Decolonizing African Christian Spirituality

Abstract

Africa is mired in problems and has been so for a very long time. In their attempts
to rescue the situation, our forefathers took upon themselves the task of
decolonization. Although this process began in earnest in the early 1960s, it has
since stalled. Today there are few Africans, either in the secular realm or in
religious orders, who dare to speak about decolonization. It is as if the continent is
in a coma, its attendants paralyzed. We all seem to have reached the conclusion
that the current worldview, provided by the neo-conservatives in Washington and
London, is an unassailable universal, a definitive and final creed. This paper is an
attempt to break the deadlock of the world's current commitment to a monoculture.
Focusing on the religious domain, in particular prayer, and using historical and
critical methods, I argue that African Christians are alienated from their cultural
beliefs, and as such their quest for meaning in life is eschewed. I maintain that the
spirituality of individualism characterising Christianity is detrimental to Africa and
as such it has to be replaced by the 'spirituality of community', which is grounded
in African traditions and cultures. I conclude by suggesting that if African people
want to find meaning in their life and existence here on earth, then they must do so
by looking very carefully into their own cultures and traditions, and not disappear
into alien cultures, or into some mono-cultural hybrid we witness today.

Key words: spirituality, prayer, individualism, community, Eurocentric Christian
hegemony