Afrykańskość chrystologii afrykańskiej

Abstract

The article presents conclusions reached by the author after his extensive research on African Christology that is to be published soon in its entirety. Explicit contextuality of African Christology calls for its deeper analysis. Several dimensions of the problem need to be considered in order to answer the question to what extent African Christology is really rooted in the African cultural context. African theologians have been accused (though more often in the past than now) of “Christianizing” African religious traditions, i.e. expressing beliefs and describing rituals of indigenous religions using Christian concepts. This very process can, however, be also seen as an asset on the side of African Christian theologians by the fact that they managed in that way to present African traditional religions to their Christian audience and at the same time find local means for expressing Christianity to the adherents of African traditional religions. One gets an impression that some African theologians do not pay too much attention to details when they take and use indigenous concepts. It is obvious that if the African concepts are to be used as means of expressing Christian beliefs they need to be modified. Analysing the process of modification of three indigenous concepts (ancestor, healer, ruler) the author indicates that the element of mediation between the human world and the Divine is often emphasized together with a conviction that Jesus Christ fulfils all the best aspirations of ancestors, healers and rulers in the most perfect way. Many other elements, sometimes quite important (e.g. ambivalence surrounding the mode of ancestors’ existence, or the fact that a healer is believed to be able to launch a mystical counterattack against the evildoer and sometimes he is actually expected to do so, or that ruler commits grave crimes during his installation ritual though he is considered to embody law and order) are overlooked, or omitted because they to not fit in the new Christian context. Nevertheless, Christology created by the African theologians is African in a real sense because many concepts are still easily recognizable by many Africans and the reformulation or change of meaning of indigenous concepts is undertaken by the Africans themselves in a very African manner.