Through the Door of No Return and Back

1. Through the Door of No Return and Back Developing a Truly Pan-African Theology

2. EngelbertMveng, An African liberation theologian, constructed the term: “The Anthropological Poverty of the African Person”

3. “It is the cultural and religious denigration of African identity” “It consists of despoiling human beings not only of what they have but of everything that constitutes their being and essence—their identity, history, ethnic roots, language, culture, faith, creativity…their right to speak.”

4. The Construction of the African Heathen • White over Black, Winthrop Jordan describes early European attitudes towards the Negro/African from 1550-1812. • The British were Christians and encountered indigenous African cultures through an exclusivist Christian lens.

5. "Christianity also militated against the unity of man..... Because Englishmen were Christians, heathenism in Negroes was a fundamental defect which set them distinctly apart…They [Englishmen] were not accustomed to dealing face to face with people who appeared, so far as many travelers could tell, to have no religion at all. Judged by Christian cosmology, Negroes stood in a separate category of men (23).”

6. As one Englishman declared, “Negroes, in colour so in condition are little more than devils incarnate…the Devil has infused prodigious Idolatry into their hearts, enough to relish his pallet and aggrandize his tortures when he gets power to fry their souls, as the raging Sun has already scorched their cole-black carcasses.”

7. Cape Coast Castle—headquarters for all of British slaving and site of Christian expansionism.

8. Philip Quaque, “Missionary, School Master, and Catechist to the Negroes on the Gold Coast” • Chaplain at Cape Coast Castle (1766-1816) symbol of the collaboration between the slave trade and religion • Brought to and educated in England by a missionary in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel • 1st African ordained in the Anglican church • Anti-African religion—referred to ATR as • “deceitful Dum-lying Fetishes”

9. African Religions in Western Scholarship, Okot p’ Bitek • Late 19th century Western cultural and social anthropology and Christian missionaries all had a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of the “primitive” to justify the colonial system. • Edward Tylor, British cultural anthropologist (1832-1917), argued that there were religious stages and that human beings evolved from primitive conceptions, like animism, to polytheism, and finally monotheism. • Western scholarship about African religions perpetuates the myth of the primitive. African and Native American religions continue to be referred to as “primitive” or “primal” in Western scholarship about religion.

10. The Colonization of Knowledge Who are the experts on Africa? Insider s vs. Outsiders

11. Terms Misapplied to African Religions Animism—the belief that spirits/spiritual power can inhabit natural objects such as rocks, rivers, and trees (not the belief that natural objects have souls). Fetishism—a natural object that possesses divine power that can be manipulated for good or for evil (fetish worship). Ancestor Worship– The idea that African people worship, or exalt as absolute/ultimate their ancestors. Other problematic terms: magic, superstition, idolatry (fetish religion)

12. African Religions in Western Scholarship, Okotp’Bitek • Tribe—this term, when applied to Africa, “turns out to have no definite meaning, in that it refers to no specific unit in Africa…It is suggested that the term ought to be dropped from sociological vocabulary…Moreover it is an insult. It means people living in primitive or barbaric conditions. • Primitive vs. Civilized

13. W.E.B Dubois Pan-Africanist, Sociologist“Double consciousness” “This sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others…One ever feels his twoness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from begin torn asunder.” 2nd sight; A preoccupation with the white gaze.

14. African religions vs. Western Christianity Living revelation vs. Historical revelation Oral Traditions vs. Written Text Morally/ethically based vs. Doctrinally based Doing the right vs. Believing the right thing No proselytizing vs. Aggressive proselytizing!

15. Conception of God • Africans believe in a supreme God and from the supreme God come lesser divinities (deities). • Communotheism—God as a community; • Neither Monotheism or Polytheism (Ogbonnaya) • Also great value is placed on the role of Ancestors—completely fulfilled human beings who lived an exemplary life and in death ascend to a higher place of authority and power in the invisible community/ancestral realm

16. Ancestors shape the African view of time • In African society, time is spherical as opposed to linear. • Birth—Life (childhood-adolescence-adulthood-elder)—Death—Ancestor—Birth • “What the grandfather and grandson share together is their close proximity to the cosmos. The grandfather will soon return where the grandson came from, so therefore the grandson is the bearer of news the grandfather wants (Malidoma Some, “Of Water and the Spirit”).

17. Oral Traditions: Nature is Sacred and functions as a sacred text Proverbs: Hunt in every forest, for there is wisdom and good hunting, in all of them. It is easier to put out the fire in the house of the neighbors than to deal with the smoke in one’s own. However big one eye may be, two are better.

18. Truth is like a Baobab Tree, one person’s arms can not embrace it.

19. African vs. Western modes of understanding reality • Western mode—To identify, or classify, and separate. This mode is predicated on obsession with difference. • African mode—To identify, or classify, and include or incorporate. This mode is finding unity in difference.

20. Proverbs: Nature If you want to speak to God, speak to the winds. When two antelopes are fighting and a lion approaches, the antelopes run off together(forgetting the quarrel) Power must be handled in the manner of holding an egg in the hand: if you hold it too firmly it breaks; if you hold it too loosely it drops.

21. Life is Relational • “One’s life force depends on the life forces of other persons and other beings, including those of the ancestors and, ultimately, God (52).” • From Of Water and the Spirit, MalidomaSome • “Wealth among the Dagara is determined not by how many things you have, but by how many people you have around you. A person’s happiness is directly linked to the amount of attention and love coming to him or her from other people (24).”

22. I am because we are, and because we are therefore I am • “Life is when you are together, alone you are an animal.” African proverb • “The life of the individual…[can only be] grasped as it is shared. The member of the clan, the family, the village knows that he does not live to himself, but within the community. He knows that apart from the community he would no longer have the means of existence (Magesa, 65).”

23. Misuse of the Universe=Greed • “Greed constitutes the most grievous wrong. Indeed, if there is one word that describes the demands of the ethics of African Religion, sociability in the sense of hospitality, open-hearted sharing, is that word. Hospitality negates greed. It means the readiness and availability to form community.

24. Adinkra Symbols (GyeNyame—Omnipotence of God; Sankofa—Go Back and Reclaim it; Aya—Indestructible plant—courage can not be defeated; Twistings—the ability to withstand difficulty; Crocodile--Adaptability.)

25. In Summary • “There are two spheres of the universe—the visible and invisible—and they are closely interconnected; each influences the other to create religious systems of morality and ethics.” • “All life is divine life…The universe is a religious universe. Nature…is filled with religious significance…The physical and spiritual are but two dimensions of one and the same universe (African Religion, L. Magesa).” (no sacred vs. profane)

26. African vs. Western modes of understanding reality • Western mode—To identify, or classify, and separate. This mode is predicated on obsession with difference. • African mode—To identify, or classify, and include or incorporate. This mode on finding unity in difference.

27. JaramogiAbebeAgyeman (Albert Cleage, Jr.)Ismael Tettah—Organic Intellectuals • Both men, one in America and other in West Africa (Ghana) develop their theologies based on the concern with addressing black/African self-hatred and “double-consciousness.” • “Nothing is more important than the liberation of black/African people.” • Both men develop a conception of God rooted in African mysticism. God is cosmic energy and creative intelligence.

28. African Initiated Church—Etherean Mission Church • Etherean Mission—a pluralistic approach to Truth. • Doctrine of God--Tettah argues “God is the intelligent, all-pervading, all prevailing power and presence behind all that exists.” • God is Mother and Father. • The GA name for God translates “Great-Father Great-Mother God” • Doctrine of Jesus Christ • The church makes a distinction between the Jesus, the man, and the Christ consciousness. “The Christ consciousness is a universal consciousness of love and has incarnated in many men…to remind them of their real relationship with God.”

29. Etherean Mission Churchpastor Ishmael Tetteh: Clinic that connects spirituality and healing/medicine

30. A Pluralistic Approach to Religious Faith • WE must cultivate a Pan-African consciousness derived from African mysticism that incorporates an pluralistic approach to faith/truth in order to heal the split, or double-consciousness, that exists through out the Pan-African world. • WE must go back and reclaim what was stolen and lost. Our ancestors went through the door of no return but we can go back and reconnect and find healing for our split consciousness.

31. Bibliography of African Religions African Religions in Western Scholarship, Okotp’Bitek West African Traditional Religions, Kofi Asare Opoku African Religions: A Very Short Introduction, Jacob Olupona Postcolonializing God, Emmanuel Lartey What is Not Sacred? African Spirituality, LaurentiMagesa African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life, LaurentiMagesa On Communitarian Divinity, A. OkechukwuOgbonnaya Of Water and the Spirit, Malidoma Some The Healing Wisdom of Africa, M. Some An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme, Kwame Gyekye Theology in Africa, Kwesi Dickson Christianity without Fetishes: An African Critique of and Recapture of Christianity, EboussiBoulaga