BLACK CHRISTIANS, THE BIBLE Afo,,'Q LIBERATION

Black Christians, theBible and Liberation

Dr Takatso Mofokeng*

1. IntroductionNo statement in the history of politicalscience as well as that ofChristian mis­sions expresses the dilemma that con­fronts black South Africans in theirrelationships with the Bible withgreater precision and has whipped upmore emotions than the following:"When the white man came to ourcountry he had the Bible and we hadthe land. The white man said to us 'letus pray'. After the prayer, the whiteman had the land and we had thebible". With this statement which isknown by young and old in SouthAfrica, black people of South Africapoint to three dialectically relatedrealities. They show the the centralposition which the Bible occupies inthe ongoing process of colonization,national oppression and exploitation.They also confess the incomprehensi­ble paradox of being colonized by aChristian people and yet being con­verted to their religion and acceptingthe Bible, their ideological instrumentof colonization, oppression and ex­ploitation. Thirdly, they express a his­toric commitment that is acceptedsolemnly by one generation and pas­sed on to another - a commitment toterminate disinheritance and eradi­cate exploitation of humans by otherhumans.

The statement we referred to talksabout the connection between blackChristians. the Bible and the strugglefor liberation. This is the issue thatwill occupy us today.

The historical dilemma - The Bible asan instrument of social control andsocial struggle,It is a generally accepted fact whichwill undoubtedly come up again andagain in this conference that the Biblefirst reached the shores of our part ofthe African continent through thesometimes uncomfortable but none­theless successful partnership be­tween colonialism and the Christianmissionary enterprise. Many criticalAfrican writers, both secular andreligious, have written extensivelyabout this partnership and its benefitsto each of the partners involved, Somehave argued that the missionary enter­prise used colonialism as an effectiveand readily available vehicle to reachthe religious heart of the so-called'dark continent' and win it for JesusChrist. They add that in the missionaryuse of this vehicle they succeeded intwo things, Firstly, they reached theirdestination with the Bible, which isthe religious heart of Africa, emptied itof all the 'evil' contents that led to vio-

• Dr Takatso Mofokeng teaches theology at the University ofSouth Africa.

JOURNAL OF BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOIJfH AFRICA 35

lent African social structures, corruptpolitical institutions and a weakeconomic system. Consequent to theiractivities the African people haveaccepted a new religion and the Bibleas a guide in their lives. They havebeen introduced to new European cul­tural values, norms and attitudes andthat their entire society has beenchanged. For this work, the defendersof the missionaries argue, they deserveeternal gratitude from Africans.Bishop Desmond Tutu agrees with thisline of thought but adds a critical notewith which we agree, saying: "But itremains true to say that they sought toEuropeanize us before they couldChristianize us. They have con­sequently jeopardized the entireChristian enterprise since Christianityhas failed to be rooted sufficientlydeeply in the African soil, since theyhave tended to make us feel somewhatuneasy and guilty about what wecould not alter even if we had trieduntil doomsday - our Africanness."

In addition to the change of the Afri­can personality and society that havebeen achieved through the use of theBible. another achievement is alwaysadded. It is contended that these mendid a lot to blunt the sharp edges of thesword of the colonizers with theirmoral influence on the latter. Had itnot been for their numerous interven­lions, it is said, Africans would havebeen ruthlessly butchered. While thismay be true, it should not, however, beforgotten that more often than not, themissionaries invoked the same vio­lence of the colonial powers wheneverthey wished to mete out punishmenton the so-called stubborn and intransi­gent African kings.

Other African writers have alsoargued very persuasively that it wascolonialism that used the missionaryenterprise to soften the hearts and

minds of our African forebears. AsGwinyai Muzorewa aptly puts it:"What is indisputable is the fact thatthe colonists tended to use the mis­sionaries to make their task easier". Hefollows up this assertion by addressingthe congruence of their goals and says:"... consequently, there is a thin linebetween the missionary. intention andthe intent of the colonizer' ... "2 8.M.Magubane is even more emphaticwhen addressing this issue. He arguesvery forcefully that "the initial act ofconquest was buttressed and institu­tionalized by ideological activities"that resulted in the African peoplethemselves loudly admitting thecutural hegemony of their con­querors.' Magubane further argues.thatit was necessary for Africans to beincorporated into the mental and cul­tural universe of their white con­querors through an ideological on­slaught. Hence the presence of Chris­tian missionaries who were armedwith the Bible on the colonial oxwagon when its wheels rolled vio­lently through the breadth and lengthof our continent. In the Bible they hadthe most potent canon in the entireideological armoury targeted at thefundamental pmars of African socialstructure, religion and culture.

Magubane's assessment of missionsand the use to which the Bible was puthas not just been sucked from his ownthumb. Many missionaries confirmedthe legitimacy of this indictment of theBible in their reports to the missionarysocieties as well as in their memoirs.Brownlee, a British missionary forinstance, wrote and said: "As thenatives came under the influence ofthe teaching of missionaries, .... inproportion to the spread of missionaryinfluence the desire for articles ofEuropean manufacture grew andspread, and I think (it) will well satisfy

BLACK CHRISTIANS, THE BIBLE AND LIBERATION

this meeting that to the misSIonarymainly we owe the great revenue nowderived from native trade." The samesentiment was expressed by Dr. JohnPhilip of the London Missionary So­ciety in his Researches in SouthAfrica. John de Gruchy in his Churchstruggle in South Africa also points outthat the initial opposition to missionsamong Africans in South Africa wasdefeated by an assurance given by themissionaries that the Bible would,contrary to the colonists' fears, createobedient and loyal hardworking slavesout of the indigenous people.

Stories that come from areas wherethe slave trade and slave labour waspractised also confirm this indict­ment. In that case too the initial effortsto introduce the Bible to captured Afri­cans were opposed until the slaveowners were assured of the benefits ofChristian missions. Slaves wereseverely punished by their masters iffound reading the Bible unul theassurance referred to above was givenand kept. In other words the mis­sionaries were certain that there wasenough material in the Bible whichwould enable them to keep their wordof making better slaves out of a col­onized people.

However much one may try to pleadthe innocence of missionaries as theoverzealous children of the Victorianage, and many have done this, the pre­sence of the Bible which most of usstill accept as the normative documentof the Christian faith on the colonialwagon presents us as present victimsof colonialism and capitalist exploita­tion which it ushered in with a con­tradiction we cannot easily ignore. Wehave to admit that the Bible which wasa great problem as well as a blessing tomillions of our ancestors for two ormore centuries, still constitutes aproblem and a blessing to millions of

our contemporary African people,both Christian and non-Christian,religious and non-religious. And thishistoric paradox cannot remain unre­solved to haunt of our coming genera­tions. We have to respond to it with allthe zeal and intelligence at our com­mand. But as things stand we canrespond best only if weare prepared tolearn from the responses of those BlackChristians who went before us in ordernot to repeat their mistakes.

2. Black responsesLooking at the history of Blackresponses to incursions which theBible and its message made in an ideo­logical field that had hitherto been theexclusive territory of African religionand its oral traditions we can distin­guish three different kinds of Blackresponse to which we shall refer onlybriefly and in passing. Firstly, wenotice the heroic defence of the legiti­macy of African traditional religionsand their hegemonic field. Inspite ofall the energies expended in this effortthese religions have lost the strugglefor exclusive ideological and spiritualcontrol of the Black community. Sec­ondly, as a consequence of the loss ofcontrol to which we referred, the Afri­can Independent Churches emerged aschurches of compromise, in which ele­ments of the Christian tradition as rep­resented by the Bible and those of trad­itional religion as conveyed by Africanoral tradition are synthesized. Thirdly,the historic churches or colonialchurches or even white churcheswhich represent a total surrender ofthe African ideological field and a con­sequent total assimilation into Euro­pean Christendom mushroomed asBlacks were converted into them.These three responses constitute theinexhaustible source from which pre­sent Black Christians and theologians

JOURNAL Of BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOUTH AfKICA "in South Africa draw their own dif­ferent responses to the paradox pre­sented by the Bible in a situation ofunabating oppression and disinheri­tance of the indigenous people ofSouth Africa. I wish now to move on toa discussion of the present state of theparadox we referred to above underthe heading:

Contemporary paradox: the Bible as aproblem as well as a solutionThe paradoxical nature of the Bible isnot only inherent. It is also external. Itderives from another concreteparadox, i.e. the paradox of racistoppression and the exploitation ofblack people by white people. It alsoderives from a religious paradox - thatthe overwhelming number of peoplefrom both races are Christians whoswear on the Bible and pledgeallegiance to Jesus the Messiah Bnd histeachings. It is internationally recog­nized that the forebears of the presentwhite Christians used the Bible to jus­tify white superiority and the right ofwhites to be masters over Blacks.Hence the well· known partnershipbetween the gun and the Bible. Eventhe present generation of white Christ­ians continue to use the Bible in manyof their efforts to resist change. What isworse, they even launch endlessChristian revival campaigns to passifyBlack resistance to oppression. WhenBlack christians see all these conserva­tive ad reactionary efforts and hear theBible being quoted in support of reac­tionary causes they realize more andmore that the Bible itself is indeed aserious problem to people who want tobe free.

Many Black Christians through theages have tried to locate and solve thisproblem of the Bible in many differentways. The most commonly held ap­proach has been to accuse oppressor-

preachers of misusing the Bible fortheir oppressive purposes and objec­tives. This misuse is based, it isargued, on misinterpretations of bibli­cal texts to support or promote oppres·sive intentions.

It is clear that this critique is basedon the assumption that the Bible isessentially a book of liberation. Thisassumption is held in spite of the obvi­ous presence in the Bible of texts,stories and books which can only servean oppressive cause. This argument,which is generally held by trainedtheologians who have been broughtinto the ideological universe of thedominant and oppressive Christianworld and accepted it, is not com­pletely based on fact. We will concedethat this misinterpretation has indeedbeen done. But this is the case withsome texts and certainly not all. Itcould easily be done only with textsthat already appeared to be written topromote a different cause namely, thecause of liberation. We contend thatthere are stories and texts which arebasically oppressive and whose inter­pretation (not misinterpretation) onlyserves the cause of oppression. On thecontrary it is (in fact) their interpreta­tion and use for liberation that wouldconstitute misinterpretation and mis­use. There are numerous texts whichhave long disqualified themselves inthe eyes of oppressed people. We canrefer to the well-known Pauline posi­tion on slavery and on the social posi­tion and behaviour of women. Wethink that in the light of this textualreality formally-trained hermeneutistsand exegetes of the downtroddenshould abandon the ideologically­motivated concept of the unity of theBible as well as the assumption that itis a book of liberation per se. Theyshould join those grassroot Christianswho made the necessary distinctions

BLACK CHRISTIANS. THE BIBLE AND LIBERATION

long ago and identified their texts andused them to the exclusion of others.

In many cases the problem of theBible has been transferred to the areaof ethics or the practical concretiza·tion of biblical teaching. In thisattempt to solve the dilemma manydowntrodden Christians have accusedmany preachers and racist whites ofnot practising what they preach. Againthat may well be the case as far as cer­tain texts. that are ambiguous or broadenough to allow for many options at apractical level, are concerned. Wewant to argue that there are texts,stories and traditions in the Biblewhich lend themselves to onlyoppres­sive interpretations and oppressiveuses because of their inherent oppres­sive nature. And that no amount of tex­tual surgery or hermeneutic jugglingand semantic gymnastics can changethat. In fact all surgical attempts totransplant the blame or stretch theinterpretation to "save" or "co-opt"these oppressive texts for the oppres­sed only serve the interests of theoppressors who desire to have theoppressed under the same cultural,spiritual and ideological as them­selves because they are in control of it.Instead of pursuing these diversionarypaths oppressed Christians andtheologians have to acknowledge thereality of this problem, assess its grav­ity, commit themselves to search for itssolution and chart a new and indepen­dent approach to the biblical text, aswell as a more relevant epistemologi­cal cause.

On the other hand, when many BlackChristians read their history of strug­gle carefully, they come upon manyBlack heroes and heroines who wereinspired and sustained by some pas­sages and stories of the Bible in theirstruggle. when they read and inter­preted them in the light of their Black

experience, history and culture. Theycould consequently resist dehumani­zation and the destruction of theirfaith in God the liberator. It is thisnoble Black Christian history thathelps to bring out the other side of theBible, namely, the nature of the Bibleas a book of hope for the downtrodden.

A careful reading of the experiencesand witness of the early church con­firms the correctness of the experi­ences of our people concerning theusefulness of the Bible asa book with amessage of survival, resistance andhope. As we all know, the weakest,neglected, poor and marginalizedpeople in Palestine at the time of Jesusfelt attracted to Jesus' practices andmessage about his God and human life.What Jesus taught and did benefittedthem materially and spiritually andgave them a reason for hoping for a dif­ferent future and believing in theirright to a decent human existence. It isno accident that after Jesus' departurethis first Christian community struc­tured and organised their communaland material life in the manner inwhich Acts 4 relates. This was a tho­roughly practised structure of materialsurvival and basis for hope for theweak and poor in' that threatened com­munity at that historical period andthose imperial economic circum­stances. At a spiritual and ideologicallevel Jesus had given them a new wayof reading the Old Testament andunderstanding their God. With thisnew way they could counteract theofficial reading of the Old Testamentas well as the dominant view of God asthe God of the law who demands totaland blind obedience or else .... Againstthis view they witnessed to a God whodelights in the salvation of people. theremoval of their burdens and not intheir destruction. They could holdonto a gracious God who is merciful to

JOURNAl-OF BLACKTHEOU)GY IN SOUTH AfRICA J9

the weak and the blind who fall con­tinuously or lose their way in thesocio-economic and political jungle.Jesus also brought them to a God whochampions the cause of the victims ofpeople's inhumanity to the point ofsuffering and the cross.

II is abundantly evident that thisbasic social and theological positionwas modified during the period of mis­sions into Europe and otber areas ofthe Mediterranean basin or of theRoman Empire. In this expansion ofthe church the interpretation of thebasic text- the praxis of Jesus and itstranslation into concrete social struc­tures, relations and attitudes alsochanged. For example, the originalcommunism of the first communitygave way to tolerance of economic dis­parities, with the proviso that the poorshould not suffer from their lack ofmaterial possessions. In spite of thesemodifications which continued to bemade up to the point of Constantiniancompromise, the position of the ear­liest Christian community remainedas the reference point in understand­ing the praxis of Jesus. Every Christiangeneration could go back to it in searchof a Iiberative approach to the biblicaltext.

This new insight becomes a sourceof encouragement to contemporaryBlacks to assert their claim on theBible as a weapon of ideological andspiritual struggle for liberation. Asthey assert this claim a new kind ofstruggle ensues, namely, the strugglefor the Bible or, to be more precise, thestruggle for control of the Bible.

This new struggle is accepted not asa substitute or alternative to the physi­cal one but in addition to it. It isrealiz.ed that the physical struggle forcontrol of the material means of sub­sistence has to be complemented by astruggle for control of the Bible that

contains the means for ideological andspiritual subsistence, But since theBible is an ecumenical document partof which is even shared with adher­ents of the Jewish religion, it will befutile to expend a lot of energy andtime in an effort to control it. This hasbeen realized by Black theologians.What is within reach as a viable optionis to insist on finding and controllingthe tools of opening and interpretingthe Bible as well as participating in theprocess of interpretation itself. Thedawning of this consciousness thrustBlack theologians into the centre ofwhat Harvey Cox calls the "age-oldhermeneutical class struggle" which isa struggle to resist and contest theinterpretation of scripture by theo­logians who represent Christians ofthe dominant race and political order.This is how our version of Black The­ology emerged as a broad theologicalframework within which the new her­meneutic operates. But here again theepitemological break with dominantEuropean theological language andmethods was very difficult to effectdue to the many centuries of enslave­ment to the hermeneutical yoke of ouroppressors. Many Black theolOgianscontinue to slip back to the use of thedominant liberal henneneutics, thusconfinning the assertion made byAnthony Mansueto that "existential orreligious commitment to social revolu­tion will not substitute for scientificanalysis of the valence of a tradition inthe class struggle.") This process ofone step fonvard and two steps back­wards in the hermeneutical area is aclarion call for hermeneutical vigi­lance on the part of the entire com­munity of black theologians lest thegains which have been made in thisarea be lost because as Archie Mafejesays "clear identification of issues (in­cluding theological issues) is as impor-

BLACK CHRISTIANS. TIlE BIBLE ....ND UBERATION

tant as fighting in the streets or in themountains".'

Some people will undoubtedlyargue that this hermeneutical option isnot the only one, nor even the best one.They'll suggest that the best among theavailable options is to disavow theChristian faith and consequently berid of the obnoxious Bible. And indeedmany Black people especially theyouth have gone further than SteveBiko who asked rhetorically whetherthe decolonization process should notbe accompanied by a process of the de·christianization of Africa - a processwhich if successfully accomplished.would remove the Bible from Africa.Young blacks have categorically iden­tified the Bible as an oppressive docu­menl by its very nature and 10 its verycore. Hence the refusal of all oppres­sors in South Africa and elsewhere topart wilh it. They have zealously cam­paigned for its expulsion from theoppressed Black community but withlittle success. And this is largely due toIhe fact that no easily accessible ideo­logical silo or storeroom is beingoffered to the social classes of ourpeople that are desperately in need ofliberation. African traditional relig.ions are 100 far behind most blackswhile Marxism, is to my mind, farahead of many blacks,' especiallyadult people. In the absence of a betterstoreroom of ideological and spiritualfood, the Christian religion and theBible will continue for an undetermin­able period of time 10 be the haven ofthe Black masses par excellence.

In this situation of very limited ideo­logical options, Black theologians whoare committed to the struggle for liber­ation and are organically connected tothe struggling Christian people, havechosen to honestly do their best toshape the Bible into a formidableweapon in the hands of the oppressed

instead of just leaving it to confuse,frustrate or even destroy our people.

A hermeneutic for the liberation ohheBibleIt is an open secret that Black peoplehave, ever since the Bible was broughtto them. asserted their right to appro­priate and interpret it according 10their socio-economic, cultural andreligious needs. And this they havedone in spite of concerted oppositionfrom those who brought it. Guided bythese interests they have appropriatedthe Bible selectively and critically.Only portions, texts and stories of thebible which were regarded, in the lightof these interests. to be supportive ofthe immediate and long term goals ofthe majority of that religious commun­ity were appropriated. Those portions,texts and stories of the Bible whichwere seen to be clearly opposed totheir communal concern for indi­vidual and communal survival wereignored or rejected outrightly. TheseBlack Cristians did this informal her­meneutical work without any feelingsof guilt for allegedly dismembering thecanon of scripture. Neither did theyfeel that Iheir faith would be weakenedby this exercise. Instead they felt thatIhat was the most responsible way ofbeing authentically African and trulyChristian at the same time - withoutdishonouring their creator and saviour.

In this hermeneutical work the so­cial context is brought inlo a dynamicand fruitful interaction with the Bibleby these untrained Black hermeneu­tists. The progressive elements of theBlack life experience, history and cul­ture interact with the progressive lifeexperience, histories and cultures ofsome biblical communities. Other lifeexperiences, histories and cultures of

JOURNAL OF BLACK THEOLOGY IN SOUTH AFRICA

other biblical personalities, and com­munities are frowned upon and re­jected on the grounds of either beingunproductive or counter-productive.Intuitively most pious Black Chris­tians at the present stage of the strugglefor freedom will, for example, identifywith Moses and the Hebrew slaves asthey engage in the long and bitterstruggle to undermine the ancientEgyptian economy and weaken thePharaonic political grip on them. Inthe light of the internal and externaldifficulties encountered by BlackChristians on our national "exodus"Black exegetes are attracted to thestories about the difficulties of thedesert journey to the biblical promisedland. The prophetic interventionswhen things went wrong also capti­vate the minds of the Black Christiancommunity. These and many otherareas of the Bible constitute the canonfor Christians at this stage of our"exodus" The history of theology hasindisputable evidence which provesthat the de facto canon of a particularChristian community is determined,among other factors, by the contextand challenges of the historicaltrajec­tory of that community. The sameapplies to the South African theatre ofChristian life and political struggle.Black theologians who are organicallyconnected to the above Christian her­meneutical communities but who alsostand with both feet in the liberationstruggle do not frown on this her­meneutical approach of lay Christians.On the contrary they lift the above her­meneutical exercise to a higher formallevel. In a positive response toAnthony Mansueto, they search foranalytical tools that can be helpful inthe search of Black Christians for theright hermeneutical links in the Bible.Using these analytical tools as mem-

bers of a silenced, marginalized andsometimes ignored race, they discoverthe silenced, ignored and marginalizedpeople in the Bible and develop anaffinity with them. They also discoverthe text behind the text of the Bible - atext that has been silenced but one thatspeaks through this silence about thestruggles of the silenced and mar­ginalized people of the Bible. As mem­bers of a people whose story of pain,fears and hopes has been suppressed,they are enabled, by their physical andpsychological scars, together with theanalytical tools they have chosen, to dis­cover the suppressed and forgottenstories of the weak and the poor of theBible. These seem, according to them, tobe the stories wherein God is identify­ing with the forgotten and the weak andis actively retrievin.ll: them from themargins of the social world. It isthrough these stories that God thecreator of humans is manifested as theGod of the oppressed and accepted assuch. This creator God acts incarnatelyin Jesus to end the rampant enmity increation and restore real humanity topeople. Only the reading of thesestories of the downtrodden God amongthe downtrodden of this worldstrengthens the 'tormented faith of theoppressed of our time, as well asenhancing the quality of their commit­ment to the physical struggle for lib­eration. This discovery constitutes theliberation of the Bible from the clutchesof the dominant in the Christian foldwho impose the stories that justifytheir victories onto the oppressed.

Read by Dr. Takatso Mofokeng at aninternational congress on AFRICA ANDTHE BIBLE held at Cairo on 14th - 21stAugust 1987 and organized by the TIlEECUMENICAL ASSQCIATION OFAFRICAN THEOLOGIANS (EATWOT).

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