Mother-Tongue Theology: Akan Christian Christological Re-interpretations
Issue: Vol.1 No.2 July 2020 Article 1 pp. 10-18
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/pecanep.2020071 | Published online 14th July 2020.
© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The importance of the mother tongue in the planting and growth of African Christianity has been stressed by scholars such as Lamin Sanneh and Kwame Bediako. Bediako, for instance, states that “the ability to hear in one’s language and to express in one’s language one’s response to the message which one receives, must lie at the heart of all authentic religious encounters with the divine realm.” The paper discusses how the translation of the Bible and the use of the mother-tongue—has facilitated the production of new theological idioms by Akan Pentecostals/Charismatics in particular and Christians in general. Particularly, the paper discusses how the use of the mother-tongue has contributed to the re-interpretation of classical theological concepts such as Christology. Christ as an Ancestor and Christ as Healer-Duyefo is among the topics to be discussed in this paper.
Keywords: Mother-Tongue Hermeneutics, Akan, African Christology, Pentecostal-Charismatic, Translation, Gospel.
Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Bediako, Kwame. Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion. MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1995.
_______. Jesus in Africa: The Christian Gospel in African History and Experience. Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster, 2000.
_______. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
_______. Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and Experience. New York: Orbis Books, 2004.
_______. Religion, Culture, and Language: An Appropriation of the Intellectual Legacy of Dr. J.B. Danquah. J.B. Danquah Memorial Lectures, Series 37, 2004 February 2014, 2004. Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Accra, 2006.
Beckmann, David M. Eden Revival: Spiritual Churches in Ghana. St Louis: Concordia, 1975.
Bond, George. Johnson Walton. Walker, S. Sheila eds. African Christianity: Patterns of Religious Unity. New York: Academic Press, 1979.
Bujo, Benezet. African Theology in Its Social Context. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2006.
Dovlo, Elom. “African Culture and Emergent Church Forms in Ghana.” Exchange 33, no. 1 (2004): 29-53. https://doi.org/10.1163/1572543041172639
Ekem, John D. Kwamena. “Interpreting ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ in the context of Ghanaian Mother-tongue Hermeneutics”, Journal of African Christian Thought, vol. 10, 2, (2007), 48-52.
______. Priesthood in Context: A Study of Akan Traditional Priesthood in Dialogical relation to the Priest-Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and its implications for a relevant functional Priesthood in selected Churches among the Akan of Ghana (Hamburg: Verlag and der Lottbek, 1994)
Gibellini, Rosino ed., Paths of African Theology (MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1994)
Gifford, Paul. African Christianity: Its Public Role. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
_______. Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Hastings, Adrian. A History of African Christianity, 1950-1975 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Larbi, Emmanuel Kingsley. “The Nature of Continuity and Discontinuity of Ghanaian Pentecostal Concept of Salvation in African Cosmology.” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 5. No. 1(2002): 87-106.
_______. Pentecostalism: The Eddies of Ghanaian Christianity. Accra: Blessed Publications, 2001.
Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. Christology: A Global Introduction Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1177/004057360406000422
Kuwornu-Adjaottor, J. E. T. “Mother-Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics: A Current Trend in Biblical Studies in Ghana” Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies, vol. 3, 4 (2012), 575-579.
______.“Are Sins Forgiven or Loaned? Translations and Interpretations of Matthew 6:12 by Some Dangme Scholars”, ORITA, XLII, 2, (2010), 67-81.
Middleton, Darren J. N. “Jesus of Nazareth in Ghana’s Deep Forest: The Africanization of Christianity in Madam Afua Kuma’s Poetry” Religion and the Arts, vol. 9, no. 1-2 (2005) https://doi.org/10.1163/1568529054573415
Niebhur, H. Richard. Christ and Culture New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Obeng, Pashington. Asante Catholicism: Religious and Cultural Reproduction among the Akan of Ghana. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
Oduyoye, Mercy A. Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa. Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster, 2002.
_______. Daughters of Anowa: African Women & Patriarchy. MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1995.
_______. Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on African Christianity in Africa. MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1986.
Omenyo, Cephas. “Charismatic Churches in Ghana and Contextualization.” Exchange 31, no. 3 (2002): 252-277.
Onyinah, Opoku. “African Christianity in the Twenty-first Century.” Word & World 27, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 305-314.
Opoku, Kofi Asare. West African Traditional Religion (Jurong: FEP International Private Limited, 1978)
Ott, Craig. Netland A. Harold, eds. Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity. Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2006.
Opoku, K. Asare. West African Traditional Religion Jurong: FEP International Private Limited, 1978
Parrinder, Geoffrey. African Traditional Religion. London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1954.
Quarshie, J.Y. 2002. “Doing Biblical Studies in the African Context – The Challenge of Mother-tongue Scriptures,” Journal of African Christian Thought, vol. 5, 1, (2002), 4-14.
Sanneh, Lamin. Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
_______. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1989.
_______. West African Christianity: The Religious Impact. MaryKnoll: Orbis Books, 1983.
_______. Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003.
Smith, Noel. The Presbyterian Church of Ghana, 1835-1960: A Younger Church in a Changing Society.Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1966.
Snyper, Robert Charles. Akan Rites of Passage and their Reception into Christianity: A Theological Synthesis Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2003
Stinton, B. Diane. Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology N.Y: Orbis Books, 2004
Aidan Kwame Ahaligah(PhD) is a Teaching Fellow, University of Leeds where he completed his PhD in Religious and Theological Studies with a focus on Pentecostal-Charismatic political interventions in contemporary African Public spheres. Aidan is an ordained pastor of the E.P Church Ghana and domiciled in the UK. Email: akahaligah@yahoo.com
Ahaligah, Aidan K. “Mother-Tongue Theology: Akan Christian Christological Re-interpretations.” Pentecostalism, Charismaticism and Neo Prophetic Movements Journal 1, no.2 (2020): 10-18. https://doi.org/10.38159/pecanep.2020071
© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).