Ubuntu-shaped Missiology (Part 1)
What Do The Africans Bring To Missiology?
Welcome to my newsletter, “Global Witness, Globally Reimagined.”
I dream here about mission in a postcolonial world. Every week, I share one thought that has spoken to me, two resources I trust will be helpful to you, and three quotes about mission.
I pray one of these will energise you this week.
1. Thought I Can’t Shake Off
Andrew Walls used to say that Western theology is too narrow for world Christianity. He gave examples of such topics as the African understanding of the spirits and witchcraft, about which Western theology has very little to say. I agree with him totally, and I wish to extend the argument to Western missiology. Our Western missiology, especially in its evangelical expression, is too narrow and limiting, (I know, many of my Western friends behave as if it is exhaustive and universal). This reality must cause us to want to explore what missiological thought comes from other parts of the world. And this is always better if those thoughts are authentically non-Western — there is a lot of Western stuff coming out of the rest of the world too. For Africans, a small part of their contribution to missiology will come from Ubuntu theology which is based on the belief that humanity can only be through community — “I am because we are.” Individuality is both welcome and needed because the individual’s work for the community makes it thrive (and the community gives back to the individual by shaping their identity and providing social capital), but individualism is not to be entertained (implying that evangelism best happens in community). In ubuntu, all human life is made possible by the activities of the spirit-world—for Christians, think the Spirit of God—and, under this watchful eye of the Spirit, human relations and community well-being take primacy. An ubuntu missiology, where done well, will create a human fellowship of the Spirit in which love and care for one another are key hallmarks because, of course, we can only be whole when everyone is whole. Such a communally-shaped missiology will involve constant discernment of the Spirit—no wonder, if Africans get anything right, it is prayer (as a means to access the Spirit of God). Essentially, ubuntu missiology will mean the gospel is for the good of all of human life, not just the saving of souls, and that we must care for one another because our well-being depends on everyone else’s well-being. COVID-19 showed us this is actually true.
2. Resources I am Enjoying
Book: Randy S. Woodley, Mission and the Cultural Other: A Closer Look. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.
I have just become aware of the works of Randy Woodley, whose book, Mission and the Cultural Other, has been my reading for the week. He is a Cherokee Indian of the United Keetoowah Band. With his wife, Edith, he is the co-founder of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds, where they invite people to a new relationship with Creation and model sustainable farming practices and earth justice. Until a few years ago, he was Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at Portland Seminary, Portland, Oregon.
His Cherokee Indian heritage shapes a great deal of his faith and theology as a Christian scholar as well as his understanding of mission. In this sense, he models for us what identity and authentic discipleship looks like. In Mission and the Cultural Other, he reflects at length on the impact of the Western Christians’ civilising agenda on mission. He rightly argues that for most Western missionaries, there was no gap between mission and civilisation. Using the example of the evangelization of Native Americans, he observes that one of the indicators that an Indian had been saved is when they have begun to live and behave like Westerners.
Quoting Samuel Escobar’s The New Global Mission, Woodley challenges us to face reality and ask ourselves hard questions such as, “Was Jesus present in the Western mission-sending churches of the twentieth century? Or were they simply a form of theologically and socially paternalistic white supremacy, feigning superiority and hegemony?” I think his charge that European mission to the Native Indians was a “cultural genocide in all its social, economic, political and religious aspects” is not only historically true, it continues to happen today in many missionary works in the world. As such, I believe that this is a book that mission leaders need to wrestle with or, at least, be aware of to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Video Resource: Multi-Ethnic Churches and the Liberating Power of Lament with Pastor Inés Velásquez-McBryde
In this week's podcast highlight, Latasha Morrison discusses the dynamics of building multi-ethnic churches with Inés Velásquez-McBryde. For Velásquez-McBryde, awareness of contextual history, both that of the early church and of the colonisation of the Americas, is critical for the establishing of multi-ethnic congregations. She further highlights the need for lamentation and reconciliation in mending interracial gaps and ultimately facilitating multi-ethnic churches. In her twenty years of church planting and congregational leadership, she observed that “people want proximity to the people of colour in the pew, but they did not want proximity to the pain of the people of colour outside of the pew.” But, of course, if you cannot identify with a people's pain, you cannot identify with them. It is that simple.
3. Quotes I am Pondering
Ubuntu [...] speaks of the very essence of being human. [We] say [...] "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons.” … A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are. — Desmond Tutu
The response of the church should therefore be the promotion and provision of adequate cross-cultural theological and missiological training, to prepare church leaders ... including those in declining mainline denominations, to extend their ministries beyond the traditional white middle-class publics, and be adaptable to the needs of ethnic and diaspora peoples in its changing society. — Sheila Akomiah-Conteh
As long as missionaries were committed to translation, so long would vernacular concepts and usage continue to shape and direct the transmission of Christianity, including the understanding of God by more inclusive criteria. — Lamin Sanneh
Thank you, I pray you have a missionally fruitful week.
Thank you, Dr. Sir. Your recent publications are thought-provoking. You exemplify having our thinking caps on and dishing wisdom in the spirit of grace and love.
This is brilliant! It’s exactly what we need to be discussing in our western churches. Being from the U.K., the inner city churches are multicultural and full of ethnic diversity but lacks discussion on how translation and language shapes culture and understanding.