African Christianity and the practice of ‘Biblification’
Chigor Chike
Introduction
‘African Christianity’ refers to the particular way Africans understand and practice the
Christian faith. To understand African Christians and African churches in Britain, one needs
to go back to Africa in about the 1920s when African Christianity began. From about the
1920s Africans started becoming aware of the way the Christianity brought to them by
European missionaries was often suffused with European cultural values and started making
efforts to redress this. They began to seek integration between their pre-Christian religious
experience and their Christian commitment, to ensure ‘the integrity of African Christian
identity and selfhood’ (1). Since I cannot discuss all the aspects of African Christianity in this
short article, I will focus on the way they use the Bible. I will begin with what has been
going on in Africa and then I will describe the British experience of African Christians.
The Bible in Africa
Existing evidence shows that a determination to stay close to the Bible is a common feature
of African Christianity. In the mid-1960s, David Barrett, after an ‘exhaustive’ survey of
African Independent Churches based in Africa stated that the Bible, more than anything else,
was at the centre of their life and development (2). H W Turner confirmed this with his study
of a specific group, the Aladura. During the 1970s, as more Africans got involved in the
study of African Christianity, they not only observed but encouraged this commitment to the
Bible. Edward Fashole Luke saw the Bible as ‘the basic and primary source for the
development of African Christian theologies’ (3). African theologians, collectively, in Accra,
Ghana, in 1977, declared the Bible as ‘the basic source of African theology, because it is the
primary witness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.’ (4) The following decade, in 1986, John
Mbiti found in his own study that ‘African Christianity is Biblically grounded’ (5) and the
influence of the Bible was still spreading. He writes:
the Bible is making indelible marks on the religious scene in Africa. It
is read widely, it is expounded from pulpits, street corners, market
places, on radio and television, as well as in a wide range of
publications.(6)
My own study of recent publications by African preachers in Africa shows that this
commitment to a Biblical Christianity continues today. Faced with congregations for whom
the main, if not sole, authority of Christian truth is the Bible, the custom is for the preacher to
support every point with a Biblical reference. For example, the Ghanaian preacher, Dr
Charles Agyin-Asare, who is Presiding Bishop of a network of about 300 churches in Ghana,
in his book, Power in Prayer (7), quotes the Bible about one hundred and thirty four times, to
support more or less every point. These writers would often highlight or indent Biblical texts
within their books to give them prominence. Another important feature of how African
Christians use the Bible is their love for Old Testament stories.
Related to this love of Old Testament stories is the way Africans move between their story
and the Biblical story. African Christians in using Biblical texts have a tendency to weave
personal stories or circumstances with stories in the Bible: for example, Enoch Adeboye in
his book Divine Encounter, writes this about Jacob’s encounter with God in Genesis 32
during which Jacob wrestled with the angel of God who, as blessing to Jacob changed
Jacob’s name.
The sentence of death over Jacob’s life was cancelled. Divine encounter
will cancel death and destruction. What is the use of prosperity to
someone who is not alive to enjoy it? Of what use is money if you lack
good health? My prayer for you is that you will have an encounter with
God which will cancel every threat of death. (8)
Adeboye begins with Jacob and end with his listener/reader. He uses an aspect of the story
to pray for the congregation. In another section he uses another story to warn the people:
The travails which you are going through at this moment, may be because
of your name. Moses’ name means ‘drawn out of the water’, and not
surprisingly, water played a prominent part throughout his entire history.
He changed water to blood. He brought water out of the rock. He
changed bitter water to sweet, at Marah…. Water followed him wherever
he went.
What is your name? If your name is Esugbayi (Satan has received this),
don’t ever blame the devil for pursuing you. If your name is Esugbayi, I
counsel you to change it to Oluwagbayi (God has received this). (9)
In this example, he begins with the Christian, goes to Moses’ story and then goes back to the
Christian. In the same way, African Christians, not just the preachers, weave their personal
story with stories in the Bible. Because they do not see the Bible primarily as a history book,
they have no difficulty making their story part of Biblical stories or telling Biblical stories as if
they were occurring today. In their use of the Bible, great feats of contextualization are not
usually necessary to relate Biblical events to present life or vice versa. Another reason is that
the traditional African worldview and the worldview of the Bible are quite similar. As in the
Bible, Africans experience the physical and spiritual aspects of the world as interwoven. So
it is easy for Africans to attach the Biblical worldview to their traditional one and weave their
individual stories into those of the Bible
The British Experience
A study of books written by British-based African Christians shows that the way Africans in
Africa regard and use the Bible is retained to a large extent by those in Britain – the frequent
quotations, highlighting of Biblical texts and frequent use of Old Testament stories. Matthew
Ashimolowo’s book So You Call Yourself a Man (10) and Edmund Anyahamiwe’s book Flesh
of God (11) are examples of the frequent use of quotations. British-based Africans also
continue the tendency to weave the life of today with Biblical stories, as can be seen, for
example, in this proclamation by Pastor Vincent Odulele (the brother of Albert Odulele) to
the congregation of Glory House in Plaistow London:
I will make you a great nation
Kings and queens will come out from your loins
I will make you so great your greatness will be a blessing to nations
People, groups, continents will be touched by your greatness
God says I will bless those that bless you
Just because people are your friends they will be great because of your greatness. (12)
Here he weaves God’s blessing of Abraham (the first two lines) recorded in the book of
Genesis 17:6 with his own blessing of the congregation. The effect this can have is to place
the congregation alongside Abraham at the point he was receiving the blessings from God.
They will receive not just the blessings Abraham received but also the new ones now
proclaimed by the preacher in the name of God.
This phenomenon can, in fact, be observed among other people of African descent. African
slaves in America achieved the same goal by giving Biblical names to key locations or
people involved in their story – for example, referring to the woods where they met secretly
to pray as ‘wilderness’, the northern parts of the USA and Canada where they could escape
to freedom as ‘Canaan’ and the Ohio River, which was their route to physical freedom, as
the ‘River Jordan’ (13). By so doing, they made their story one with that of the Bible. I have
called this practice of making personal stories part of the story of the Bible, ‘Biblification’. By
‘biblifying’ their personal story, Africans, past and present, are able to see their daily life
experience as a spiritual battle, which is their natural way of operating. More significantly, it
placed them alongside God’s people in the Bible on God’s side.
Even though I have concentrated on the similarities between Africans in Africa and Africans
in Britain, there are two important differences. The first is that African Christians in Britain
tend to give more weight to the role of human reason in the theological process. An African
minister working in Britain gives this explanation:
In Britain, people do not believe in taking the Bible word for word…most
of what we do in Africa is Biblically based. But here there is a lot more of
Reason and people want it to be explained in contemporary terms, which
is good. (14)
The second change is that African Christians in Britain, compared to those in Africa, are
more likely to use the Bible to address the social injustice. This cannot be because there is
more social injustice in Britain than in Africa, because African countries, evidently, have
their own social justice issues. It is more likely to be the result of greater political awareness
among British-based African Christians and a greater willingness to draw on knowledge
gained from other disciplines in their theologising. This has been more common among
those African Christians who belong to the historical denominations like the Church of
England and the Catholic Church. The sign that this is spreading to other churches is Pastor
Ashimolowo’s recent series, Black and Blessed (15). Ashimolowo, the lead minister of
Kingsway International Christian Centre, devoted the whole month of October in 2004 and
2005 to sermons against racism, using the Bible as his main weapon.
Conclusion
+A close attachment to the Bible is one of the hallmarks of African Christianity. This close
attachment, which is indicated by the frequent use of Biblical stories and references, is
retained to a large extent by African Christians in Britain. This is because much of the
attraction of the Bible has to do with the similarity between the worldview within it and the
traditional African worldview. Because this worldview continues to survive in Africans even
after many years of living in Britain, the attachment to the Bible remains very strong. The
similarity between the African and the Biblical worldviews also enables African Christians
both in Africa and in the Diaspora to weave their personal story with the Biblical story. This
practice, Biblification, helps them to see their life struggles in spiritual terms and puts them,
like the Biblical characters, on God’s side and under God’s care and protection.
Notes
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
Bediako, K. (2000) Jesus in Africa, Carlisle, Cumbria: Editions Cle and Regnum Africa, 49
Barrett, D. (1968) Schism and Renewal in Africa, Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 127-134
Fashole-Luke, E. (1976) “The Quest for African Christian Theologies” in G. H. Anderson and T.
F. Stransky (eds) Third World Theologies, New York: Paulist and Eerdmans, 135–150.
Appiah-Kubi, Kofi and Torres, Segio (eds) (1979) African Theology en Route, Maryknoll, New
York: Orbis Books, 192
Mbiti, J. (1986) Bible and Theology in African Christianity, Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 42
Ibid, 44.
Agyin-Asare, C. (2001) Power in Prayer — Taking Your Blessings by Force, publishers not stated
Adeboye, E. (2003) Divine Encounter, Lagos: Church Media Services, 18
Ibid, p19
Ashimolowo, M. (2003) So You Call Yourself a Man, London: Mattyson Media
Anyahamiwe, E. (2003) The Flesh of God, Publisher’s location not stated: Voice of the Church
Odulele, V. (2/10/050 sermon at Glory House
Cone, J. (1972) The Spirituals and the Blues, New York: Orbis Books, 81
Chike, C. (2007) African Christianity in Britain, London: Author House, 21
Ashimolowo, M. (October, 2004) Black and Bless Audio Tapes of sermons at Kingsway
International, Hackney, London
Chigor Chike is an Anglican involved in the Black Theology Movement in Britain, who has
studied the African Independent Churches in Britain extensively; he is a member of the Black
Theology Forum in London and is author of African Christianity in Britain (Author House,
2007).
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