2. African Christianity and the concept of Time and History

2. African Christianity and the concept of Time and History

Another significant feature in dealing with African Christianity in Post-modern world is African conceptualisation of time. It is a renewal of history, a fresh appreciation of past events revisited in the present and projected into the future. It runs ahead towards the new, towards the new, towards the future, even in repetitions. As Paul Tillich explains, “the time of creation is not determined by the physical time in which it is produced but by the creative context, which is used and transformed by it”1 Mbiti’s understanding of the African view of time was first expressed in his doctoral thesis, in which he attempted to examine New Testament eschatology from an African cultural perspective. He did a study of the Akamba (his own tribe in Kenya) and came to the conclusion that Akamba’s view of time can be conceived of as two-dimensional ‘with a long past and a dynamic present’, the future is virtually non-existent.2 He later generalised this to be true of the thinking of all of Africa.
The linear concept of time in Western thought with an indefinite past, present and infinite future is practically foreign to African thinking. The future is virtually absent because event which lies in it have not taken place, they have not been realised and cannot, therefore constitute time… What is taking place now no doubt unfolds the future, but once an event has taken place, it is no longer in the future but in the present and what is past.3

According to Mbiti this understanding of time under girds the African understanding of himself or herself, the community and his or her universe. He asserts, “when Africans reckon time, it is for a concrete and specific purpose, in connection with events but not just for the sake of mathematics”4 The modern Africa is discovering the future dimension of time due to Christian teaching, Western education and modern technology. Mbiti’s concept of time may be identified with the Akamba tribe but it is an over-generalisation to state that this concept of time is true for all of Africa. Nor is it the ‘key’ for understanding “the African worldview”. The diversity of Africa with over a thousand languages shows that the concept of time among the Akamba tribe may be different from that of others. The Asante (a major ethnic group in Ghana) concept of time is different from that of the Akamba people, because the past is revisited in the present and projected into the future. It is more than cyclical or linear; it has the notion of a ‘spiral’. Mbiti’s understanding of time cannot be accepted as definitive for all Africa, but it does give valuable insights to a concept of time among Akamba that is very different from that of the Asante. What is different between the Akamba and Asante is that while in Akamba future is virtually non-existent in Asante the past is projected into the future. This means that any religion that does not give the Asante a linkage to his past as a key to future orientation is likely to be misunderstood or ignored.