Black Christians, the Bible and Liberation - DISA
Transcript of Black Christians, the Bible and Liberation - DISA
BLACK CHRISTIANS, THE BIBLE Afo,,'Q LIBERATION
Black Christians, theBible and Liberation
Dr Takatso Mofokeng*
1. IntroductionNo statement in the history of politicalscience as well as that ofChristian missions expresses the dilemma that confronts black South Africans in theirrelationships with the Bible withgreater precision and has whipped upmore emotions than the following:"When the white man came to ourcountry he had the Bible and we hadthe land. The white man said to us 'letus pray'. After the prayer, the whiteman had the land and we had thebible". With this statement which isknown by young and old in SouthAfrica, black people of South Africapoint to three dialectically relatedrealities. They show the the centralposition which the Bible occupies inthe ongoing process of colonization,national oppression and exploitation.They also confess the incomprehensible paradox of being colonized by aChristian people and yet being converted to their religion and acceptingthe Bible, their ideological instrumentof colonization, oppression and exploitation. Thirdly, they express a historic commitment that is acceptedsolemnly by one generation and passed on to another - a commitment toterminate disinheritance and eradicate exploitation of humans by otherhumans.
The statement we referred to talksabout the connection between blackChristians. the Bible and the strugglefor liberation. This is the issue thatwill occupy us today.
The historical dilemma - The Bible asan instrument of social control andsocial struggle,It is a generally accepted fact whichwill undoubtedly come up again andagain in this conference that the Biblefirst reached the shores of our part ofthe African continent through thesometimes uncomfortable but nonetheless successful partnership between colonialism and the Christianmissionary enterprise. Many criticalAfrican writers, both secular andreligious, have written extensivelyabout this partnership and its benefitsto each of the partners involved, Somehave argued that the missionary enterprise used colonialism as an effectiveand readily available vehicle to reachthe religious heart of the so-called'dark continent' and win it for JesusChrist. They add that in the missionaryuse of this vehicle they succeeded intwo things, Firstly, they reached theirdestination with the Bible, which isthe religious heart of Africa, emptied itof all the 'evil' contents that led to vio-
• Dr Takatso Mofokeng teaches theology at the University ofSouth Africa.
JOURNAL OF BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOIJfH AFRICA 35
lent African social structures, corruptpolitical institutions and a weakeconomic system. Consequent to theiractivities the African people haveaccepted a new religion and the Bibleas a guide in their lives. They havebeen introduced to new European cultural values, norms and attitudes andthat their entire society has beenchanged. For this work, the defendersof the missionaries argue, they deserveeternal gratitude from Africans.Bishop Desmond Tutu agrees with thisline of thought but adds a critical notewith which we agree, saying: "But itremains true to say that they sought toEuropeanize us before they couldChristianize us. They have consequently jeopardized the entireChristian enterprise since Christianityhas failed to be rooted sufficientlydeeply in the African soil, since theyhave tended to make us feel somewhatuneasy and guilty about what wecould not alter even if we had trieduntil doomsday - our Africanness."
In addition to the change of the African personality and society that havebeen achieved through the use of theBible. another achievement is alwaysadded. It is contended that these mendid a lot to blunt the sharp edges of thesword of the colonizers with theirmoral influence on the latter. Had itnot been for their numerous intervenlions, it is said, Africans would havebeen ruthlessly butchered. While thismay be true, it should not, however, beforgotten that more often than not, themissionaries invoked the same violence of the colonial powers wheneverthey wished to mete out punishmenton the so-called stubborn and intransigent African kings.
Other African writers have alsoargued very persuasively that it wascolonialism that used the missionaryenterprise to soften the hearts and
minds of our African forebears. AsGwinyai Muzorewa aptly puts it:"What is indisputable is the fact thatthe colonists tended to use the missionaries to make their task easier". Hefollows up this assertion by addressingthe congruence of their goals and says:"... consequently, there is a thin linebetween the missionary. intention andthe intent of the colonizer' ... "2 8.M.Magubane is even more emphaticwhen addressing this issue. He arguesvery forcefully that "the initial act ofconquest was buttressed and institutionalized by ideological activities"that resulted in the African peoplethemselves loudly admitting thecutural hegemony of their conquerors.' Magubane further argues.thatit was necessary for Africans to beincorporated into the mental and cultural universe of their white conquerors through an ideological onslaught. Hence the presence of Christian missionaries who were armedwith the Bible on the colonial oxwagon when its wheels rolled violently through the breadth and lengthof our continent. In the Bible they hadthe most potent canon in the entireideological armoury targeted at thefundamental pmars of African socialstructure, religion and culture.
Magubane's assessment of missionsand the use to which the Bible was puthas not just been sucked from his ownthumb. Many missionaries confirmedthe legitimacy of this indictment of theBible in their reports to the missionarysocieties as well as in their memoirs.Brownlee, a British missionary forinstance, wrote and said: "As thenatives came under the influence ofthe teaching of missionaries, .... inproportion to the spread of missionaryinfluence the desire for articles ofEuropean manufacture grew andspread, and I think (it) will well satisfy
BLACK CHRISTIANS, THE BIBLE AND LIBERATION
this meeting that to the misSIonarymainly we owe the great revenue nowderived from native trade." The samesentiment was expressed by Dr. JohnPhilip of the London Missionary Society in his Researches in SouthAfrica. John de Gruchy in his Churchstruggle in South Africa also points outthat the initial opposition to missionsamong Africans in South Africa wasdefeated by an assurance given by themissionaries that the Bible would,contrary to the colonists' fears, createobedient and loyal hardworking slavesout of the indigenous people.
Stories that come from areas wherethe slave trade and slave labour waspractised also confirm this indictment. In that case too the initial effortsto introduce the Bible to captured Africans were opposed until the slaveowners were assured of the benefits ofChristian missions. Slaves wereseverely punished by their masters iffound reading the Bible unul theassurance referred to above was givenand kept. In other words the missionaries were certain that there wasenough material in the Bible whichwould enable them to keep their wordof making better slaves out of a colonized people.
However much one may try to pleadthe innocence of missionaries as theoverzealous children of the Victorianage, and many have done this, the presence of the Bible which most of usstill accept as the normative documentof the Christian faith on the colonialwagon presents us as present victimsof colonialism and capitalist exploitation which it ushered in with a contradiction we cannot easily ignore. Wehave to admit that the Bible which wasa great problem as well as a blessing tomillions of our ancestors for two ormore centuries, still constitutes aproblem and a blessing to millions of
our contemporary African people,both Christian and non-Christian,religious and non-religious. And thishistoric paradox cannot remain unresolved to haunt of our coming generations. We have to respond to it with allthe zeal and intelligence at our command. But as things stand we canrespond best only if weare prepared tolearn from the responses of those BlackChristians who went before us in ordernot to repeat their mistakes.
2. Black responsesLooking at the history of Blackresponses to incursions which theBible and its message made in an ideological field that had hitherto been theexclusive territory of African religionand its oral traditions we can distinguish three different kinds of Blackresponse to which we shall refer onlybriefly and in passing. Firstly, wenotice the heroic defence of the legitimacy of African traditional religionsand their hegemonic field. Inspite ofall the energies expended in this effortthese religions have lost the strugglefor exclusive ideological and spiritualcontrol of the Black community. Secondly, as a consequence of the loss ofcontrol to which we referred, the African Independent Churches emerged aschurches of compromise, in which elements of the Christian tradition as represented by the Bible and those of traditional religion as conveyed by Africanoral tradition are synthesized. Thirdly,the historic churches or colonialchurches or even white churcheswhich represent a total surrender ofthe African ideological field and a consequent total assimilation into European Christendom mushroomed asBlacks were converted into them.These three responses constitute theinexhaustible source from which present Black Christians and theologians
JOURNAL Of BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOUTH AfKICA "in South Africa draw their own different responses to the paradox presented by the Bible in a situation ofunabating oppression and disinheritance of the indigenous people ofSouth Africa. I wish now to move on toa discussion of the present state of theparadox we referred to above underthe heading:
Contemporary paradox: the Bible as aproblem as well as a solutionThe paradoxical nature of the Bible isnot only inherent. It is also external. Itderives from another concreteparadox, i.e. the paradox of racistoppression and the exploitation ofblack people by white people. It alsoderives from a religious paradox - thatthe overwhelming number of peoplefrom both races are Christians whoswear on the Bible and pledgeallegiance to Jesus the Messiah Bnd histeachings. It is internationally recognized that the forebears of the presentwhite Christians used the Bible to justify white superiority and the right ofwhites to be masters over Blacks.Hence the well· known partnershipbetween the gun and the Bible. Eventhe present generation of white Christians continue to use the Bible in manyof their efforts to resist change. What isworse, they even launch endlessChristian revival campaigns to passifyBlack resistance to oppression. WhenBlack christians see all these conservative ad reactionary efforts and hear theBible being quoted in support of reactionary causes they realize more andmore that the Bible itself is indeed aserious problem to people who want tobe free.
Many Black Christians through theages have tried to locate and solve thisproblem of the Bible in many differentways. The most commonly held approach has been to accuse oppressor-
preachers of misusing the Bible fortheir oppressive purposes and objectives. This misuse is based, it isargued, on misinterpretations of biblical texts to support or promote oppres·sive intentions.
It is clear that this critique is basedon the assumption that the Bible isessentially a book of liberation. Thisassumption is held in spite of the obvious presence in the Bible of texts,stories and books which can only servean oppressive cause. This argument,which is generally held by trainedtheologians who have been broughtinto the ideological universe of thedominant and oppressive Christianworld and accepted it, is not completely based on fact. We will concedethat this misinterpretation has indeedbeen done. But this is the case withsome texts and certainly not all. Itcould easily be done only with textsthat already appeared to be written topromote a different cause namely, thecause of liberation. We contend thatthere are stories and texts which arebasically oppressive and whose interpretation (not misinterpretation) onlyserves the cause of oppression. On thecontrary it is (in fact) their interpretation and use for liberation that wouldconstitute misinterpretation and misuse. There are numerous texts whichhave long disqualified themselves inthe eyes of oppressed people. We canrefer to the well-known Pauline position on slavery and on the social position and behaviour of women. Wethink that in the light of this textualreality formally-trained hermeneutistsand exegetes of the downtroddenshould abandon the ideologicallymotivated concept of the unity of theBible as well as the assumption that itis a book of liberation per se. Theyshould join those grassroot Christianswho made the necessary distinctions
BLACK CHRISTIANS. THE BIBLE AND LIBERATION
long ago and identified their texts andused them to the exclusion of others.
In many cases the problem of theBible has been transferred to the areaof ethics or the practical concretiza·tion of biblical teaching. In thisattempt to solve the dilemma manydowntrodden Christians have accusedmany preachers and racist whites ofnot practising what they preach. Againthat may well be the case as far as certain texts. that are ambiguous or broadenough to allow for many options at apractical level, are concerned. Wewant to argue that there are texts,stories and traditions in the Biblewhich lend themselves to onlyoppressive interpretations and oppressiveuses because of their inherent oppressive nature. And that no amount of textual surgery or hermeneutic jugglingand semantic gymnastics can changethat. In fact all surgical attempts totransplant the blame or stretch theinterpretation to "save" or "co-opt"these oppressive texts for the oppressed only serve the interests of theoppressors who desire to have theoppressed under the same cultural,spiritual and ideological as themselves because they are in control of it.Instead of pursuing these diversionarypaths oppressed Christians andtheologians have to acknowledge thereality of this problem, assess its gravity, commit themselves to search for itssolution and chart a new and independent approach to the biblical text, aswell as a more relevant epistemological cause.
On the other hand, when many BlackChristians read their history of struggle carefully, they come upon manyBlack heroes and heroines who wereinspired and sustained by some passages and stories of the Bible in theirstruggle. when they read and interpreted them in the light of their Black
experience, history and culture. Theycould consequently resist dehumanization and the destruction of theirfaith in God the liberator. It is thisnoble Black Christian history thathelps to bring out the other side of theBible, namely, the nature of the Bibleas a book of hope for the downtrodden.
A careful reading of the experiencesand witness of the early church confirms the correctness of the experiences of our people concerning theusefulness of the Bible asa book with amessage of survival, resistance andhope. As we all know, the weakest,neglected, poor and marginalizedpeople in Palestine at the time of Jesusfelt attracted to Jesus' practices andmessage about his God and human life.What Jesus taught and did benefittedthem materially and spiritually andgave them a reason for hoping for a different future and believing in theirright to a decent human existence. It isno accident that after Jesus' departurethis first Christian community structured and organised their communaland material life in the manner inwhich Acts 4 relates. This was a thoroughly practised structure of materialsurvival and basis for hope for theweak and poor in' that threatened community at that historical period andthose imperial economic circumstances. At a spiritual and ideologicallevel Jesus had given them a new wayof reading the Old Testament andunderstanding their God. With thisnew way they could counteract theofficial reading of the Old Testamentas well as the dominant view of God asthe God of the law who demands totaland blind obedience or else .... Againstthis view they witnessed to a God whodelights in the salvation of people. theremoval of their burdens and not intheir destruction. They could holdonto a gracious God who is merciful to
JOURNAl-OF BLACKTHEOU)GY IN SOUTH AfRICA J9
the weak and the blind who fall continuously or lose their way in thesocio-economic and political jungle.Jesus also brought them to a God whochampions the cause of the victims ofpeople's inhumanity to the point ofsuffering and the cross.
II is abundantly evident that thisbasic social and theological positionwas modified during the period of missions into Europe and otber areas ofthe Mediterranean basin or of theRoman Empire. In this expansion ofthe church the interpretation of thebasic text- the praxis of Jesus and itstranslation into concrete social structures, relations and attitudes alsochanged. For example, the originalcommunism of the first communitygave way to tolerance of economic disparities, with the proviso that the poorshould not suffer from their lack ofmaterial possessions. In spite of thesemodifications which continued to bemade up to the point of Constantiniancompromise, the position of the earliest Christian community remainedas the reference point in understanding the praxis of Jesus. Every Christiangeneration could go back to it in searchof a Iiberative approach to the biblicaltext.
This new insight becomes a sourceof encouragement to contemporaryBlacks to assert their claim on theBible as a weapon of ideological andspiritual struggle for liberation. Asthey assert this claim a new kind ofstruggle ensues, namely, the strugglefor the Bible or, to be more precise, thestruggle for control of the Bible.
This new struggle is accepted not asa substitute or alternative to the physical one but in addition to it. It isrealiz.ed that the physical struggle forcontrol of the material means of subsistence has to be complemented by astruggle for control of the Bible that
contains the means for ideological andspiritual subsistence, But since theBible is an ecumenical document partof which is even shared with adherents of the Jewish religion, it will befutile to expend a lot of energy andtime in an effort to control it. This hasbeen realized by Black theologians.What is within reach as a viable optionis to insist on finding and controllingthe tools of opening and interpretingthe Bible as well as participating in theprocess of interpretation itself. Thedawning of this consciousness thrustBlack theologians into the centre ofwhat Harvey Cox calls the "age-oldhermeneutical class struggle" which isa struggle to resist and contest theinterpretation of scripture by theologians who represent Christians ofthe dominant race and political order.This is how our version of Black Theology emerged as a broad theologicalframework within which the new hermeneutic operates. But here again theepitemological break with dominantEuropean theological language andmethods was very difficult to effectdue to the many centuries of enslavement to the hermeneutical yoke of ouroppressors. Many Black theolOgianscontinue to slip back to the use of thedominant liberal henneneutics, thusconfinning the assertion made byAnthony Mansueto that "existential orreligious commitment to social revolution will not substitute for scientificanalysis of the valence of a tradition inthe class struggle.") This process ofone step fonvard and two steps backwards in the hermeneutical area is aclarion call for hermeneutical vigilance on the part of the entire community of black theologians lest thegains which have been made in thisarea be lost because as Archie Mafejesays "clear identification of issues (including theological issues) is as impor-
BLACK CHRISTIANS. TIlE BIBLE ....ND UBERATION
tant as fighting in the streets or in themountains".'
Some people will undoubtedlyargue that this hermeneutical option isnot the only one, nor even the best one.They'll suggest that the best among theavailable options is to disavow theChristian faith and consequently berid of the obnoxious Bible. And indeedmany Black people especially theyouth have gone further than SteveBiko who asked rhetorically whetherthe decolonization process should notbe accompanied by a process of the de·christianization of Africa - a processwhich if successfully accomplished.would remove the Bible from Africa.Young blacks have categorically identified the Bible as an oppressive documenl by its very nature and 10 its verycore. Hence the refusal of all oppressors in South Africa and elsewhere topart wilh it. They have zealously campaigned for its expulsion from theoppressed Black community but withlittle success. And this is largely due toIhe fact that no easily accessible ideological silo or storeroom is beingoffered to the social classes of ourpeople that are desperately in need ofliberation. African traditional relig.ions are 100 far behind most blackswhile Marxism, is to my mind, farahead of many blacks,' especiallyadult people. In the absence of a betterstoreroom of ideological and spiritualfood, the Christian religion and theBible will continue for an undeterminable period of time 10 be the haven ofthe Black masses par excellence.
In this situation of very limited ideological options, Black theologians whoare committed to the struggle for liberation and are organically connected tothe struggling Christian people, havechosen to honestly do their best toshape the Bible into a formidableweapon in the hands of the oppressed
instead of just leaving it to confuse,frustrate or even destroy our people.
A hermeneutic for the liberation ohheBibleIt is an open secret that Black peoplehave, ever since the Bible was broughtto them. asserted their right to appropriate and interpret it according 10their socio-economic, cultural andreligious needs. And this they havedone in spite of concerted oppositionfrom those who brought it. Guided bythese interests they have appropriatedthe Bible selectively and critically.Only portions, texts and stories of thebible which were regarded, in the lightof these interests. to be supportive ofthe immediate and long term goals ofthe majority of that religious community were appropriated. Those portions,texts and stories of the Bible whichwere seen to be clearly opposed totheir communal concern for individual and communal survival wereignored or rejected outrightly. TheseBlack Cristians did this informal hermeneutical work without any feelingsof guilt for allegedly dismembering thecanon of scripture. Neither did theyfeel that Iheir faith would be weakenedby this exercise. Instead they felt thatIhat was the most responsible way ofbeing authentically African and trulyChristian at the same time - withoutdishonouring their creator and saviour.
In this hermeneutical work the social context is brought inlo a dynamicand fruitful interaction with the Bibleby these untrained Black hermeneutists. The progressive elements of theBlack life experience, history and culture interact with the progressive lifeexperience, histories and cultures ofsome biblical communities. Other lifeexperiences, histories and cultures of
JOURNAL OF BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOUTH AFRICA
other biblical personalities, and communities are frowned upon and rejected on the grounds of either beingunproductive or counter-productive.Intuitively most pious Black Christians at the present stage of the strugglefor freedom will, for example, identifywith Moses and the Hebrew slaves asthey engage in the long and bitterstruggle to undermine the ancientEgyptian economy and weaken thePharaonic political grip on them. Inthe light of the internal and externaldifficulties encountered by BlackChristians on our national "exodus"Black exegetes are attracted to thestories about the difficulties of thedesert journey to the biblical promisedland. The prophetic interventionswhen things went wrong also captivate the minds of the Black Christiancommunity. These and many otherareas of the Bible constitute the canonfor Christians at this stage of our"exodus" The history of theology hasindisputable evidence which provesthat the de facto canon of a particularChristian community is determined,among other factors, by the contextand challenges of the historicaltrajectory of that community. The sameapplies to the South African theatre ofChristian life and political struggle.Black theologians who are organicallyconnected to the above Christian hermeneutical communities but who alsostand with both feet in the liberationstruggle do not frown on this hermeneutical approach of lay Christians.On the contrary they lift the above hermeneutical exercise to a higher formallevel. In a positive response toAnthony Mansueto, they search foranalytical tools that can be helpful inthe search of Black Christians for theright hermeneutical links in the Bible.Using these analytical tools as mem-
bers of a silenced, marginalized andsometimes ignored race, they discoverthe silenced, ignored and marginalizedpeople in the Bible and develop anaffinity with them. They also discoverthe text behind the text of the Bible - atext that has been silenced but one thatspeaks through this silence about thestruggles of the silenced and marginalized people of the Bible. As members of a people whose story of pain,fears and hopes has been suppressed,they are enabled, by their physical andpsychological scars, together with theanalytical tools they have chosen, to discover the suppressed and forgottenstories of the weak and the poor of theBible. These seem, according to them, tobe the stories wherein God is identifying with the forgotten and the weak andis actively retrievin.ll: them from themargins of the social world. It isthrough these stories that God thecreator of humans is manifested as theGod of the oppressed and accepted assuch. This creator God acts incarnatelyin Jesus to end the rampant enmity increation and restore real humanity topeople. Only the reading of thesestories of the downtrodden God amongthe downtrodden of this worldstrengthens the 'tormented faith of theoppressed of our time, as well asenhancing the quality of their commitment to the physical struggle for liberation. This discovery constitutes theliberation of the Bible from the clutchesof the dominant in the Christian foldwho impose the stories that justifytheir victories onto the oppressed.
Read by Dr. Takatso Mofokeng at aninternational congress on AFRICA ANDTHE BIBLE held at Cairo on 14th - 21stAugust 1987 and organized by the TIlEECUMENICAL ASSQCIATION OFAFRICAN THEOLOGIANS (EATWOT).
" B(.ACJ( OtRlSTlANS. THE BIBLE AND UBERATlON
IIW....,I. CwI"lai Ii- Iot_: TJwG'W... Md""•• lo j rolNrlo:an~ IOrt>i.Baob.M.ryUotllLNeooV..... I~l
Po 24 •L~"UL1. a.M.; 71w f'OIirJal ea--,.'"R.."0- i/o S-llt Ahb l..-kl,~Pre.. ""- v..... 1179) P." ... ~"'r ' A.:"'F~ KiOlorical Criticio.Ia 10 HiJlorio:aI MIl....,.· - ......publw.-d _IaN _ ...titled Sodol
s.:-tifir:Uothod ... 8iblkal $tIad1M. .-.. IheCnd..... n...........1u.-.1IoIttJey.CalIforala. 11113_ p. Ill.S. MaIejo 11..: -no. 1M t "IIl"'IuII~ in H~"";";'lPenp«:ti-'At:J.!AquUy into lbio pwth oil'" Social"ScIenceI",
,",10 ortIclo.p~ no 1M c.....t.... ,IormoaIO(1'hIIoI...,.• ...... 10. _ 2 1918 _ P. n2.