This archive report was first published on 3 November 2019.
Prof John Samuel Mbiti: A Global Icon in the Christian Church ¶
Published on November 3, 2019
Before Prof John Samuel Mbiti, a global icon, there weren't towering intellectual voices in the Christian Church to defend and explain African religions and spirituality. The received and accepted Eurocentric wisdom within Christendom was that Africans were a benighted and savage lot, and that it was the so-called White Man's Burden to save and free the African from his demonic and cursed heritage.
Prof Mbiti had few equals as a Christian philosopher of African theology, spirituality, and religion. He bestrode the globe like a colossus, earning scholarly plaudits the old-fashioned way – by writing works of the intellect that have been etched in the consciousness of global knowledge.
Prof Mbiti's life was a duality of nuanced complexity. He desperately wanted to be an African, a true African, but was instead suspended in the precarious middle between a weak Africa and a dominant West. None of this diminishes Prof Mbiti. It's the lot of virtually all post-colonial peoples.
Prof Mbiti openly challenged the 'master race' and its deformed understanding of the African religious universe in his seminal work, 'African Religions and Philosophy', published in 1969. He drew a line in the sand and argued that African religions weren't 'demonic'. He contended that African religions were as human as Christianity and that the two could find common ground.
Prof Mbiti taught the Empire important lessons about African humanity. He unalterably taught the Empire that individualism – the linchpin of Eurocentricity and Western civilization – wasn't sacred. He nuked the narrative that Africans are mere vessels for the ideas of other races, and that we are open-mouthed consumers and not producers of ideas.
Prof Mbiti's legacy is a testament to his intellectual courage and his commitment to challenging the status quo. He planted a permanent African flag in the Church, and his work continues to inspire and educate people around the world.
