Ogbu Kalu And Africa’s Christianity A Tribute

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Pneuma 32 (2010) 107-120

Ogbu Kalu and Africa’s Christianity: A Tribute

Clifton R. Clarke

Associate Professor of Global Missions and World Christianity;

School of Divinity, Regent University

E-mail: cclarke@regent.edu

Abstract

In this review article some of the key ideas presented in the scholarship of Ogbu Kalu on African Christianity generally, and African Pentecostalism specifi cally, are discussed. The review commends Professor Kalu for broadening the historiography of Pentecostalism beyond North America and Europe to global phenomena with multiple access points. It further praises Kalu for pioneering the role of cultural moorings upon the shape of African Christianity. The review however highlights the limitations of a purely contextual and historiographical approach, and invites the discourse to participate in the broader global historical and theological Pentecostal conversation.

Keywords

African Pentecostalism, African Christianity, Pentecostalism, contextualization, historiography, pneumatology, African idioms, culture

Introduction

It was in the idyllic surroundings of Akuapem hills in the eastern region of Ghana, at the Akrofi -Christeller Memorial Centre of Applied T eology, that I first met Professor Ogbu Kalu. He was a visiting scholar invited to give a series of lectures to commemorate the end of two hundred years of the legal slave trade, and I was an adjunct professor of missiology. My second encounter with Dr. Kalu was a few months later at the 2007 Society of Pentecostal Theology annual conference at Duke University, North Carolina. My fi nal encounter with Ogbu Kalu was a conversation I had with him in which I invited him to participate in a conference hosted by Regent University’s School of Divinity, exploring a renewal approach to a theology of religions. He was going to address the issue of a renewal approach to religious pluralism in Nigeria. T is

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/027209610X12628362887712

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encounter was to be my last, because he died unexpectedly two weeks later. He will be sorely missed.

Professor Ogbu Kalu has been at the forefront of scholarly research in Afri- can Christianity for almost thirty years and he was probably the most accom- plished African Christian scholar in North America today.1 A native of Nigeria, Kalu worked as the church historian and head of the history department for over twenty years at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. As a leading historian of Christianity in Africa, Kalu had served as a coordinator of the African Church history project of the Ecumenical Association of T ird World T eolo- gians (EATWOT). For a number of years prior to his death, he was the Henry Winter Luce Professor of World Christianity and Missions at McCormick T eological Seminary in Chicago. A prolifi c writer and scholar, Kalu authored over twenty books and over one hundred academic articles and book chapters. His scholarship came to prominence at a time when the theological academy had been contemplating the signifi cance of the exponential rise of Christianity in the global south.2 The expansion of Christianity in twentieth-century Africa particularly has been so dramatic that it has been called “the fourth great age of Christian expansion.”3 Research on Christianity in the continent has bur- geoned over the years in multiple academic disciplines. Kalu has been an important voice in interpreting the global impact of African Christianity and his work will continue to provide a sober voice against the infl ux of Western interpretation even after his untimely departure.

The Christianization of many parts of the African continent is undoubtedly one of the great success stories in modern Christian history.4 The question is, “Whose success story is it?” Up until recently, it was assumed that the expo- nential growth of Christianity in Africa was part and parcel of the legacy of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionary movement, in spite of its many

1

In recognition of his erudition, Chima J. Korieh and G. Ugo Nwokeji edited a festschrift, Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Ogbu Kalu (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005), as a fi tting tribute to Kalu’s work.

2

Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: A Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995), 3.

3

J. Peel, “The Christianization of African Society,” in Edward Fasholé-Luke et al., eds., Chris- tianity in Independent Africa (London: Rex Collings, 1978), 445.

4

In the twentieth century, the Christian population in Africa grew from an estimated nine million in 1900 to a staggering three hundred and fi fty million in 2000. It is estimated that this fi gure will double by the year 2025, thereby bringing it in excess of 600,000 adherents. See David Barrett et al., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 12.

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shortcomings.5 Here Kalu is emphatic: the story of African Christianity is Africa’s story and belongs with the narrative of Africa’s religious quest.

Although Ogbu Kalu was an active scholar for well over thirty years, it was the appearance of his books African Pentecostalism: An Introduction, that occa- sioned the invitation to review his larger corpus in this article.6 His book Afri- can Christianity: An African Story, which is a compendium of academic essays written by an accomplished team of African scholars, also represents a mile- stone in the ownership of African Christian scholarship and historiography.7 The central argument of his edited volume African Christianity is that African Christianity should be read as part and parcel of the organic growth and devel- opment of Africa’s religious quest. This thesis is further explicated in Kalu’s Clio in Sacred Garb — a compilation of articles and chapters.

8

In this collec- tion, Kalu further develops his rereading of African church historical trajec- tory, as owned by and emanating from African experience. In many ways, African Pentecostalism builds upon Kalu’s life’s work and represents a more integrated and systematic treatment of his understanding of African Christi- anity in global context. In this work, Kalu underscored his enduring convic- tion that African Christianity does not originate in Azusa Street. Neither is African Christianity a product of Western missionary enterprise. Rather, it is an authentic outworking of Africa’s religious quest for life.9

A full review of Ogbu Kalu’s extensive writings will go beyond the scope of this article. For this reason, I will examine three salient and recurring themes in Kalu’s reading of African Christianity in a global context. Firstly, I will assess his views on African historiography, which is a very important aspect of his approach to African Christianity. Secondly, I will interact with his under- standing of Africa’s participation in the “missionizing” of Africa against the

5

An example of this type of reading of Christian history in Africa is seen in Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Mission (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1964), 322-96.

6

Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

7

Ogbu U. Kalu, ed., African Christianity: An African Story (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007).

8

See Ogbu U. Kalu, Clio in a Sacred Garb: Essays on Christian Presence and African Responses, 1900-2000 (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2008).

9

This perspective is also enunciated by Allan Anderson, who notes, “Historians of Pentecos- talism have often refl ected a bias interpreting history from a predominately white American perspective, neglecting (if not completely ignoring) the vital and often more signifi cant work of Asian, African, African American and Latino/a Pentecostal pioneers”; see Allan Anderson An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 2004), 166.

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missionary backdrop. T irdly, I will analyze his views on Pentecostalism. I will also be making observations and asking critical questions as I engage his work.

African Church Historiography

Since he was a historian, it is perhaps of no surprise that history and historiog- raphy plays a key role in Kalu’s approach to African Christianity. Kalu calls for a complete revision of African church historiography that takes as a point of departure three key concerns. The first is “the continuity of African Christian- ity with African primal religion.”

10

Kalu believes that African religious and political culture is heavily infl uenced by African cosmology. His notion of “the big man of the big God” exemplifi es how the African primal moorings surface within modern Pentecostal media and popular culture, where the big man of the village is replaced by the big man (the bishop) of the Church or politics.11 Kalu argues, therefore, that it is within the fi eld of primal religion and not in Western missionary ecclesiastical structures that African historiography must be anchored:

It is important to start African church history from African primal religion and culture because both the church and her enemies, namely, the politicians and other religious forms derive their character, and source their idioms from the interior of African worldview . . . this means that we should explore how African Christianity is essentially rooted in primal religion whose cults are manipulated to sustain the contest for the dwindling resources of the modern states.12

The second concern is Kalu’s notion of “church.” He advocates that church history must go beyond the institutional body. The focus should be on the people who have assembled and the church is a diff erent genre of history whose commitment is to people. Institutions are only important to the extent that they serve people. African church history must therefore go beyond the restrictive walls of institutional and denominational confi nes that introduce the image of God as a stranger to the African’s integrated universe. T erefore he rejects the missionary historiography written by missionaries and their admirers, on the basis that it often shares the scientifi c racism of the nine- teenth century, is often hagiographic and triumphalist with regard to things

10

See Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 3-11. 11

Ibid., chap. 6.

12

Kalu, in African Christianity, 4.

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European, and is disdainful of indigenous (non-European) cultures.13 Yet Kalu also points out the irony of the nationalist historiography, which strongly con- demned missionaries for failing to recognize that Africans were the real agents who spread Christianity, but yet remained trapped in a Western missionary institutional understanding of African Christianity. Many of these agents, he notes, would have worn Frantz Fanon’s label, “Black Skin White Mask,” with pride.14

Kalu’s third concern is the need for what he calls an “ecumenical perspec- tive.” He argues that the concept of oikumene is a more fi tting one through which to read African church history in that it calls for a wider understanding of the church. Church history, he argues, is the story of God’s presence in human communities and the responses of those communities to God’s initia- tive in space and time. Of the divine Spirit, he asserts:

The ecumenical perspective of church history, therefore, reconstructs from the grass- roots the experience of men and women in a community and the meaning of Christ in their midst. It assumes that as the spirit of God broods over the whole inhabited earth human beings would increasingly recognize the divine presence and their lives would be changed in the encounter.15

In many respects Kalu’s three main concerns highlighted here build on the works of postcolonial scholars such as John Mbiti, Bolaji Idowu, and Fashole- Luke, as well as the more recent work of Lamin Sanneh, Kwame Bediako, Jean Claud-Ela, and others, all of whom have advocated a reassessment of the activ- ities of African agents during the colonial era. Kalu’s work does not, however, suficiently address the methodological tools needed in the construction of African historiography. Indeed, how are nonwritten sources such as oral tradi- tion and oral history to be used in the reconstruction of the African past? Whereas I would afirm the need for authentic local historiographies, I believe it is also important to realize that the advent of globalization has brought in its wake subjects whose comprehension requires a global frame of reference. The challenge to African Christian historians, therefore, is not to shy away from universal history or to retreat into a narrow historiographical absolutism, but rather to participate in the international discourse to shape its methodologies and fi nd common experiences. Abolade Adeniji notes:

13

Ogbu Kalu, “African Church Historiography: An Ecumenical Perspective,” in Ogbu Kalu, ed., African Church Historiography: An Ecumenical Perspective (Bern: Lukas Fischer, 1988), 19.

14

Ibid., 16.

15

Ibid., 21.

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If the challenge of writing universal history is to fi nd in the diversity of materials and language common experiences and explanations of the human past, surely this is not beyond the capacity of African historians. We need to broaden the curriculum in our institutions with a view to integrating into them the study of diverse regions of the world.16

Kalu’s idea of an ecumenical perspective through which African historiogra- phy could be interpreted is novel but problematic. Quite apart from the his- torical association of “ecumenism” as a predominantly Western enterprise, ecumenism cannot proceed without an ecclesiology. But as G. R. Evans points out, it is not easy to settle on ecclesiological principles that will be acceptable to everyone.17 Following Evans, I think it may be more advantageous to employ the biblical themes that I believe to be more in tune with African symbolism: sheepfold, fl ock, fi eld, vine and branches, holy temple, God’s building, or Holy City.

Another of Kalu’s recurring themes is the reinterpretation and celebration of the “agency of Africans and Africans in the diaspora.”18 Building on his thesis that the historiography of Western mission in Africa has been errone- ously presented as the history of African Christianity as a whole, Kalu retells the story of African Christianity deliberately privileging the African contribu- tion. He notes, “many ‘native agents’ or indigenous people bore the brunt of the enterprise but remained nameless, as unsung heroes, in a missionary histo- riography that placed the missionary at the center of the story.”19

In an eff ort to correct this historiographical misrepresentation, Kalu high- lights fi ve main areas of distortion of the African response to the gospel. First, there were black abolitionists who were compelled by their faith to struggle for freedom against the diatribe of oficialdom and popular opinion. Kalu here highlights the contribution of liberated slaves such as Equino and Cuguano.20 Second, there were black missionaries from the African diaspora such as Joseph and Mary Gomer, an African American couple who served gallantly in Sierra Leone with the United Brethren from 1871 to 1892. T eir piety, artisan skills

16

Abolade Adeniji, “Universal History and the Challenge of Globalization to African Histo- riography,” Radical History Review 91 (Winter 2005): 102.

17

G. R. Evans, The Church and the Churches (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 3.

18

See Kalu, Clio in a Sacred Garb, 85-177.

19

See Ogbu Kalu, “Ethiopianism in African Christianity,” in Kalu, ed., African Christianity, 227.

20

Kalu, Clio, 113.

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and motivation brought great gain to the mission in Sierra Leone.21 The third area is Ethiopianism,22 which features very prominently in Kalu’s reinterpreta- tion of African Christian historiography. For Kalu this movement perhaps most poignantly highlights the fact that Christianity was a non-Western reli- gion.23 The fourth area of indigenous response that Kalu enunciates came between the world wars from African Prophetic Christianity, notably William Waddy Harris and Simon Kimbangu, as well as from the monumental rise of the African indigenous churches that came on the back of Ethiopianism and African Prophetism.24 The Pentecostal and Charismatic movement comprises the fi fth element of African response; it is given a comprehensive treatment in his book African Pentecostalism, which I will refer to later.

Kalu’s historical elucidation of the contribution of the African agency as shapers of African Christianity is where I believe his scholarship is at its best. He brings together the often fragmented histories of black abolitionists, black missionaries, Ethiopianists, African Prophets, and African Pentecostals into a rich tapestry that make up African church historiography. In this respect Kalu has broadened the often narrow history of the church in Africa — often seen through the cocoon of missionary historiography — to African history more generally.

While I agree in principle with Kalu’s African historiographical project, I would like to make a couple of observations. Firstly, there is a sense in which his approach does not make the connection between the histories of these human movements (Ethiopianism, African Prophetism, and so on) with the overall salvation history of Yahweh as seen in Scripture. Without this transcen- dent dimension these human movements are the sole agents of historical inculturation and liberation. T ere is, therefore, a real risk of what Carver T. Yu, speaking of the Asian context, refers to as a self-perpetuation and self- absolutization of history.25 The question I would pose, therefore, is, how do

21

Ibid., 85-103.

22

Ethiopianism usually describes a r eligious movement among sub-Saharan Africans during the colonial era. It originated in South Africa in the 1880s, with the formation of all-African Christian churches such as the Tembu tribal church and the Church of Africa. The term was first used by Mangena Mokone when he founded the Ethiopian Church in 1892. See J. Mutero Chirenje, Ethiopianism and (Black) Afro-Americans in South Africa 1883-1916 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

23

See Kalu, “Ethiopianism in African Christianity”; cf. Kalu, Clio, 151-75.

24

Kalu, Clio, 177.

25

Carver T. Yu, “The Bible and Culture in the Shaping of Asian T eology,” in David Emman- uel Singh and Bernard C. Farr, eds., Christianity and Cultures: Shaping Christian T inking in Context (Carlisle, UK: Regnum, 2008), 57.

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these specifi c historiographies not only validate African involvement in Afri- can Christian historiography but also participate in a biblical revelation of the missio Dei? In this regard we can speak of the historicity of the mission of the church in Africa as in fact the activity of God himself. Secondly, what resources can be gleaned from these historiographies that can aid the African contempo- rary scene? In other words, how can we avoid degenerating into a nostalgic orientation to African Christianity and retain instead a posture that is future directed and globally engaged? With Kalu, I would advocate rewriting the past, but perhaps an even more urgent task is shaping the future, especially given Africa’s pride of place in the global shift of Christianity from the north- ern hemisphere.

Questions regarding Kalu’s African Pentecostalism

In recent years, Kalu paid increasing attention to Pentecostalism in general and African Pentecostalism more specifi cally. This culminated in his carefully written and detailed volume, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction. The book covers much ground, mapping the eddies of the growth and development of Pentecostalism in Africa from its traditional religious milieu through the mis- sionary era and the indigenous Christian response, up to the current burgeon- ing of Pentecostalism. Since it is extremely well researched and contains a rich bibliographical reference, it is a real treasure for anyone interested in African Christianity. I would like to interact with a few key ideas that Kalu presents in his analysis of African Pentecostalism, particularly those related to the origins of African Pentecostalism and the methodological and prosperity aspects of African Pentecostal theologies.

The Origins of African Pentecostalism

Kalu’s conviction that African Christian historiography and interpretation must be seen against the background of local idioms is reasserted and under- scored once again in his analysis of Pentecostal historiography.26 He repudiates the viewpoints held by David Martin, Harold Bloom, and Harvey Cox for their interpolations of African Pentecostalism into what he calls an “American apple pie.”27 He also challenges the tabula rasa view ostensibly advanced by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Giff ord that portrays African Pentecostalism as imag-

26

Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 3-4. 27

Ibid., 11.

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ing the North American brand, which is imported on the wings of globaliza- tion.28 Instead, Kalu asserts that the African Pentecostal movement does not originate from other shores but represents an authentic outworking of Africa’s religious quest for life: “African Pentecostalism did not originate from Azusa Street and is not an extension of the American electronic church . . . it is one of the ways that Africans responded to the missionary structures and appropri- ated the message.”29 Kalu situates African Pentecostalism within the trajectory of Africa’s continuous appropriation of the Christian gospel. Much like Ethio- pianism, African Prophetism, indigenous churches, and African revivalism, Pentecostalism is another means of inculturation of the gospel against the background of missionary rhetoric:

The argument here is that Pentecostalism is in fact colored by the texture of the African soil and from its interior derives idioms, nurture and growth. It does not merely adapt but gestates the resource of externality, transforming along the grooves of resonance to serve its needs. This explains why Pentecostal fruits, therefore answers more adequately the challenges (of power and evil) in the African ecosystem than the fruits of mission- ary endeavors.30

Kalu therefore agrees with Asamoah-Gyadu, Pomerville, and Peterson, who also see Pentecostalism as a movement without a center or periphery, a global phenomenon with multiple access points.31

Kalu’s resistance to the Azusa Street thesis of the genesis of Pentecostalism is quite in order. His positing a locally home-grown brand of African Pentecos- talism in response, however, reinforces the need for a more transcendent and biblical approach to global Pentecostalism. Whereas I would “throw my hat in the ring” with those who advocate an intercultural historical approach on the basis of Pentecostal outbreaks in India and in Haiti with no apparent relation- ship with Azusa,32 I would argue that the main player in this story is neither

28

Ibid., 12.

29

Ibid., viii.

30

Ogbu Kalu, “ ‘Globecalization’ and Religion: The Pentecostalism Model in Contemporary Africa,” in James L. Cox and Gerrie Ter Haar, eds., Uniquely African? African Christian Identity from Cultural and Historical Perspectives (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), 215.

31

See J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 10; Paul Pomerville, The T ird Force in Missions: A Pentecostal Contribution to Mission T eology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), 23; and Douglas Peterson, Not by Might Nor by Power (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 1996), 45.

32

See Gary B. MaGee, “Pentecostal Phenomena and Revivals in India: Implication for Indig- enous Leadership,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 20, no. 3 (1996): 112-17; cf. Fredrick J. Conway, “Pentecostalism in Haiti: Healing and Hierarchy,” in Stephen D. Glazier,

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Azusa (USA) or Africa (nor India or Haiti, for that matter) but God’s eschato- logical outpouring in space and time. Pentecostal history and contextual approaches must join the struggle for a world Pentecostal theology while still being fi rmly rooted within local context. This debate once again brings to the fore the tension between the universal and the particular, the global and the local, and the church as catholic and congregational. Into this dichotomic standoff , we must assert the “unity of the Spirit” that envelopes both the uni- versal and the particular identities. We must ask ourselves: What are the global identities that link African Pentecostalism with the global Pentecostal move of the Spirit? Are there areas in which African Pentecostalism may bring a fresh voice into what Amos Yong calls the “pneumatological imagination”?33 T is is an area with great promise for African theological contributions that could emanate from the African Pentecostal experience toward a global Pentecostal conversation. This may be accomplished by exploring the global Pentecostal scholarship of Amos Yong, Kirsteen Kim, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen34 (and oth- ers) with historical and contextual Pentecostal theologies such as seen in the works of Kalu.

African Pentecostal theology is currently in its infancy. Kalu’s work provides interesting inroads for African Pentecostalism to participate in the quest for a global Pentecostal theology. For the sake of this review I will focus on his methodological approach to Pentecostal theology and his perspective on pros- perity within the context of African Pentecostalism.

Methodological Disagreements

I disagree most strongly with Kalu’s approach to African Pentecostal theology. While I share his commitment to an African contextual approach to theologi- cal refl ection, I have dificulties in two directions with his assessment of African theology. To begin with, Kalu’s theological approach seems to me to advance what David Bosch calls “an absolutism of contextualization.” Kalu notes:

ed., Perspective on Pentecostalism: Case Studies from the Caribbean and Latin America (Washing- ton, DC: University Press of America, 1980), 7-26.

33

See Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: T eological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, and Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), part 2.

34

See, e.g., Amos Yong, Spirit-Word and The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global T eology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005); Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002); and Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A Global Conversation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2007).

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T eology is no longer a reifi ed enterprise, but simply human refl ection on the relation- ship of God-in-Christ to human beings and to the world of nature. . . . Every theology refl ects its contextualized location.

35

While context plays a very important role in the construction of African Pen- tecostal theology, it is not the sole and basic authority in theological refl ection. Praxis needs the critical control of theory — in this case, a critical theology of the missio Dei. With Stackhouse, I would agree that the dynamics of a particu- lar context always involve “abstract” issuess of truth and justice, “abstract” metaphysical-moral visions, and “theoretical” questions of epistemology.36 In this respect I believe Kalu’s contextual approach to African Pentecostal theol- ogy would be better served if it held in creative tension theoria and praxis.37 Consequently, theological refl ection will be more of a dialogue across the var- ious traditions instead of a power struggle about who has the right to speak for a particular context. T erefore, while afirming the essential contextual nature of all theology, we also have to afirm the universal and context-transcending nature of all theology.38

The other area of Kalu’s theological methodological approach with which I would diff er is his absence of a theological structure. I agree with Kalu that the framework of systematic theology that refl ects an Enlightenment worldview is unsuited for an African context.39 Antisystemization, however, must not be misconstrued as antistructural. Although African oral theology represents the raw data of African theology, we must recognize that however rich and lively oral tradition is, it has certain limitations. For example, orality cannot sustain a long theological argumentation or discourse. The audience of oral tradition is generally very limited, being confi ned to local group situations and occa- sions to which it addresses itself. So far as it is orally disseminated, it cannot be easily put through the scrutiny of scholarly and critical evaluation and analy- sis. Further, it is also dificult, if not impossible, to transport specifi c forma- tions of oral tradition from one place to another, from one period to another,

35

Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 249.

36

Max Stackhouse, Apologia: Contextualization, Globalization and Mission in T eological Edu- cation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 11.

37

Ibid., 85.

38

David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in T eology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 427.

39

I have argued for an approach to Christianity in Africa that accounts for its oral and inte- grated world outlook. See Clifton Clarke, “Faith in Christ in Post-Missionary Africa: Christol- ogy among Akan African Indigenous Churches in Ghana” (unpublished PhD Diss., University of Birmingham, 2003).

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without changes and alterations that go with oral transmission of information. For these reasons I would argue that African Pentecostal theology needs a structure — not necessarily a philosophical or abstract one, but a structure nonetheless — to be articulated and developed. Articulating a Pentecostal the- ology that does not stifl e contextual refl ection or restrict the oral and inte- grated nature of African Pentecostal theology is a challenge to be taken up by African Pentecostalism scholars.40 Further, one wonders whether a theo- logical assessment of African Pentecostalism might not have been better served by adopting an approach off ered by Yong. Yong suggests that a distinctive Pentecostal perspective would be biblically grounded, theologically guided — specifi cally through core orienting motifs such as Christology and pneumatol- ogy — and emerging from the matrix of the Pentecostal experience of the Spirit of God.41 I would want to posit the Fivefold Gospel as a possible work- ing structure on which an African Pentecostal theology might proceed that has the scope to accommodate its oral structure and pneumatological emphasis.42

Kalu did not grasp the opportunity for a distinctive African Pentecostal pneumatic theology, which may refl ect his more historiographical rather than theological leanings on issues of African religion. He did mention the oral nature of African Pentecostal theology, but here again he did not go further to thresh this out. The raw materials of African Pentecostal oral theology may aid the professional theologian and the local theologian alike to talk about God using a language refl ective of an African epistemology. The starting point of this orality is not the message or the form in which the oral tradition exists, which could be preaching, singing, healing, dancing, and so forth, but rather the invisible domain or dimension in which it emerges. I would argue, then that orality is the actual “structure” or the “fabric” of the African universe of which African Pentecostal theology emanates.43

40

Kalu does highlight some important themes in African Pentecostal theology, such as the idea of covenant, healing, and hermeneutics. On the whole, however, his theological assessment falls far short of his historical and historiographical analysis.

41

Yong, The Spirit Poured out on All Flesh , 27-29.

42

The Fivefold Gospel is known as: the Gospel of Regeneration, the Gospel of the Fullness of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of Divine Healing, the Gospel of the Blessing, and the Gospel of the Advent.

43

See my “Towards an Oral Christology among African Indigenous Church in Ghana,” Jour- nal of Asian Missions 6, no. 2 (2004): 245 -64, reprinted in Journal of African Christian T ought 8, no. 1 (June 2005): 3-21.

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Prosperity Aspects of Kalu’s Pentecostal T eology: A Critique

A good example of the tension between cultural relativism and universalism referred to above is seen in Kalu’s assessment of prosperity in African Pentecos- talism. In chapter 13 of his book African Pentecostalism Kalu addresses the issue of Pentecostal prosperity theology at length. Prosperity theology in Africa, he argues, emerges from covenant theology based on the reciprocal relationship between people and the Creator. He rightly adds that prosperity within an African context goes beyond personal wealth and material things but represents harmonious living through peace, satisfaction, contentment, and maintenance of the social networks.44 Kalu is critical of Giff ord’s assess- ment, accusing him of misreading the dynamic relationship between African tradition and American prosperity gospel. This misreading leads Giff ord to conclude wrongly that African Pentecostal prosperity theology is a “copycat” theology borrowed from a North American context. Kalu concludes that pros- perity theology, when properly exegeted, is rich in its capacity to reimagine the gospel from an indigenous idiom.45

While I agree with Kalu that the prosperity motif in African Pentecostalism is not an imitation of the North American brand, I also think that their relationship is far more nuanced than Kalu’s African indigenous position might suggest.46 In very much the same way that postcolonial African leaders exploited politics as a means to amass personal wealth and power under the guise of African self-determinism — in ways exemplifi ed by Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Man of the People 47 — many African Pentecostal preachers have embraced Western capitalist ideology for self interest and personal gain. The challenge then becomes how to afirm the African cultural idiom of prosperity while exorcising what Magesa calls the “anti-life forces” of individual greed and exploitation.48 In this regard the social scientifi c analyses of Giff ord, Cor- ten, Martin, and others, though often going too far in their reductionism, provide an important sociological critique.

44

Kalu, African Pentecostalism, 261.

45

Ibid., 263.

46

See also André Corten, Le Pentecôtisme au Brésil (Paris: Karthala, 1995), 25, citing Rob Garner, “Religion and Economics in a South African Township” (unpublished PhD T esis, Cambridge University, 1998), 98.

47

Chinua Achebe, Man of the People (New York: Anchor Books, 1967).

48

Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (New York: Orbis, 1997), 165.

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120

C. R. Clarke / Pneuma 32 (2010) 107-120

Conclusion

In this essay I have sought to outline and engage with aspects of the ideas of one of Africa’s most prolifi c modern Christian scholars. Professor Ogbu Kalu’s scholarship could be characterized as one that has sought to reclaim the story of African Christianity as Africa’s story. His writings have infl uenced and inspired scholars and students of African Christianity across the world. He will be missed by colleagues and friends in the Western academy, and the loss of his theological presence and leadership within the African continent will be deeply mourned. As we read and reread his many books and articles, we take comfort in the fact that in many ways he is still with us. One of the many lessons he taught me was that historical African Christianity is rooted in primal religion and not in the Western missionary enterprise or other religious repositories. As he once told me in his own enigmatic proverbial way: “The river that forgets its source will always dry up.”

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