 1 of 9 Original Research
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Author:
Valenne U. Iheanacho1
Aliaon:
1Department of Historical and
Construcve Theology,
Faculty of Theology and
Religion, University of the
Free State, Bloemfontein,
South Africa
Corresponding author:
Valenne Iheanacho,
valmsp73@gmail.com
Dates:
Received: 06 May 2021
Accepted: 21 July 2021
Published: 22 Sept. 2021
How to cite this arcle:
Iheanacho, V.U., 2021, ‘The
signicance of African oral
tradion in the making of
African Chrisanity’, HTS
Teologiese Studies/
Theological Studies 77(2),
a6819. hps://doi.
org/10.4102/hts.v77i2.6819
Copyright:
© 2021. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work
is licensed under the
Creave Commons
Aribuon License.
Introducon
Theologians in their theological presuppositions tend at times to insulate their specific religions
so that they may appear shielded from religio-cultural ambience from which such postulations or
inferences emerged. Contrary to such surmises, every religion often bears the imprint of the
religious and cultural contexts of its origin (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:114). In equal measure,
religions reflect the traditions and worldviews of their practitioners and devotees. In sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA), religious traditions were largely codified in oral forms, and because they were not
written in books, both vertical and horizontal interactions were mostly oral. Hence, by means of
the oral tradition, Africans in indigenous societies learnt their origin and history, civic and
religious duties, crafts and skills, as well as traditional myths and legends (Cooper 1983:101–102).
Prior to the advent of colonialism, Christianity and Islam, Africans had their own beliefs, thought
patterns, practices and worldviews. According to Mazvita Machinga, indigenous thought and
tradition were handed down orally from generation to generation. The core of African thought
has long been influential in shaping the responses of individuals and communities to social issues
(Machinga 2019:151). Incorporeal beings were part of the nucleus of indigenous spirituality
imbued with attitudes, beliefs, practices, and rituals that enabled Africans cope with daily
existential realities (Machinga 2019:151). Although those spiritually informed approaches,
perspectives and structures have been somewhat modified in certain instances, they have
As religious systems are intertwined with social systems, change and continuity in thought
and practice constitute a significant feature of Christianity. Thus, African Christianity embodies
a distinct socio-cultural stamp of the continent. Considering the historical phases of
Christianity, this socio-cultural stamp distinguishes African Christianity within global
Christianity. One of the cultural vehicles of this imprint on Africa Christianity is the African
oral tradition. Oral tradition is a necessary social antecedent and cultural heritage of Africans.
African oral tradition is visible primarily through proverbs, folktales, songs, dances, customs,
traditional medicines, religious practices and ancestral utterances. Through a substantial
range of literature research on the subject matter, this article contends that African oral
tradition is a relevant socio-cultural element in the constitution of African Christianity and its
influence cannot be ignored. It sets out to pinpoint certain incontestable contours and marks of
African oral tradition on African Christianity. In other words, it seeks to highlight what could
possibly be described as the defining or peculiar hues of Christianity in Africa as impressed
upon it by African culture and tradition especially in the oral form. By means of qualitative
methodology and a multidisciplinary approach in the assemblage of materials and sources,
the article argues that African oral tradition, even if not openly acknowledged, has been both
essential and instrumental in the making and shaping of Christianity particularly in the sub-
Saharan part of the continent.
Contribution: As an observational research, this article painstakingly pinpoints the remarkable
imprints of African oral tradition on the evolution and practice of Christianity in Africa.
Situated within the confines of theology and history of religion, its major contribution lies in
the drawing of attention to the remaking of Christianity on the continent with some obvious
African trademarks.
Keywords: African Christianity; African Independent Churches; Pentecostal and Charismatic
churches; indigenous oral culture and tradition; sub-Saharan Africa; healing; prosperity;
re-appropriation.
The signicance of African oral tradion in the
making of African Chrisanity
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remained influential in the lives of many Africans, whether
they be traditional worshipers, Christians or Muslims.
Whether consciously admitted or denied, the oral tradition
and its multifaceted aspects remain an essential constituent
of the rich African cosmology and way of life (Machinga
2019:152).
Oracy can legitimately be described as the hallmark of
African civilisation. African historians such as Théophile
Obenga and Joseph Ki-Zerbo, and literary icons such as Ayi
Kwei Armah, Ngŭgiwa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe and a host
of others, have searched through African oral tradition for a
luminary past to highlight a positive image and identity for
the black people (Gampiot 2017:73; Sackey 1991:389). The
creative use of African oral tradition is quite visible in the
writings of the first and second generations of African writers
from the 1950s to the late 1980s. Their skilful retrieval of
African oral narratives and their incorporation into structure,
theme and style gave birth to the Africanisation of the novel
form. As Mbop Louis (a Kuba elder) once explicated in a
conversation with the Belgian historian and anthropologist,
Jan Vansina: ‘We too know our past because we carry our
newspapers in our heads’ (cited in Newbury 2007:215).
Similar view is upheld by John Mbiti in reference to religion
amongst the African people:
Religion in African societies is written not on paper but in
people’s hearts, minds, oral history, rituals and religious
personages like the priests, rainmakers, officiating elders and
even kings …. (cited in Kamara 2000:507)
This article discusses the significance and influence of African
oral tradition on African Christianity. Particular attention is
focused on the oral culture as expressed in sermons, prayers,
songs and prophetic utterances. The aim is to demonstrate
that African oral tradition is an important socio-cultural
component in the making of African Christianity. For this
reason, qualitative methodology and a multidisciplinary
approach have been used in this article to explore and
describe the important place of African oral tradition in
African Christianity. By looking at subtitles such as a die-
hard primal worldview, innovative syncretism, pragmatic
selections and performative Christianity, this article considers
some key conceptual underpinnings of African Christianity
as displayed in a few places in SSA. This is performed
primarily through the optics of the African Initiated Churches
and Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, with occasional
allusions to the mainline churches.
A die-hard primal worldview
A staunch member of the Harrist Church almost equated the
Liberian Grebo prophet, William Wade Harris, to Jesus
Christ. Through his message, the wandering prophet made a
deep impression on his African converts because he shared
their worldview. Harris simply preached that the ‘devil is
defeated’. He was held in high esteem by his adherents. An
ardent follower of his, made this remarkable conclusion
about Harris in relation to God and other prophets:
God sent his sons to a different people to save them. Jesus went
to Europe to save the whites, but he did not come to Africa. It
was the prophet Harris, an African like us, whom God sent to
bring us into the light. (Gampiot 2017:60)
Harris and other founders of African Initiated Churches,
adopted a practical approach to Christianity, accompanied
by a problem-solving mentality. Whether it was Simon
Kimbangu in the Congo, Isaiah Shembe in South Africa,
Samuel Oschoffaor and the founders of the Aladura churches
in Nigeria, they all shared one thing in common. They held in
unison an ‘enchanted worldview’ whereby the old terrifying
gods in the over-spiritualised indigenous cosmology re-
emerged and clothed with new Christian aprons (Asamoah-
Gyadu 2005:110). This is also true of Pentecostal and
Charismatic churches that now populate African religious
landscape. The ‘enchanted worldview’ with its traditional
religious beliefs and practices, is embedded in Africa’s
religious revitalisation. It makes it possible for pre-Christian
consciousness to impinge itself upon the followers of the
founders of the second and third phases of African
Christianity (Kollman 2010a:14).
Undeniably, traditional religion has got its own tenets, but it
does not possess, in the strict sense of the terms, enforceable
theological dogmas such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
It is a religion of the heart that is enshrined in the cultural
identity and value system of the people. Although Africa is a
geographical entity and a political constitution, however, it is
not a monolith reality. Its diversities do not preclude a
‘simultaneous homogeneity in epistemology and philosophy
in which the religious factor is both active and powerful’
(Machinga 2019:152). The religious component and outlook
to life are a visible thread in the African cosmology predicated
upon a ‘mystical causality’. It is this mystical causality as
encased in indigenous religious worldview, in the assertion
of J.K. Asamoah-Gyadu, that explains Africa’s seemingly
incurable religiosity (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:94). It is not hard
to imagine that religion is bound to become a strategy for
survival in a cosmology where the physical world and the
habitation of human beings are construed as a playground
for contending and contradicting powerful unseen forces
(Adogame 2000a:6; Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:93–94). Within the
labyrinth of warfare between supernatural forces, human
beings consider themselves as pawns. The philosophy of life
and the value system that are orally imbibed, teach Africans
to look towards benevolent forces for blessings and protection
from malicious spirits. In that worldview, every misfortune
and inexplicable death ‘provided occasions for consultations
with priests and diviners for supernatural answers and
interventions’ (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:94).
A glimpse of African traditional ‘mystical causality’ can be
gleaned in Ayi Kwei Armah’s book, Fragments, typified by
the folktale tradition and worldview of the Akan people of
Ghana. The reason proffered in the novel for the death of a
child five days after his birth is something most traditional
African societies can easily relate to. In the conversation
between Naana (voice of the ancestors) and Baako (the
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principal character of the novel), it comes to the surface that
the little child’s death could not be prevented. It is the
punishment on the living for their failure to respect the
norms and practices of the powerful ancestors such as the
offering of libation (cited in Sackey 1991):
Did they pour a libation before starting this drinking? I heard
nothing, neither the silence nor the words.
There was no libation, Naana.
Do not play with me, Baako. You made my heart jump.
It’s true, there was none.
She sighed. Great friend, they have taken to forgetting the
ancestors themselves. They do not look to those gone before, and
they do not see the child. Where are their eyes, then? [262–263].
(pp. 393–394)
The prevalence and centrality of ‘healing’ and ‘deliverance’
rituals in contemporary African Christianity is without doubt
anchored on the resilience, affinity and reality of traditional
religious worldview. Afe Adogame observed that the
benevolent and malevolent spiritual entities are part of a
polarised African cosmos. It is a cosmology that is hinged
upon the belief in malevolent spiritual powers that include
evil spirits, witches and wizards (Adogame 2012b:80).
Traditional religion offers a sense of security and protection
from supernatural evil powers. It is cast against the
background of a precarious environment where release from
problems and challenges because of natural causes is
considered paramount to human survival. The transposition
of indigenous belief system has led to the re-invention of
Christianity in Africa and amongst Africans in the diasporas.
This is not surprising because traditional religions as a
common heritage of Africans, involves their body, mind and
soul. It influences their pragmatic view of religion in coping
with various existential challenges, particularly with the
retention of indigenous aetiologies of diseases, illnesses and
evil spirits (Adogame 2012b:89; Kamara 2000:509). The
comment of Carl Sundberg on a Congolese who migrates to
Sweden can be applied to many Africans in the diasporas.
They do not easily shed their indigenous worldview on
matters of health, wealth and success. Sundberg observes
that a Congolese who moves to Sweden, for instance, does
not immediately or even after a pretty long time in Europe,
change his or her ideas about why certain things happen. In
peculiar circumstances, even the inability to get a visa to
Europe or America is sometimes interpreted as a religious
problem that requires prayer (Sundberg 2019:337, 339).
In former times, recourse was made to diviners and
traditional healers who could read signs and prescribe
appropriate remedies. Similarly, Christian prophets and
pastors are now also sought after for their supposed spiritual
abilities and pedigrees to ward off evil spirits and assure
their followers of blessings. The emphasis on ‘power’ in the
re-appropriated African Christianity strikes a familiar cord
in the African context where the supernatural realm is
invoked upon for active power, intervention and succour. It
is an enduring worldview where religion is experiential and
used for the practical purposes of explanation, prediction
and control in view of the ubiquity of evil spirits
(Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:114). Prayers, sacrifices, offerings
and rituals were deployed in indigenous worldview to
secure practical ends such as success, prosperity and general
well-being. In the summation of Mbiti: ‘In prayers for wealth,
success, and prosperity, African peoples indicate their
conviction that man’s physical welfare ultimately depends
on the spiritual realm of God and the departed’ (cited in
Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:105). This explains why rituals in
Africa have particular importance especially in terms of
socio-cultural and religious symbolism. Rituals as symbolic
acts are underpinned by their religious connotation based on
their relation to the spirits and supernatural world. Ritual
actions serve as an exchange between human beings and the
spirit world, giving access to power to heal, protect and
grant material prosperity (Meyer 2007b:14). It explains why
the ordinary human experience may be understood in
traditional cosmology as a mimetic of the transcendent.
Herein, every misfortune is perceived as a diminution of the
vital force from either of the three worlds of traditional
cosmology: human, natural and supernatural. The physical
world serves as a vehicle for the spiritual, which is built
around the ‘mystical causality’ because every conceivable
human problem appears to have been caused by some
‘mysterious’ force (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:105; Machinga
2019:155).
Innovave ‘syncresm’
Religions like cultures are porous by nature, on the
recognition that they are open to intermixture and mutual
borrowing from each other. They undergo historical changes,
especially in a competitive environment in the fight for
attention and attraction of adherents. The process is equally
characterised by inter-penetration (Stewart 1999:41). In its
earliest usage, as coined by Plutarch (AD 46–119), syncretism
was employed in a positive sense as a means of survival. It
appeared for the first time in Plutarch’s De fraterno amore,
where he used it to describe the strategy adopted by the
Cretans against the onslaughts of a common foreign enemy.
In his depiction of the resourcefulness of the Cretans to mend
their differences, Plutarch reported thus: ‘… though they
often quarrelled with and warred against each other, made
up their differences and united when outside enemies
attacked; and this it was which they called “syncretism”’
(cited in Berner 2001:505).
It goes to show, as found in the work of Plutarch in the first
century, that syncretism was originally a strategic means for
survival and preservation. From the standpoint of its
etymology, syncretism and the needed process for its fruition,
appear to occur in situations of tension or crisis. According to
Charles Stewart, syncretism only acquired an overriding
negative connotation in the 17th century (Stewart 1999:45).
The negative usage of the term became more heightened in
Africa with the emergence of African Independent Churches
in the early 20th century. It was used to denigrate local
churches that broke away from the spheres of the control of
mission churches. African Independent Churches as result of
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their native origin and establishment by Africans, slowly
acquired their own space through creative innovations in the
mixture of Christian and indigenous mindsets (Stewart
1999:45–46).
In anthropological parlance, syncretism has come to mean a
synthesis between foreign and indigenous elements. It is like
the melting point of integration in which the meeting cultures
involved, lose and acquire, in equal measure (Stewart
1999:49). It facilitates the amalgamation of different religious
traits for interaction and mutual borrowing (Adogame
2000a:5). Used anthropologically in application to the
‘Africanisation’ of Christianity, the term implies a positive
understanding. In this sense, it incorporates indigenous
religious thought and practices into African Christianity. In
this regard, Christianity and traditional religion have been
engaged in a continuous dialectical interlock of mutual
exchange and creative appropriation. From anthropological
prism, tradition becomes much more than something of
antiquity that constitutes an essential part of African cultural
and religious heritage (Meyer 2004a:455, 457).
The American anthropologist, Melville Herskovits (1895–1963)
offered insights into the aforementioned view of syncretism
with an illustration from the integration of African Americans
in an overwhelmingly white society. As a realist, Herskovits
was convinced that African Americans whilst integrating
into the American society, still unconsciously preserved a
good number of their African cultural roots. These were
visible in the areas of religion, folklore and music. Herskovits
coined the term ‘cultural imponderables’ to underline the
lingering ethnic particularity of a group. It means that
syncretism contains both ‘survivals’ from the past and offers
a means to unite the past and the present (Stewart 1999:50).
The interrelation between the past and the present through
the mediation of creative syncretism comes in the form of
a hybrid. Interestingly, in its original Latin provenance,
hybrid was used to denote the offspring of a tamed sow and
a wild boar.
In view of this discussion, it can be surmised that all religions,
to some extent, may be described as hybrids because of the
variety of their overlapping and criss-crossing experiences. It
presupposes that every system has undergone some form of
change over time since its beginning (Berner 2001:502;
Stewart 1999:45). A good example, in reference to Christianity,
is from the Late Antiquity in the collection of hymns by
Synesius of Cyrene (373–414). Hymns 6, 7 and 8 of that
collection are particularly instructive because Christological
themes are couched in metaphors taken directly from ancient
Greek mythology (Berner 2001:508). Jesus is addressed in
those hymns as the ‘glorious offspring of the virgin of
Solyma’, which is an allusion to the Olympus, or the
mountains of the Solymi as mentioned by Homer in his
Oedipus (‘Solyma’ in Smith 1854). Encapsulated in the same
worldview of Greek mythology, Jesus is lauded by Synesius
for descending into the Tartarus, which is a place of torment
and suffering for the wicked. In his praise of Jesus, Synesius
exclaimed that an ‘uncountable races of demons all around
the air’ trembled at the sight of Jesus, the ruler of souls and
the conqueror of Titan, ‘the shepherd of the nocturnal gods’
(Pachulia 2019:63–66).
Theologians, on their part, like to consider syncretism as a
normative category but in a somewhat negative sense. They
use it to describe the religious processes or phenomena that
may be looked upon as deviations from the essence of
Christianity. This occurs if syncretism happens at the level of
system within the process of blurring the boundaries between
different religious systems. The desired intention is the
reduction of tension between the different systems.
Contrarily, historians of religion use syncretism as a
descriptive category where it takes place on the level of
elements and is directed towards incorporating elements
from different religious systems. It does not obliterate the
boundaries between the systems. In contradistinction to the
position of theologians, historians of religion hold the view
that there is not ‘a fixed centre inhabited by imperturbable
contents of faith and revelation’ (Berner 2001:499).
Whilst historians of religion may recognise the ‘cores’ and
‘boundaries’ of different religions, what they disapprove is
the derogatory use of syncretism to deny the respective
religious expression of certain values: authenticity,
consistency and creativity. As far as historians of religions
are concerned, there is no ‘pure’ religion and there is no
‘pure’ culture (Berner 2001:502–506). As two dynamic
phenomena, both involve a combination of elements that are
borrowed from two or more different traditions.
Consequentially, religions like cultures, embody present
composites that may eventually innovate and forge new
hybrid forms in the future. Again, the history of Christianity
indicates that the Christian religion has not always been
‘pure’ as there are cultural traces of borrowed elements from
other religions (Stewart 1999:55). The dynamism of
Christianity makes it possible for it to adapt and borrow as it
continues to interact with other religions and cultures. This
explains why African Christianity as a distinct blend within
global Christianity, is a veritable adaption of Christianity to
the African context. Its adaptation is the end product of a
mixture and mutual influence between Christianity and
traditional religious and cultural heritage. Like in other
places, the appropriation has been mediated by local
differences, and at the centre of which, is to be inserted
African oral tradition (Werbner 1997:315).
Employing the process of creative fusion, Christianity in
Africa has retained its core belief systems and multiple rituals
whilst at the same time, it has taken up certain strings of the
African cultural matrix. Like African literature inspired by
African oral tradition, Christianity equally feeds from
particular African belief systems. This is discernible in
religious music, dance, and displayed vibrancy in worship. It
is a truism that African ontology is expressed in colours, made
visible in traditional attires, singing and celebration. These
cultural traits leave their imprints on Christian worship,
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whether of the mainline churches, the Protestant churches or
the Pentecostal religious services. Their aesthetic quality is
undeniably rooted in indigenous ingenuity (Kamara 2000:513).
It bears reiterating that the emergence of Pentecostal and
Charismatic churches and their flourishing on the continent
have brought innovations within African Christianity. There
is no denying the fact that, in many respects, those innovations
have been accomplished against the backdrop of pre-existing
traditional religious and cultural worldviews.
Pragmac selecons
Africa, as Paul Kollman has observed, probably houses a
larger variety of manifestations of Christianity than any other
continent in the world (Kollman 2010a:4). The phenomenal
success of Christianisation in SSA was achieved by means of
what Kollman describes as ‘choice-encompassed’ (Kollman
2010b:126). In the explication of Kollman, the term refers to
the agency within which Africans could incorporate and
adapt new religious identities. The remaking, as it were, of
Christianity on the continent occurred within the broader
perspective of the continent’s overall adjustments to Western
and Arab intrusions. Africans in the face of Christian
missionary evangelisation, selectively appropriated the
Christian message on their own terms, and found therein
possibilities for a creative agency amid constraints. In several
ways, through their dynamic responses, they helped shape
missionary activity on the continent as missionaries
constantly had to assess and renegotiate their strategies to
local reality (Kollman 2010b:126).
In other words (Maxwell 2006):
[M]ission Christianity became African when it re-sacralised the
landscape and made use of local agents in proselytism, preaching
and prophetism, and also when Africans seized hold of Christian
symbols and powers, especially literacy. (p. 380)
Quite noticeable and interesting, is the fact that Christian
missionary enterprise in Africa became particularly
successful in those parts of the continent where it subtly
adjusted to African ‘predilections’ (Maxwell 2006:380). In
comparison to the land of the missionaries, the efforts of
Africans to ‘domesticate’ Christianity and to make it theirs,
took place in a very short period of time. Conversely, it took
Europeans about 10 centuries to transform Christianity from
its Jewish roots into a European religion. According to
Nicholas Creary, Africans were resourceful in their selective
appropriation and incorporation of foreign elements from
either Islam or Christianity into their own religious systems
that pre-existed the arrival of European missionaries (Creary
1999:766). Specifically, in the case of Christianity, there
ensued an Africanisation of Christianity as a result of that
intermingling, accompanied by a spectacular growth that is
probably unprecedented in the history of Christianity. As
Kollman explains, it is a growth that ‘represents possibly the
largest forty-year transformation to a new religious identity
in human history’ (Kollman 2012c:304). In hindsight, the
words of Mojola Agbebi (cited in Killingray 2011), etched in
1889, about the local content and the place of indigenous
agents in the progress of Christianity in Africa, now seem
prophetic:
To render Christianity indigenous to Africa, it must be watered
by native hands, pruned with native hatchet, and tended with
the native earth. It is a curse if we intend for ever to hold at the
apron strings of foreign teachers, doing the baby for aye. (p. 96)
The rooting of Christianity into the African world may be
comparable to pan-Africanism as envisioned by Naiwu
Osahon. For Osahon, it ought to be a movement that should
emerge from within the continent and ‘must be founded on
ideas and philosophies that have emerged from the African
human experience, the African soul, and the African psyche’
(cited in Ugwuanyi 2017:68). Putting aside differences and
variations based on geographical locations and personal
preferences of African church founders, a common
supposition can be made about the hominess of Christianity
on the continent. It has to do with the pragmatic selectiveness
that has given African Christianity its peculiar hue. Its
offshoots include a praxis and a spirituality that is enclosed
in an African ‘performed theology’. It involves a belief system
that is highly experiential rather than a primarily cognitive
understanding of the Christian faith (Skelton 2010:156). The
Yorubas of Nigeria is a good example of an African people
that were not crushed by a monolith of Christian doctrine
and practice. They did not accept in an indiscriminate manner
every tenet of Christianity. Instead, they selectively took
from Christianity what they liked, and used it to enlarge their
worldview. Contemporarily, they re-cast the fruits of their
borrowing from Christianity in their traditional and cultural
mode so that some elements from the native culture found
their way into the people’s practice of Christianity (Maxwell
2006:385). The Zionist churches in southern Africa achieved a
similar feat in drawing on their African cultural resources,
which they conjoined to their new Christian faith to fashion
out their unique way of being Christian (Kollman 2010a:8).
The experience of the Yorubas and Zionist churches in terms
of the intermixture of Christianity and their respective native
cultures, may be described as having the best of two worlds
without the fear of contradiction and syncretism.
A similar congruence and fusion is presently taking place
within Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. The convergence
gives birth to a new ontological fit on the heels of African
cosmological presupposition, in relation to practical help and
the promises of Pentecostalism, especially success and
prosperity (Kollman 2010b:133). The emphasis is on the power
of word of mouth to effect what it says through uttered
declarative prayers in order to conjure God into intervening
in favour of the intercessors. It is an interventionist theology
about God’s immediacy, coupled with an expressive
spirituality that appears to suit African religious psychology
(Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:101, 105). It is not uncommon to hear
the complaint of the Pentecostals against mainstream churches
whose liturgical services and preaching are judged by the
Pentecostals as lifeless. Priority appears to be accorded to
experience. The ‘Pentecostalisation’ and ‘Charismatisation’ of
African Christianity fits so well into the narrative of pragmatic
selectiveness where the preponderance of oral expression
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favours spontaneity (terms borrowed from Adogame
2012b:78). One remarkable aspect of this spontaneity is the
amazing and extempore recollection of Bible passages and
verses by many African preachers and individual Christians
(Sundkler & Steed 2004:1031). Although not exceptionally
African, one cannot but acknowledge that the almost faultless
recalling of Bible verses from memory by a good number of
African preachers is commendable, with a uniqueness of its
own. It carries the stamp of African oral tradition that is
sometimes glossed over. It is not uncommon on many
occasions to hear a preacher expound on the word of God
without a written text in hand. Such spur-of-the-moment
calls to mind the African penchant for oral spontaneity. It is
imperative to note that the offhand practice in sermon
delivery is not only limited to the second and third generation
churches in Africa, but also to older denominations such as
the Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist churches. The
sermons, in some cases, are lengthy and last more than an
hour. The scene is impressive and recalls the power of oral
tradition to develop and train the human intellect, and
memory to retain information and sharpen imagination
(Cooper 1983:103).
There is a part of African Christianity that may be identified as
‘popular Christianity’ or ‘Christianity of the ordinary people’.
It is the doorway for the expression of African super-
naturalistic orientation to life. It is nurtured by indigenous
epistemologies that most African Christians rarely discard
(Adogame 2012b:91). For this reason, certain religious practices
such as hymns, gospel choruses, prophetism and belief in the
Holy Spirit are regularly relied upon in order to keep ‘popular
Christianity’ alive. The prophets and founders of African
Independent Churches who first strutted sub-Saharan African
religious landscape reserved a prominent place for hymns.
Many of those hymns were inspired by the life and conditions
of their followers. Their interest in hymns with an African
proclivity can be qualified like Charles Wesley’s interest and
the Methodist movement who wrote hymns for the working
class in England of the 18th century. An example of the
ordinariness of their hymns is provided by Afe Adogame,
who examines a didactic hymn from the Celestial Church of
Christ’s hymn book. The cited hymn carries the marks of
ordinary, everyday life, and echoes the cultural wisdom that
inspired its composition (Adogame 2000a):
We come to market, we come to market
We come to market in the world
No matter how sweet the world may be
We shall depart one day.
When the saints go marching home
Lord, I want to be among them
Let the prayerful one’s mind their works
Those who weigh our works are coming. (p. 3)
There is a close discernible similarity in Kimbanguism
concerning the centrality of hymns in their worship, which is
a window into the core of their spiritual life. The BBC
journalist William Edmundson once wrote a piece about his
journey to the town of Nkamba in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Nkamba, known as Jerusalem to members of the
Kimbanguist Church, is home to a vast green and white
church that functions as the headquarters of the movement.
Although their conviction that the grandson of Simon
Kimbangu is a reincarnation of the prophet, and is therefore,
the Holy Spirit, may be an extreme assumption, their worship
is nonetheless, truly African. According to Edmundson
(2015), the Kimbanguist religious services are enlivened with
a sequence of hymns and a 30-piece brass band, rendered in
perfect timing and harmony. The accentuation of hymns is
reflective of a Christianity that is doing an ‘update’ on
indigenous religion (Dall 2019; Edmundson 2015). Someone
like prophet Harris in Liberia even encouraged the creation of
an indigenous hymnody amongst the Dida. It was to be based
solely on traditional forms of indigenous music (Adogame
2000a:10). Similarly, the Pentecostal and Charismatic strand
tends to give singing a prime of place in their worship,
imbued with a somewhat ‘military strategy’ (Adogame
2012b:92), where worship is akin to war. Jesus is appropriated
in context and worshipped as the changer of destinies as
expressed in a popular Ghanaian gospel chorus: ‘The Lord
has made all things new. My unfavourable destiny, he has
turned around in my favour’ (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005:96). The
war mentality is even clearer in this praise worship song by
the Nigerian gospel singer Gloria Oluchi and her Restoration
Praise: ‘We are in battle, we are in battle in this world. Enemies
may try but victory must be mine’.
With regard to pneumatology, the understanding of the
Spirit in African Christianity is approached from the
conception of power. In the explanation of Allan Anderson
and David Ngong, this is shaped by African worldview
where power is conceived as a ‘vital force’ (Anderson
2003:178-–186; Ngong 2011:53-–95). The mainstream churches
uphold the traditional Christian view of the Holy Spirit as
laid out by the first seven ecumenical councils, whilst the
understanding varies in the African Independent Churches
and the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. The experience
of the power of the Spirit can be seen as the hermeneutic key
to understand the theology of the Pentecostal-type churches.
Theirs is the fire-brand pneumatology that finds resonance in
the African context. In general terms as posited by Colin
Skelton while citing Allan Anderson and P. Makhubu, the
familiarity of the spirit world in traditional culture prepared
the way for the acceptance of the Christian concept of the
Holy Spirit (Skelton 2010:155). Once again, like other
Christian beliefs, pneumatology is carefully selected and
appropriated to envisage God as present, active and powerful
through the Holy Spirit.
Performave Chrisanity
The religious ferment within African Christianity is a
continuum that must be placed in broader historical and
cultural contexts. It relates to the pragmatic and tolerant
attitude of the African mind on religious questions because
traditional religions are multifaceted with no strict dogma or
orthodoxy to enforce as a rule of faith. It can be said that
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religious fundamentalism was somewhat alien to indigenous
societies. That African religious liberalism has survived to a
greater extent in many parts of SSA. It is not uncommon for a
good number of African Christians to pragmatically shop
around in the competitive religious market of Africa.
Individuals may attend different church services on different
days of the week. They may patronise mainstream churches
on Sunday as key service providers and flock to Pentecostal
and Charismatic churches on another day where they wet
their aspirations and desires for success and prosperity
(Deacon & Lynch 2013:115). Bishop Akin Omoyajowo of the
Anglican Church once predicted the future of Christianity in
Nigeria to reside with the Aladura churches: ‘Say what we
may, the survival of the Christian Church in Nigeria today
lies mainly in the direction of the Aladura Churches’ (cited in
Sundkler & Steed 2004:1034). Were he to make a similar
prediction today, he would agree with Paul Gifford, Birgit
Meyer and J. K. Asamoah-Gyadu that Pentecostal and
Charismatic churches mark the new phase in articulating
African Christianity. Their explosion has greatly changed the
face of African Christianity so that even mainstream churches
have had to adjust out of necessity to accommodate the
indigenous expectations of their members (Asamoah-Gyadu
2005:95; Gifford 1994b:525; Meyer 2007b:7).
Like the African offshoots of the mission churches, Pentecostal
and Charismatic churches also have foreign origins. They are
the African re-invented and appropriated strands of their
American parent churches. From the historical perspective,
the prosperity gospel that now seems to be the dominant
form of Christianity in Africa, was first propagated in the
preaching and writings of two American evangelists, Kenneth
Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. Their evangelism of prosperity
took place during the boom decades of the 1960s and 1970s in
America. It was a graced period in the United States of
America, characterised by an upward social and economic
mobility that propelled an increase in the living standard of
many Americans (Deacon & Lynch 2013:110). The evangelists
of the prosperity gospel made their mark within the American
context of their time because the prospect of opportunities
and success appeared all-time within reach. On the contrary,
the transposition of the prosperity gospel on Africa’s shores
appeared when standards of living were on the downward
slope on the continent. Their proliferation began its
ascendance between the 1980s and 1990s, during the period of
considerable strains for Africans on account of economic
stagnation, political repression and authoritarian misrule
(Deacon & Lynch 2013:109).
As a re-invented and a re-appropriated version of the
American model, African Pentecostalism thrives on the
assumption that prayer covers a gamut of issues, problems
and difficulties. Situated within the African context, it
provides the platform for the justification of wealth on the
basis that Christ wants people to be wealthy. Its exponents
argue that ‘True Christianity necessarily means wealth’
(Deacon & Lynch 2013:109–110). Armed with such a
conviction, they accord a superlative importance to the
declarative or performative use of the Bible as well as
declarative preaching and declarative prayers (Gifford
2008c:206). All three are influenced by the oral tradition
where rhetoric is both performance and declaratory. Like
incantations in indigenous religion, there exists in the
Pentecostal and Charismatic hermeneutic, an interconnection
between word and action. Both are performative effects, and
answers to declarative prayers that are meant to nullify and
reverse any demonic plans against believers. As worship is
encased like performance in a warlike setting, it is not out of
place to whip Satan into submission and the demons hooked
at, stepped upon and boxed in an imaginary fight (Asamoah-
Gyadu 2005:104). It has equally given rise to ‘healing camps’
where pastors hold sway like actors in a theatre as in the
performing arts, accompanied by clapping and dancing, and
hysterical demonstrations. According to Asamoah-Gyadu,
even ‘healing and deliverance’ has become a sub-culture of
its own within African Christianity (Asamoah-Gyadu
2005:98). Therein, pastors declare ‘breakthroughs’, proclaim
‘miracles’ through certain manners of speaking, dramatisation
and spurious claims such as the raising of the dead (Asamoah-
Gyadu 2005:98, 104; Gifford 1987a:68; Meyer 2007b:18).
Regarding the performative use of the Bible, Paul Gifford
underscores it as serving the purpose of driving home the
message that the Bible is a book of God’s promises for Born-
Again Christians (Gifford 2008c:206). The performative usage
of the Bible is very illustrative of the oral tradition. The
utterances and proclamations of pastors on the word of God,
are tailor-made to enclose promises for the congregation and
serves to meet their specific need in a specific circumstance.
Pentecostal pastors are idolised because of their perceived
power, encapsulated in their word of mouth to declare
blessings such as these expressions: ‘You will be a lender, not
a beggar’, ‘I am a king’, ‘God has not planned any defeat for
my life’, ‘God will turn the tables in your life’, ‘I am a winner,
losing is finished’, ‘If God says you are blessed, you are
blessed and there is nothing the devil can do about it’.
Interestingly, all these promises and declarations are
considered fulfilled and effected in the lives of believers
through the proclamation of the powerful man/woman of
God whose word is supposedly marched with action (Gifford
1987a:82, 2008c:206, 214–219).
Conclusion
Africa may be described as the land of oral tradition par
excellence. Its indigenous cultures, religions, history, tradition
and philosophy of life are conserved in the memory of its
people. The oral tradition in diverse forms through the
centuries has given to Africans their cultural identity as a
people. It has created an impression of Africanness upon
them that has remained indelible whether they be Christians,
Muslims or adherents of traditional religions.
This article has striven to trace the marks impressed upon
Christianity by African oral tradition. Christianity found a
fertile soil in Africans because their attitudinal religiosity is
characterised by tolerance. This mental frameset is bequeathed
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to Africans by their indigenous worldview and religions. It
means that the history of African Christianity displays a
remarkable degree of pragmatism in its selective appropriation
and adaptation on the African soil. Its performative brand is
a response to the yearnings of the African soul that places
value on the experiential knowledge of religion as opposed to
the cognitive demand of the Christian faith.
There is no doubt that Africa has developed its own variant of
Christianity. It carries with it the unmistakable emblem of
African cultural forms that distinguish it within global
Christianity. It has charted its peculiar path like the older
forms of Christianity such as Greek, Latin, Syrian, Armenian
and Egyptian Christianities. Those were specific diversities
and each was coloured and shaped by the variety of its national
culture. African Christianity, in likewise manner, has achieved
a synthesis through the fusion of African cultural traits in their
oral forms and the Christian system of beliefs and symbols. It
is a vibrant Christianity that is reflective of the pragmatic and
tolerant attitude of the African mind on religious questions.
The adaptation of Christianity in the African locale has been
made possible by innovative syncretism and pragmatic
selections, also facilitated by African cultural matrix, at the
centre of which, is the African oral tradition.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the University of the Free State for financial
support. Thanks to Dr Idara Otu for reading the first draft of
the manuscript.
Compeng interests
The author declares that he has no financial or personal
relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him
in writing this article.
Author’s contribuons
V.U.I. is the sole author of this article.
Ethical consideraons
This article followed all ethical standards for research
without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Funding informaon
This article is part of the author’s contribution as a research
fellow at the University of the Free State.
Data availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data
were created or analysed in this study.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or
position of any affiliated agency of the author.
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