Educating for Social Holiness in Institutions of Higher Education in Africa: Toward an Innovative Afrocentric Curriculum for Methodist Theological Education
Article Category: Research Article
Pubblicato online: 14 apr 2021
Pagine: 21 - 34
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/holiness-2020-0004
Parole chiave
© 2020 R. Simangaliso Kumalo, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
It is the mind you have to draw out, and mould, and fit for its duties to itself, to mankind John Wesley cited in Davies, 180.
The above extract is from one of John Wesley's most quotable expressions of his view of the role of Methodism in education. As gleaned from the quoted extract, Wesley's understanding of the purpose of education was to train the mind to think independently so that it can serve itself, its community and God. It is for this reason that the learner must be taught to think, from cradle to institution of higher learning. Viewed from this perspective, education is, positively, to enable learners to be free to think, and negatively, to not limit their ability to think for themselves. It is not aimed at perpetuating contemporary hegemony by forcing people to adopt the dominant knowledge. Instead, it is to enable them to be free to think outside the confines of the dominant knowledge. From this, one can deduce that Wesley would have encouraged Methodist institutions – whether theological or secular – to mould learners into critical thinkers.
While all Higher Education in southern Africa is presently in crisis, theological education is in an even deeper crisis. This was apparent in 2016 when students from institutions of Higher Education embarked on protest action calling for the decolonisation of Higher Education in the country. Now and again these protests turned violent, buildings were torched, people were injured and some students were even imprisoned. It can therefore be deduced without reservation that the teaching curriculum of Higher Education is facing a major crisis. The theological curriculum is not exempted from this crisis, and there have been calls from seminary students, including Methodists, for the Africanisation of theological education in their church-owned and -run institutions. Aesthetics of campuses, the curriculum of teaching programmes, and the goals, content and methods of teaching and research have all been called into question. The main question concerns whose interests are being serving and whether they hold relevance in the African context. Scrutinising them closely, it is obvious that those entrusted with the task of training students of theology in Methodist institutions have an urgent responsibility and task ahead.
Although theological educators have always realised the need to contextualise their education, there is no evidence whatsoever that they saw the value of decolonising it. It is often claimed that most theological education is apolitical and universal. It is only after the protests in 2016 that the task of decolonising theological education was seen as an imperative that needs serious attention. Two intertwined questions arise:
The Christian faith is understood to be universal and global, and thus relevant for Africa. As a consequence, the Africanisation of theological education has not only been marginalised by Western-aligned thinking of institutions of learning and ministerial formation, but has not even been taken seriously by those institutions that have positioned themselves behind the shadow of enculturation. Those academics in South African public institutions who are engaged in the ongoing discourse of decolonising education view it as being of crucial importance for the development of knowledge about and for the African continent and the development of its peoples. Decolonising theological education thus has value not only for the African church but also for the global church as it too benefits from the new insights and body of knowledge that will emerge from the African continent.
What then are the implications for Methodist theological education and ministerial formation in the call for the decolonisation of Higher Education in the African continent? In what follows in this article, my central aim will be to explore and suggest sinews of a decolonised curriculum of theological education that will hold relevance in the African context.
Briefly, my aim will be to discuss the implications of the call for the decolonisation of Higher Education for Methodist institutions and their education in the post-colonial era. First, drawing from the work of Molefe Kete Asante, Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Temple University, on Afrocentricity, I argue for the Africanisation of theological education as an urgent task. I propose that we use Afrocentricity as a theoretical tool for identifying the areas where some key aspects of African culture can be added into the teaching curriculum. My proposals are also practical, although undergirded by sound theological and philosophical foundational motivations. It is for this reason that I have also made use of the works of seminal African Methodist thinkers such as Kwesi Dickson, Bolaji Idowu and Gabriel Setiloane. These thinkers inform my assumptions and proposals throughout this article. All these – with the exception of Molefe Asante – were outstanding Methodist theological thinkers from the African continent. All of them tend to be Africanist, post-colonial, reactionary and neo-orthodox in their individual approaches, yet they each add value to the question of Africanising theological education. It is for this reason that they need to be consulted and engaged in this article. I offer ways to imagine Methodist education that takes into consideration the language and experiences of the African people as a way of decolonising the curriculum in institutions of Higher Education. I then demonstrate that African institutions of higher learning offer a site of struggle between Eurocentric and Afrocentric approaches to theological education. I go on to propose a way forward by pointing to sinews of a decolonised theological education curriculum in Africa. Finally, I draw the discussion to a conclusion, highlighting the importance of reimaging the teaching curriculum in all Methodist institutions of higher learning.
The article is my contribution to the theological educators and leaders of institutions of higher learning, who by virtue of their chosen vocation must deal with issues of how to structure a curriculum that takes into account the needs of the African church in a post-colonial era. In this sense, they are not simply educators but prophets and architects of Methodism for the coming generations. This article will therefore highlight their role as theological educators needing to respond to the critical question of Afrocentricity and the emerging vision of what a well-educated African Methodist bishop, theologian or minister should be like.
George Mukuka has observed, ‘theories are essential to making muted voices audible’. See Biko, 48–53.
A second question that this article will address is:
In answering these two important questions, I will use the Afrocentric paradigm, which is also known as the theory of Afrocentricity as postulated by Molefi Kete Asante. Asante defines Afrocentricity as:
A mode of thought and action in which the centrality of African interests, values and perspectives predominates…the idea that blackness itself is a troupe of ethics. Thus, to be black is to be against all forms of oppression… [especially] white racial domination.
For Asante, the theory of Afrocentricity places Africa at the centre of analysis involving African culture and behaviour, traditions and history. As Michael Barnett and Adwoa Onuora writing in the context of Rastafarianism suggest:
Rastafarian religions and social movements is clearly Afriocentrically based especially when compared to African indigenous religions that claim an Afrocentric orientation.
Accordingly, they go on to assert that religious groupings (churches included) and social movements must be African-based especially when compared to African indigenous religions that claim an Afrocentric orientation.
Ama Mazama takes this explanation even further by asserting that this theory is based on African’ epistemological centeredness’. In contradistinction to Eurocentrism's domineering and imposing ideological stance, Afrocentricity is an anti-hegemonic and antiracist framework that seeks redress to the marginalisation of alternative knowledge(s). Asante 1991, 170–80.
Methodist ministerial training in Southern Africa commenced in 1867 at Healdtown Methodist Institution when the church accepted four young men as the first African ministerial students. The educated Englishman was our model; what we aspired to be were ‘black Englishmen’, as we were sometimes derisively called. We were taught – and believed – that the best ideas were English ideas, the best government was English government, and the best men were Englishmen. Echoing the same sentiments as Mandela, John S. Pobee says: ‘To be an African was to be discriminated against and treated as inferior to the white man, Africanisation tended to be preoccupied with political rights’. Pobee, J.S., Skenosis: Christian faith in an African context, Mambo Press: Gweru, 1992:25.
Jesse Mugambi has observed that:
Whilst the church is growing most rapidly in the South, post theological reflection remains captive to a Western model of theologising which reflects the tension between African individual and communal culture and tendencies to individualism and isolation. The diet has been pre-packed theologies, ethical systems and pastoral methods that have all been imported from the West. Mugambi, 5.
The reason for this is that when the church was first established on African soil, it was founded with the perspectives of the missionaries who came from the West. The problem with this model is that it imposed European culture onto the African people as the only civilised way of life, while, at the same time, it obliterated indigenous customs and conventions of African society, deeming them backwards, primitive and pagan. This led to the systematic destruction of African languages and eventually culture. People were made to feel as better beings if they lived lifestyles that were European in nature and spoke better English than others. As a consequence, English language and culture were both entrenched through education.
Since the end of apartheid, there have been several attempts to transform the teaching curriculum in institutions of higher learning in order to meet the needs of African students. However, progress at times has been painfully slow and identifiable results limited. Some institutions have introduced Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) programmes, but these have failed to contribute to the changing of the whole curriculum.
Students from the Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary (SMMS) demanded permission to join the protest action. After some consideration and the laying down of clear conditions and rules, the leadership gave their permission. Some SMMS students who had participated in the protests then accused the SMMS of having an untransformed curriculum and called for its decolonisation. Debriefing session, Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary chapel, 23 May 2016.
As Louw and Mouton have observed:
Ministerial skills, spiritual formations and a wider contextual involvement must also be viewed against the background of transformation in Higher Education and the impact on curriculising. Cited in Naidoo, 23.
These transformations in Higher Education compelled universities to plan strategically for ‘recurriculising’ existing teaching programmes. It is a fact that there are major differences between public schools and schools run by faith communities especially for the training of their ministers. For example, while public schools or universities educate for ‘the development of cognitive skills and conveying information and knowledge’,
James Aggrey assets that ‘you should be doing religion and living education’. James Aggrey cited in Smith, 87. Cited in Frochtling and Kistner, 127.
The critical question to be asked in the context of the decolonisation of Methodist theological education is as follows:
This is a very important question considering the widespread calls for the decolonisation of Higher Education in South Africa in recent years. This call comes from the observation that there has been very little contribution from Africans in the curricula content of theology. As Gabriel Setiloane has observed:
Content-wise I believe we have now established the legitimacy of the African claim to a unique and different theological point of view within the Ecumenical Christian community because of their cultural, geographical, spiritual, social and temperamental background. We have contributed a little to the modern acceptance in World theological circles to the view that theology can only be, and is done in context. Because theology is a verbalisation of experiences of the divinity at work, difference in environment means different experiences of this all-pervasive divinity at work, and therefore different verbalisations of these experiences. Setiloane 1979, 18.
From what Setiloane is saying, we can deduce that in South Africa, the education curriculum lacks ‘an indigenous cultural ingredient, namely the cultural capital of the African masses.’ Cited in Setiloane 1979, 18.
Decolonisation can be simply understood as a process where a nation frees itself from domination by another, in culture, language, norms and values. According to Poka Laenui,
It is imperative that theological education prioritises African culture and African experiences during recurriculisation. As Neville Richardson has observed, there must be a clear realisation of the position of the church and its ministry in Africa. He thus argues:
As followers of John Wesley, Methodist ministers in training should embrace a balanced and practical form of Christianity which is at once individual and communal, deeply personal and socio-political.
I would like to suggest that every Methodist institution must commit to offering a module on the indigenous people among which it finds itself located. It must teach the peoples’ language, culture and religion. This will serve a twofold purpose:
It will build a base for the teaching of Methodism and other subjects; It will restore the dignity and knowledge of the indigenous people, which was decimated during the colonisation and Western mission era.
Wesleyan studies must be taught alongside indigenous subjects. The basis for this approach should be Afrikology. Afrikology is defined as ‘the study of the origins of human beings, and the epistemologies that emerged from the Cradle of Humankind’. Rev. Ross Olivier, the first president of the SMMS, has asserted that ‘the Wesleyan heritage must be planted in the African soil.’ Cited in Bailie, 112. The traditional theologies that have dominated the church since the colonial period has proven to be inadequate to address the political, cultural, social, religious and economic issues facing African people today.
This means that there is a need to re-appropriate African experiences for the teaching curriculum. There is also a need to retrieve and appropriate African culture, values and aspirations to the curriculum of theological education. Ministerial students charged with the responsibility of leading churches and communities to freedom and development must embody these essentials and carry them into their pulpits and leadership practice in order to be of value to the African church.
The transformation of the teaching curriculum is critical because even though Africans have been affected by globalisation, modernity, technology and science, they still practice their cultures. These cultures consist of ‘art forms such as dance, rituals, healing and worship, and still employ survival strategies of traditional technology, medicine and health’.
It is a fact that cultural heritages and languages are being lost and this is something about which scholars and cultural activists are concerned. Therefore, it makes sense that the church should also be concerned about it, instead of being responsible for the denigration and obliteration of these indigenous resources in the name of Christian mission. It is advisable that IKS and cultural heritage resources are retrieved and used to educate the young so that they can become model citizens for the future of their nations. Theological education needs to include the worldviews held by the learners, while at the same time teaching them the skills of critical thinking. This requires that the curriculum must encourage dialogue between the teacher and the learner. Paulo Freire observed that dialogue is where two or more people ‘make and remake meaning’ during the process of teaching and learning. See, Shor and Freire, 1987.
One of the important steps required if we are to decolonise theological education is the need for us to produce more African academics who will take the responsibility of developing research and disseminating it to African students in African seminaries. This is not a new proposal, but was first postulated by Manila Agbebi, also referred to as David Brown Vincent, as far back as the nineteenth century. He stated that:
To render Christianity indigenous to Africa, it must be stored by native hands, turned by native hatchet, and tended with native earth; ie, it is a curse if we intend forever to hold at the apron strings of foreign teachers. Cited in King, 20.
It is with this in mind that collaborative programmes should be initiated to facilitate student-staff exchanges, co-supervision of PhD students, sharing of library resources, joint moderation of papers and academic conferences. In spite of the obstacles mentioned above, it is imperative that African academics see it as their vocation to challenge the cultural hegemony of the West in African institutions of higher learning and to produce knowledge from an African perspective. Theology ‘must be cooked in an African pot’ The work that is being done in the collaboration between GBHEM, Africa University and Wesley House in University of Cambridge of creating educational opportunities for continental African academics with the aim of producing the next generation of African Methodist Scholars must be commended and supported because it is responding directly to the need for a cadre of African Methodist scholars.
At the heart of African culture or even African religion is community. Setiloane 1986, 3.
John Westerhoff called this ‘the community of faith-enculturation paradigm’ Education in the church includes the importance of community within it. It is therefore not surprising that theological education has to emphasise the importance of and learning together from one another. The method and process of theological education must be consistent with the purpose for which we educate which is to build a community of faith. Learning and teaching in community with others and for one another is consistent with the proposal of Kenneth Kaunda, the former President of Zambia, to deal with the question of decolonising Africa. He proposed the philosophy of Zambian Christian Humanism. As early as 1966 he defined this philosophy as follows: By Christian humanism, I mean that we discover all that is worth knowing about God through our fellow men (sic) and unconditional service of our fellow men is the purest form of service of God. I believe that Man must be the servant of a vision which is bigger than himself; that his path is illuminated by God's revelation and that when he shows love towards his fellow men, he is sharing the very life of God, who is Love (Kaunda 1966:39). For Kaunda, Zambian Christian humanism was the way to decolonise African Christian education.
The appreciation and restoration of the languages of the indigenous people is the first step towards the decolonisation of their education. This is because language usually is the first casualty of the colonisation process. Indeed, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o has observed that:
The biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effects of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people's belief in their own names, in their language, in their heritage of a struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves, for instance, with other people's language rather than their own.
One of the key challenges of teaching or tutoring Methodism in Africa is the absence of African terms or concepts that translate or interpret key Methodist terms and concepts. More challenging is the contextualisation of Methodist doctrine and language into African languages, which is key to enabling this doctrine to be understood by the African people. In the South African context, there has hardly been any attempt made to develop Methodist terminology in African languages. Two reasons account for this failure. First, theological studies are conducted in English and rarely in African languages. As a result of this, theology, including that of Methodism, is learned through a second language for most Africans and even for some English is the third, if not fourth language. Second, African languages themselves are gradually diminishing as they compete with English, French and Mandarin for survival. For example, the Discipleship Office of the United Methodist Church (UMC) has been working with African Methodist leaders and academics to write the stories of Methodism in the African continent. As a result, a number of publications have emerged out of this commendable process. However, such works tend to be historical, recording the historical developmental stories of Methodism in the continent.
There is a need to make theology appreciated through black bodies. This is not simply to juxtapose blackness against whiteness. While we may have gone beyond that era, we still need a theology that affirms blackness, so that people may be able to see God's image in themselves and those who look like them. Steve Biko taught the relevance of Black theology for people's understanding and appreciation of themselves–their colour and culture–and ultimately of God. Black Consciousness as taught by Biko takes cognisance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating people black.
One of the adverse legacies of colonialism was that it divided families, clans and tribes into different members of competing and sometimes conflicting Christian denominations. Hence African people who were once one and united found themselves divided into Methodists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and African Independent Churches (AICs). When people became loyal to their denominations, this led to deep divisions and loss of relations among them as they sought to be faithful to their denominational cultures and practices. An essential part of decolonising theological education is to be found in the breaking down of denominational barriers. It may be important here to emphasise Wesley's relationship with the Anglicans, Moravians and other Puritan groups, instead of emphasising his uniqueness and difference from other Christian groups at his time. It is for this reason that ministerial training in the MCSA has always been done in collaboration with other denominations, although there are moments when this has failed dismally with lasting pain and hurt being the result. An example of this dismal failure is the case of the Federal Theology for Southern Africa (FEDSEM), which collapsed in 1992. For further analysis see Denis and Duncan, 2011. Mugambi, J.N.K., ‘The future of theological education in Africa and the challenges it faces’, in I.A. Phiri & D. Werner (eds.),
The answer to this question is that we want ordinands who will be fit for ministry in the African church for the benefit of the African continent and its people. Seminaries need to train ministers for contextually rooted churches who can minister effectively by responding to the needs of their context, not perpetuating the church of the colonial period. The main aim of ministerial formation is that it must ‘produce ministers who are able to make a positive difference both in society and the church’.
By way of conclusion, let me reiterate that the call for the decolonisation of Higher Education in African institutions of learning needs to be heeded by Methodist seminaries and even public and private universities. This call requires African scholars and intellectuals to embark on a project of reviewing theological education programmes which have solely relied on ideologies based on Western cultures, ideas, models and even content. As part of decolonising the curriculum, African intellectuals need to call for the inclusion of IKS and methods in the Africanisation of theological curriculum. This may require that African scholars and intellectuals abandon the comfort of their ‘ivory towers’, offices and libraries, in order to ‘drink from their own wells’,