Prof. Jean-Florent Makaya of the University of Birmingham United Kindom is a native of Congo-Brazzaville and a proponent of African Theology of Identity and Culture.
This is a theological concept that emerged in the 1960s among African scholars.
In his essay African Theology of Identity and Culture, the professor explores the idea of reading the Bible through the eyes of African theology.
Accordingly, Makaya’s concept of African theology is a call for an “African self-discovery in the Bible.”
Africans should find themselves in the Bible by understanding Christianity as a continuity of pre-Christian African religion and not as an alternative that is far removed from African religion.
Makaya does not claim that Europeans do not profess Christianity. However, he opposes the notion that African religion is far from Christianity.
According to the professor, Africans never referred to their pre-Christian religion as traditional religion by themselves.
The terminology traditional religion is European. Makaya’s argument opens another layer that raises the question of the difference between religion and tradition. African pre-Christian religion contains elements of the Old Testament.
Makaya doubts that anyone ever called the Old Testament traditional religion.
Professor Makaya, therefore, opines that theologians who refer to pre-Christian African religion as traditional are either consciously or unconsciously committing an anthropological error or doing so out of their Eurocentric bias.
For the same reason, the scholar of African theology and identity believes that Africans have more to do with Christianity than Europeans seem to understand. Therefore, any assumption that Christianity was brought to Africa by Europeans, destroying African pre-Christian religion, is false.
The professor also believes that the theological notion that Jesus Christ was a Caucasian needs to be revisited.
Based on these considerations, Makaya argues that Africans should find themselves in the Bible. In this way, Africans will come closer to the Bible and understand the words of God, rather than viewing their religion as different from the Bible.
Written by Robinson Afamefuna Ambrose
