Christianity and African Traditional Culture

1. Christianity and African Traditional Culture

The critical debate between the missionaries and traditional leaders posed serious questions regarding the role of culture in Christianity. The traditional leaders took the approach of “cultural revivalism”, that is, reviving the culture in its totality. The missionaries took the approach of “cultural anti-revivalism” that is, doing away with or throwing away the cultural practices.1
The ‘cultural revivalists’ including the Afrikania movement argues firstly that the commitment to the cultural heritage of the people will serve as the basis of the search for cultural identity and cultural pride and unite them as a society. Secondly, reviving one’s culture would also create authentic values for the future, ‘their perception of reality, their understanding of themselves, and their shared apprehension and interpretation of societal experience’2 Thirdly, there is the assumption that recovering and developing one’s cultural past becomes the basis of making a contribution to global civilisation. Fourthly, they argue that cultural revivalism will lead to mental freedom from a colonial mentality. According to Okomfo Damuah, ‘mental bondage is mental violence, religious bondage is invisible violence and cultural bondage is cultural suicide’.3 Colonial rule makes the colonised people intellectually servile to the ideas and values of the Colonial Government. Fifthly, they argue that the reason why some societies in Ghana are not developing is due to the fact that they tend to use foreign ideas to which they have no ideological attachment. Okomfo Damuah mentioned that, “the main trend is to discover our own authentic native values and grow from those roots rather than trying to be an extension or offshoot of other traditions”4 Lastly, they argue that reviving the cultural past will contribute to national integration and nation building.
The argument of the ‘cultural revivalists’ referring to the missionaries is that if Christianity is going to grow in Africa and also ‘catch-up’ with modernity then Africa must abandon a great part of their cultural practices that is archaic and primitive.5 The attitude of the church towards all traditional beliefs suggests that Christians should abandon any form of contact with spirit-powers and spirit –ancestors, all use of magic and fear of witchcraft.6 Any attempt to revive the cultural practices would be irrelevant to the goals and concerns of the African Christian.
The firm stand of these two groups has led to tensions, confusions, controversies and inconsistencies, and this is due to the failure to distinguish between what may be regarded as positive and negative elements in the culture. It is this failure that led the revivalist group to regard the entire culture to be positive, good, and perfect, while the anti-revivalist group saw everything in the culture negative, worthless and good for nothing.
The grounds for evaluating where a tradition should be accepted, refined or abandoned may be several. Some may see a tradition to be dysfunctional and hampers the progress of a society, “others may see it as discordant with the ethos of a new set of cultural values that a new generation is bent on establishing”7others may see it as morally unacceptable to the society.
In my view, neither the revivalists nor the anti-revivalist are entirely correct in their argument and criticism. They are both mistaken and unjustifiable views. The anti-revivalist (I am referring to the extreme group) position implies that though culture is the embodiment of people’s way of life nothing useful can be derived from the ideas, values and practices of their culture. They see no reason why the past must be revived. Gospel and culture are for them ‘polar’ concepts that cannot be integrated.8 In my view, to argue that a great part of people’s culture be rejected is unacceptable. In fact a total rejection of one’s cultural past would be absurd. The revival of some cultural values is very legitimate and relevant, and this is what this study is seeking to do. But not every aspect of a cultural heritage ought to be revived. Thus it will be impossible for me to support the position of the revivalist, if that position were to advocate the revival of the whole corpus of the culture. For the revivalist also argues that for development to take place the whole culture must be revived. I disagree with this position, because some cultural elements hinder progress. The revivalist who does not show any awareness of the negative features of the culture that impede progress, is misguided and his view will be counterproductive.
My position is neither cultural revivalism nor cultural anti-revivalism but appropriating the positive elements in African culture. By appropriation I mean, critically examining ideas and values embedded in African culture and giving them a theological meaning. Some of the values would have to be retrieved, refined, improved, and re-evaluated. There are values that can be regarded as so fundamental to the existence of the African culture that they transcend every generation. Appropriating these elements and giving them theological meaning will suggest that something worthwhile can be developed from the African cultural past.