Pan-Africanism and Pentecostalism in Africa: Strange Bedfellows or Perfect Partners?
Clifton Clarke, PhD
Introduction
What has Kwame Nkrumah, W.E.B Du Bois and the Marcus Garvey got to do with speaking in tongue? Perhaps more than might be initially imagined. The title of this paper is Pan-Africanism and Pentecostalism in Africa: Strange Bedfellows or Perfect partners. My plan for this paper is a simple one. In addressing ourselves to the issue of Pan-Africanism and African Pentecostalism, I want to explore whether African Pentecostalism can assist in the constructing a Pan-African political theology.
The inspiration for this paper came from three sources. First and foremost from my reading of the various nineteenth and twentieth century prominent West Indian Pan-Africanist over the years, including Marcus Garvey, Henry Sylvester Williams, George Padmore, Edward Wilmot Blyden as well as significant African advocates such as Kwame Nkrumah, James (Holy) Johnson, Haile Selassie, Jomo Kenyatta along with American Pan-Africanist such as W.E. B. Du Bois, Henry Garnet Alexander Crummell, Martin Delany, Henry McNeal Turner just to name but a few. The idea of a Pan-African political theology really came by reading Josiah Young III ground-breaking book A Pan – African Theology: Providence and Legacies of the Ancestors.[1] The Third influence came about from a decade living and working in Ghana researching African indigenous and Pentecostal churches. The idea of a Pentecostal assist came about through reading Mensa Otabil’s book Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia, which began to nurse the idea of a deeper conversation between Pan-Africanism and Pentecostalism.[2]
African Pentecostalism has a reputation as being apolitical, choosing to hedge its bet in the hereafter rather than the here and now. Its message focuses traditionally has focused on ‘the salvation of the soul’ and not salvation in the ‘public square’. The discourse on Pentecostalism in Africa however has been dominated by a sociological functionalism in its interpretation of the role of religion in the public space. Ogbu Kalu is right when he asserts:
“They explain the attraction of the movement to Africans as the allure to the cultural resources of externality but neglect Pentecostal use of providential language to attribute vertical expansion to the hand of God, as God’s new move in contemporary times.[3]
I would like to argue that African Pentecostalism is the fertile soil that Pan-Africanist ideas should and must be nurtured in the twenty first century. Although this might come as a surprise to many who are accustomed to it representation as “prosperity preaching and healing crusades” it must be remembered that it was the African indigenous Pentecostal churches that arose of the wings of Ethiopianism and African independency in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact the one of the reason for the growth and popularity of the African indigenous Pentecostal churches was its allure for post-colonialist rhetoric in its focus on Africa Christian expression and spirituality. Kwame Nkrumah for example often visited the Musama Disco Christo Church (AIC) than be identified with the colonially owned and influenced Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and other mission churches after Ghana’s independence in 1957.
So once again I would like to nurture a conversation that I perceive is presently taking place between Pan-Africanism and African Pentecostalism. A good example of this dialogue is seen in the timely article written by Rijk van Dijk exploring Pentecostal Pan-Africanism and Ghanaian Identities to which I will refer to later.
Definition: African Pentecostalism
Before I plunge into this discussion I think it is important to discuss how I am using various terms in this paper. A working definition of ‘African Pentecostalism’ itself has proven arduous for Pentecostal scholars. Any attempt to come up with a precise definition of the modern day Pentecostal movement is fraught with difficulties.[4] This challenge of characterization is due to the fact that Pentecostalism, as a movement, did not have a distinct beginning in a geographical place or particular doctrine.[5] Broadly speaking however one could describe Pentecostalism as a “historically related movement where the emphasis is on the exercise of spiritual gifts”.[6]
The designation ‘African Pentecostalism’ is defined by Allan Anderson as a:
‘..divergent African churches that emphases the working of the Spirit in the church, particularly with ecstatic phenomena like prophecy and speaking in tongues, healing and exorcism’.[7]
There are three major streams of African Pentecostals:
i. The African initiated churches (AICs) know collectively as ‘prophet healing’ churches, Spirit, or spiritual churches
ii. Classical African Pentecostal churches
iii. New Independent Pentecostal and Charismatic churches and ‘ministries that have arisen since the late 1970s. [8]
African Pentecostal theology is therefore the theology that undergirds its practice and epistemology, which I will explicate in more details later.
Definition: Pan-Africanism
In assessing the various definition of Pan-Africanism in his own efforts to arrive at a meaningful definition Olisanwuce Esedebe notes
“With some simplification we can say that Pan-Africanism is a political and cultural phenomenon that regards Africa, Africans, and African descendants aboard as a unit. It seeks to regenerate and unify Africa and promote a feeling of ones among the people of the African world. It glorifies the African past and inculcates pride in African values.”
According to Immanuel Geiss in his seminal work translated by Ann Keep entitled ‘The Pan-African Movement”:
“It is an intellectual and political movement among Africans and Afro-Americans who regard or have regarded Africans and people of African descent as homogenous.
A Pan-African theology, according to Josiah Young, is defined as logical, “transcontextual” discourse for those theologians of African descent whose interest are truly complementary to Pan-African ideas.[9]
1.1. Trajectories of Pan-African theologies
1.2. Ethiopianism
One very powerful impulse behind Pan-African theology was the movement known as Ethiopianism. Ethiopianism was a movement with many strands. Its roots however can be found in the Bible; specifically in the passage in Psalm 68:31 which prophesied that “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
According to Ogbu Kalu:
The Prophetic reading of this passage is traced to African Americans who, in the golden age of Black Nationalism from 1870 to 1920, crafted an empowering exegesis around this passage. It has inspired generations who re-fashioned it freely.[1]
The term Ethiopianism was possibly chosen because Ethiopia was seen as a symbol for black pride for various reasons: Ethiopia was a collective term for the entire region from Egypt to Ethiopia/Abyssinia and passed into the 19th Century as a generic term for blacks, the descendents of Ham and Cush; Ethiopia had maintained its independence from foreign domination; it had a long and rich history often referred to in the Bible; there is also the reference to the treasurer to Candice (Queen Mother) of the Nubian Kingdom of Meroe, who met Philip en-route from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was baptized upon conversion (Acts 8); Ethiopia’s monarch claimed to be the Lion of Judah from the lineage of King Solomon. The Ethiopian voices in the USA in the 19th Century spilled over into the Africa through the missionary expansion of churches like African Methodist Episcopal Church. Black American leaders like Henry McNeal Turner who was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, provided a powerful voice which resonated with the struggle for religious independence in Africa. It was African America Ethiopianist like Turner, Alexander Crummell, Henry Garnet and Martin Delany who contributed to the theological framework for African religious independency against stranglehold of white leadership and ecclesiastical control.
Ethiopianism in West Africa
Within the Native Pastorate project encouraged on by Henry Venn’s concept of a self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extend church, Ethiopianism became the audacious voice of new self-confidence among African leaders. Across West Africa in countries such as Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Liberia and Nigeria, Ethiopianism built a formidable voice. To name but a few: in the Gold Coast, J. E. Casely Hayford a brilliant lawyer and Methodist layman and author of Ethiopia Unbound (1911). Dr. Hayford was responsible for initiating a critical tradition which rejected the literature more reflective of a western missionary tutelage. As an ardent admirer William Blyden he focused his activism around mobilizing the entire West African colonies in educational and political matters. In Nigeria Mojola Agbebi (also know as David Brown) was another protagonist for change. In defiance to missionary tutelage he refused to be clad with western attire but dressed only in African (Yoruba) regalia. He also founded a school without any outside support, which was statement to the black man’s ability to do things for and by themselves. He is however noted most of all for his secession from the Southern Baptist 1888 and for forming the Native Baptist Church in Lagos, the first African instituted church in West Africa. Another Yoruba born Ethiopianist was James Johnson, affectionally known as “Holy Johnson” for his deep piety. Johnson was convinced of the equal capability of the Africans if they were given the same chances as the white counterparts. He was a staunch advocate for evangelization of Africa by Africans, and if by expatriates, he insisted, then best by Negroes from America
1.2. Pan-African theologians
Another of the trajectories of Pan-African theology was the thought and opinion of Pan-African clergy, and theologians, which I call “the Pan-African theological School (PATS). The list of proponents of Pan-African theology is long and includes: Maria Stewart, James Pennington, Majola Agbebei, James Holy Johnson, Samuel A. Crowther, Daniel Coker, Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey and others. I will center their theologies on Pan-African Political theology that pivots of three themes: (1) African Pride and Egalitarianism, (2) Africa Hermeneutics: Providence and Redemption; and (3) African Political Theology of Land
1.2.1. Pan-African Pride and Egalitarianism
Pan-Africanism as an ideology of emancipation maintained the principle that all people and all races are created equal and therefore should enjoy equal rights. The claim to equal rights was expressed in the face of polemics of White supremacy.
The first written comment on these questions by an African, even before the beginning of the discussion about race, was by Jacobus Capitein who in 1742 submitted a doctoral thesis to the University of Leyden repudiating the idea that slavery was backed and endorsed by scripture.[10] Ignatius Sancho, Laurence Cugoano and Equiano later joined the fight against the racial doctrine, which drew upon the Aristotelian hypothesis that some humans are by nature slaves and others free used to justify the enslavement of the aboriginal Amerindians and later Africans. The curse of Ham as a divine sanction of Black inferiority was also later added.
More systematic and theological arguments were later to join the fight from noted clergymen who were well versed in the Bible and theology. H Garnet, who was one of the most militant black abolitionist even advocating armed action to abolish slavery was among them. Garnet declared Ham was the first Africa and boasted of such theological black heavy weights such as St. Augustine and Tertullian. Garnet also derided the despicable and barbaric behavior of Ancestors of Anglo-Saxons, noting:
When the representatives of our race were filling the world with amazement, the ancestors of the now proud and boasting Anglo-Saxons were amongst the most degraded in the human family. They abode in caves underground, either naked or covered the skins of wild beast. Night was made hideous by the smoke, which arose from their bloody altars, upon which they offered human sacrifices.[11]
Among the most erudite of the Pan-African theological school of the nineteenth century were men of the Caliber of Alexander Crummell, William W. Brown and Edward Wilmot Blyden. Against the torrid propaganda of the doctrine of white supremacy these Pan-African theological pugilist repudiated the notion that African people were inherently inferior. Brown for example argued valiantly that Africans were people of greatness who were bought to their cultural and intellectual knees by the brutality and evils of human enslavement. He admitted:
That the condition of my race, whether considered in a mental, moral or intellectual point of view, at the present time cannot compare favorably with the Anglo-Saxon. But it does not become the white to point the finger of scorn at the black, when they have so long been degrading them. The Negro has not always been considered the inferior race. The time was when he stood at the head of science and literature.[12]
Crummell in a sermon preached in England in 1852 articulately enunciated the argument of Africa’s geographical isolation as a cause for economic, political and infrastructural under development. He argued that one of the causes for this lack of progress on the African continent was due to the fact that Africa was isolated from the rest of the developing world by the Sahara desert and by the surrounding ocean and that it was not due to any hereditary intellectual inferiority.[13] Blyden in a similar vein also purported the African isolation theory first advanced by Crummell and along with his view that slavery was the cause of black underdevelopment and inequality. In addition to this he presented a systematic refutation of the supposed curse of Ham.
Behind the arguments put forward by Crummell, Brown and Blyden is a defense of the ‘African selfhood’ against what Laurenti Magesa calls Anti-life forces. The link between white supremacy and Euro-Christianity was firmly established by these Pan-Africanist theologians. The anecdote to that poison, for Blyden, Crummell and Brown entails African people’s realization that they bear the image of God naturally, and need not aspire to what Josiah Young calls the ‘hubristic mores of the whites who dominate them”. Blyden notes
No people in whom the religious instinct is deeper and more universal than among Africans. And in view of the materializing tendencies of the age, it may yet come to pass that when, in Europe, God has gone out date…then earnest inquirers after truth leaving the sears of science and the “highest civilization” will take themselves to Africa to learn lessons of faith and piety; for “Ethiopia shall stretch forth unto God. [14]
1.2.2. Pan – African Hermeneutic: Providence and Redemption
Another important theme evident in the writings of Pan-African theological school is the idea of God’s divine providence and redemption. This is prominent in the writings of both Crummell and Blyden. I am particularly fascinated here with their redemptive reading of scripture through the lens of ‘divine providence’. This was the idea that in spite of the evils of slavery and the colonizing of Africa, God still had a divine purpose for Africa and for African people. “All human events” writes Crummell, “have their place in the grand moral economy of God”.[15] This redemptive reading of African history was taken from the biblical precedents of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt, and the story of Joseph and his brothers. For Crummell, God allowed Africans to be enslaved in the Americas as part of a providential plan to redeem Africa with Christianity. Although slavery was an evil institution, God, asserts Crummell, intended that its end would result in Africa’s redemption.
Blyden and Crummell’s providential and redemptive reading of African history is heavily criticized by Josiah Young who accuses them of internalizing white supremist estimates of the value of black people.[16] Young describes Crummell’s providence and redemptive theology as “a deformed approach to the problem of theodicy in the face of black suffering.
Although Josiah Young’s repudiation of Crummell and Blyden’s providence theology is probably understandable at first glance at the providential theology presented by Crummell and Blyden, there is a sense in which Young has misread their providential and redemptive reading of Scripture. Although I full response to Young’s critique of Blyden and Crummell is not appropriate here—tempting as it is—I will say that their rereading of African history from the vantage point of providence and redemption bears a striking resemblance to the post exilic reading of the history of Israel after a period of enslavement and exile.
To summarize then, I see great potential in the Pan-African theological school’s providential and redemptive hermeneutics that provides the opportunity for renewal and empowerment of African people facing a new future.
1.2.3. Pan-African Theology and the Politics of Land: An African Pentecostal assist
Now that we have highlighted some of the themes of the Pan-African school theological school’s theology of equality and hermeneutic I will end this section with a look at the political theology espoused by the Pan-African theological school.
Pan-African Political Theology of Land
Blyden's political goals were the establishment of a major modern West African state, which would protect and promote the interests of peoples of African descent everywhere. He initially saw Liberia as the nucleus of such a state and sought to extend its influence and jurisdiction by encouraging selective "repatriation" from the Americas. He hoped, also in vein, that Liberia and adjacent Sierra Leone would unite as one nation. He was ambivalent about the establishment of European colonial rule; he thought that it would eventually result in modern independent nations in tropical Africa but was concerned about its damaging psychological impact. As a cultural nationalist, he pointed out that modernization was not incompatible with respect for African customs and institutions. He favored African names and dress and championed the establishment of educational and cultural institutions specifically designed to meet African needs and circumstances. Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) however led the largest and most successful back to Africa movement. He championed the phrase Africa for Africans at home and abroad. Time will not allow to survey the wide ocean of Pan-African Christian thought.
Assessment
In assessing the Pan-African theology of the Pan-African theological schools three important facts are worth noting:
1. Pan–African thinking originally began in the so-called New World, becoming articulate during the century starting from the declaration of American independence (1776). It therefore was more suited to the liberation of the Black American context and not that of an African context.
2. The Pan-Africanist theologians for the most part were educated in the west and therefore theologized within a western enlightenment thought form which did not resonate with ordinary Africa people
3. Pan-Africanist failed to realize that in Africa politics and religion are not separate entities but religion and politics occupy the same space.
In summary: The strength of the Pan-African theological school was undoubtedly their rigorous scholarship and erudition in responding racist rhetoric. The political philosophy and theology however did not connect with the rank and file Africa population the vast majority of who live in villages, possess little formal education and operate in a traditional African worldview. Although Blyden and others had a deep appreciation for African culture this did not shape their theology in any significant manor. In spite of its insights and erudition Pan-African theology failed to realize that religion is intricately woven into the fabric of politics and provides the compelling touchstone of legitimacy or the love of the ruler by the ruled; the motive for exercising power; reason to be obeyed; the determinant of the moral standards and style of power and the engine that moves governance. In such contexts, the structure of
governance had tremendous impact on the modes of religious expression and religion could not be conjured out of politics. It is with this in mind that I would like to invite African Pentecostalism into the frame to join forces in the quest for a Pan-African political theology began by the Pan-African school for Africa, that connects to the every day African personality.
Qualification for the African Pentecostal Assist
There are three qualifications that I based the entrance of a Pan-African Pentecostal assist on.
Firstly, the meteoritic rise of African Pentecostalism on the African continent in the past fifty years is nothing short of astounding. According to one estimates 11 per cent of Africa’s population was Pentecostal in 2002. This is not even counting the Pentecostalization taking place within the older historic churches. The ‘Pentecostalization of African Christianity is so prevalent in Africa that it is often referred to as ‘a new African Reformation of the twentieth century that it has fundamentally altered the character of African Christianity.”[17]
Secondly, African Pentecostalism is an African religion. Kalu’s book on African Pentecostalism published in 2008 argues that African Pentecostal historiography must be seen against the background of African tradition and culture.[18] He repudiates the viewpoints held by David Martin, Harold Bloom, and Harvey Cox for their interpolations of African Pentecostalism into what he calls an ‘American apple pie.’[19] He also challenges the tabula rasa view ostensibly advanced by Hilarie Belloc and Paul Gifford that portrays African Pentecostalism as imaging North American brand, which is imported on the wings of globalization.[20] In exchange, he asserts that the African Pentecostal movement does not originate in Azusa Street nor is it the product of external forces but represents an authentic outworking of Africa’s religious quest for life. He notes, “African Pentecostalism did not originate from Azusa Street and is not an extension of the American electronic church…it is one of the ways that Africans responded to the missionary structures and appropriated the message”. I purported in agreement with Kalu that African Pentecostalism is colored by the texture of the African soil and derives idioms, nurture and growth from its interior.
Thirdly, the potential for a Pan-African Pentecostal political theology is within reach. Pentecostal cosmology links individual, social and political misadventures to the larger cosmic battle between God and His enemies. They declare that God has a purpose and counsel for individuals, families, communities and nations. By opening doors of the body and gates of communities and nations, demonic forces enter to possess, control and derail from God’s munificent design. Contrary to some criticisms that Pentecostals see the devil in everything and refuse to acknowledge systemic evil, Pentecostals place responsibility on both individuals and social structures; on the rulers and the ruled. They also affirm that some of the problems are aspects of a larger cosmic consequence beyond human ken.[21]
Theological Method
To begin with I would like to propose that the theological method on which to construct this Pan-African theology be premised on Redemptive Healing and Wholeness. The are four reason why I do so:
1. By placing Redemptive Healing and Wholeness as the framework that informs the way we read and interpret scripture we opened up the possibility to be empowered and renewed by interpreting our history through the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. Such a redefinition of African healing holistic living will bring order and integrity into African politics and socio-economic life as well as providing a measure of what Blyden coined as ‘African selfhood.’ [This notion of African redemptive was an important feature in the Pan-African theology of people like Crummell, Blyden, and James Johnson]
2. The idea of Healing and Wholes is a major theme in African traditional religion and governs the way many Africans interpret the drama of death and life. It is also a very important feature of African Christianity throughout the various church traditions in Africa. [There countless volume about this issue.
3. A Pan-African integrated idea of ‘redemptive healing and wholeness’ highlights the inherent contradiction that we can be a people that are ‘spiritually healthy’ but ‘socio-economically sick.’ The health of the nation spiritually and is connected to its social-political well-being.
4. For many, the idea of framing Biblical interpretation on healing and wholeness may present a picture of ‘primal’ behaviour and a worldview that is outdated and irrelevant. However, the African experience of living through the most dreadful crises such as slavery, colonization, famine, ethnic genocide, religious strife, economic chaos, political turmoil and the most recent scourge AIDS, may, as Cox suggests,[22] provide insights into the precious resources that keep the spirit alive and give the soul hope in the face of these enemies of life.
A Pentecostal pneumatological assist to Pan-African Political Theology
With this theological method in mind I would like to present what I would call an African Pentecostal pneumatological assist to a Pan-African political theology and revisit some of the themes addressed by the Pan-African theological school outlined above with a few further deposits of Pentecostal resources for a Pan-African political theology. This perspective is affirmed by Ogbu Kalu who notes that: ‘…in the African terrain, the pneumatological approach is key to understanding the Pentecostal political theology and practice.
I believe this to be a very important key to a successful Pan-African political theology and underscore the relevance of an African Pentecostal assist.
Baptism in the Spirit: African Pentecostal pneumatological assist to A Pan- theology of African Pride and Egalitarianism
In my discussion of Pan-African Pride and Egalitarianism above I stated that Pan-Africanism is an ideology of emancipation that is premised on the principle that all people are created equally and possess equal rights. I discussed the of Pan-African theological school’s struggles to protect African pride and self-hood (a term coined by Blyden), against the ‘scientifically supported’ white supremist ideology. I noted also that their response was primarily an academic more using scripture and examples of black greatness to repudiate the claims of black inferiority. By so doing protecting African pride and hope. An important Pentecostal assist in this regard is the experience of the Baptism and infilling of the Holy Spirit. The African Pentecostal experience of Spirit baptism is an affirmation of divine authentication and power. The biblical and erudite defense of the theological school did not touch the spiritual dimensions of personal empowerment and pride in the Africa heart. Amos Yong’s points out that the Lukan account of the Day of Pentecost provides a narrative template that preserves the many languages that separately together bear witness to the mighty deeds of God. Yong draws attention to the fact that on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two the spirit’s eschatological outpouring upon all flesh, equally upon men and women, young and old, slave and free. In other word he argues, the experiences and voices of those previously marginalized and excluded were now central to the church’s witness.[23] African pride and self-hood has never only been derived from human endorsement of intellectual affirmation but by divine empowerment with is often evident through divine speech what Pentecostals call speaking in tongues. A Pan-African theology of African Pride and equality therefore must draw upon dimensions of divine power and divine speech and not just the cerebral erudition of theoretic proposition. Josiah Young asserts
“The Spirits calls theologians of Africa descent to egalitarian values, which undermine the exploitative infrastructures that trap the black underclass and the African peasants in abject poverty…he continues, “A Pan-African theology means little if it fails to become a living activity in the ecclesial matrix of the Pan-African experience. It must become a way of life – a living way of the Spirit”.[24]
Much more could be said about this..
2. Pentecostal pneumatological assist to a Pan-African biblical hermeneutics
Pentecostals are a people of the book and as such have a high view of Scripture. I mentioned earlier that the Pan-African theological school such as Blyden, Cummell, Johnson, and other used scripture as a source of empowerment. For the most part however their usage of scripture mirrored the enlightenment tradition into which they were schooled. The Pentecostal pneumatological approach does not view scriptural interpretation as an elitist or privileged activity indicative of the enlightenment tradition. On the contrary African Pentecostals, as Ogbu Kalu notes reconstruct the world by applying “experiential literalism”.[25] Cheryl Bridget Jones notes that Pentecostals hermeneutics is praxis-oriented, with experience and Scripture being maintained in a dialectical relationship. The Holy Spirit is what maintains that ongoing relationship. Jones calls it knowing in active relationship while Steve Land calls the Pentecostal view of scripture “Spirit-Word”. Kalu perceptively adds:
“The emphases are on the experiential, relational, emotional, oral aspect of faith; the immediacy of the text; and the freedom to interpret and appropriate the multiple meanings of the biblical text.”[26]
For African Pentecostals preaching is given a very central place in the service because it is here most poignantly when the Word and the Spirit is released into the atmosphere for all to receive. It is through the preached ‘word’ that the Bible is ‘re-oralised’ into African oral culture and worldview where all can understand regardless of educational learning. A Pentecostal Pneumatological hermeneutic that brings together Word and Spirit would have transformed the Pan-African theologians I have mentioned above from being epistemologically isolated from the African masses into men who possess the erudition of Du Bois and the African prophet anointing of the likes of William Waddy Harris, Garrick Braide, Samon Sarpong and Simon Kimbangu who possessed none of the erudition but understood too well the power of the word and the spirit in an African context.
A Pentecostal Pneumatological assist to a Pan-African Political theology will posit Salvation as Deliverance
For African Pentecostals demonic is associated with the presence and activity of evil forces, and healing is seen as “deliverance” from their hold by the superior power of Jesus Christ. I believe a theology of “Deliverance” could prove useful in our quest for a Pan-African Political theology (This theme of the demonic and the Political has been developed by Paul Tillich in his Political Expectations, ed., by James Reimer)
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu defines healing and deliverance in Ghanaian neo-Pentecostalism as:
“…the deployment of divine resources, that is, power and authority in the Name or Blood of Jesus—perceived in pneumatological terms as the intervention of the Holy Spirit—to provide release for demon-possessed, broken, disturbed and troubled person, in order that victims may be restored to ‘proper functioning order’, that is to ‘health and wholeness.[27]”
The basic idea behind ‘deliverance’ is ‘naming’ and thus ‘concretizing’ of the forces of evil – which though hidden, inflict real pain on real people. This African Pentecostal practice of ‘deliverance’ calls for a re-evaluation of the ‘principalities and powers’ in the African multidimensional and integrated universe. Multidimensional in the sense of its ‘simultaneous geography’ comprising both the physical and the spiritual universe, integrated in the sense that it does not fragment the cause, effects and the need for deliverance and healing but believes them to be interrelated. It does not seek to heal the body without accessing and rooting out the demonic because the two are related. Neither does it transform its sick members into objects of care, pity or sympathy. Rather in the face of the demonic it proclaims deliverance in the Name of Jesus. Amos Yong in his book In the Day of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology, points out that in the ancient world, primitive Christianity challenged the Roman state as a demonic power.[28]
By combatting racial supremacy policies, social inequalities and segregation laws purely on the level of intellectual discourse with an enlightenment frame work the demonic could not be named or exorcised by the Africa victims. The Pan-African theological school’s failure frame to position the socio-economic and political malaises of Africa into the same space occupied by the demonic ostensively placed healing beyond the epistemological reach of the ordinary African. An examination of the socio-economic situation in regards to health in Africa reveals a system that encloses human beings in a circle of misery and sickness. Issues of nutrition and health are indivisible from the economic and social system. AIDS, disease, poverty and malnutrition never exist by themselves; rather they are the effects or products of social organisations.[29] The position of sickness in Africa is therefore a decisive reality of our time and a historic condition in which sickness is the result of the abuse of power in the allocation of resources. It comes from a system characterised by violence, by a pattern of impoverishment of the majority and by the monopoly by a minority of the means to live with dignity. Any socio-political discourse that seeks to rally the masses of Africa people to the cause of social justice, political accountability, economic freedom and civic responsibility must take seriously the demonic and potential of a deliverance hermeneutic that names and casts out such enemies of progress.
3. An African pneumatological assist to A Pan-African political theology of Land
Above I spoke about the importance of land to the Pan- African movement and mentioned the works of the Pan-African theological school and the back to Africa movement.
The idea of a theology of land is something that has resonance within an African Pentecostal tradition. The loss of Eden and the exile of Abraham’s children become paradigms of the loss of a gift and the weakening of covenantal relationship through rebellion, neglect, stewardship, idolatry and pollution. The idea of redeeming and restoring “that which the enemy as stolen,” “rebuilding broken people” and “nurturing an army that will deal with the political substratum by exorcising the pollution caused by traditional rituals, secret societies and the cultic practices is a very strong theme with in Africa Pentecostalism. On the bill board of major Pentecostal conferences and revival in Africa carries such titles as:
· Taking possession of the Land
· Taking back what the enemy has stolen
· Renewal the Covenant
I foresee a Pentecostal pneumatological theology providing use in roads towards a Pan-African political theology.
[1] Josiah Young III, A Pan – African Theology: Providence and Legacies of the Ancestors (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1992).
[2] Mensa Otabil, Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia …
[3] Kalu, 188
[4] For a useful discussion on terminology see Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: CUP, 20040), 9-15.
[5] Allan Anderson describes it as being a series of movements that took several years and several different formative ideas and even to emerge. He maintains that Pentecostalism is a poly-nucleated and variegated phenomenon. Anderson, Spreading Fire, 4.
[7] Anderson, Pentecostalism, 103.
[8] Ibid., 103-104
[9] Josiah Young, Black and African Theologies: Siblings or Distant Cousins? (New York: Orbis Books, 1986, Chapter 6
[10] Geiss, The Pan-African, 98
[11] Garnet, Past and Present, 12
[12] William Brown, The Black Man: his Antecedents and Achievements (Boston, 1863), 32
[13] Alexpander Crummell, The Future of Africa: (see Geiss page
[14] Edward Wilmot Blyden, The Origin of Modern Africa Thought
[15] Alexander Crummell In the Future of Africa (New York: Scribner, 1862)
[16] Josiah Young, Pan-African theology, 30
[17] Allan Anderson, Pentecostalism, 104
[18] Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism (Oxford UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3-4
[19] Ibid., 11
[20] Ibid., 12
[21] Ogbu Kalu, Faith and Politics in Africa
[22] Ibid.
[23] Yong, In the Days, 93
[24] Young A Pan African THeology
[25] Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 267
[26] Ibid.
[27] Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics, 165
[28] Yong, 138
[29] For a discussion on the impact of human behaviour on the environment see, Daneel, African Earthkeepers,
pp. 16-35.
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