The African / Catholic connection

Last night was the penultimate class in TS501, and the subject matter is getting further and further afield from what I had come to think for the last 3 decades as normative. My oh my.

Tonight we talked about Africa and the theologies emergent in a culture where Christianity has gone from representing 10% of the population in 1900, to being the majority religion now, with nearly 50% of the population adhering to it, roughly 400 million people.

With such rapid growth, it has not yet divorced itself (and may not, ever) from many concepts native to the culture, such as a sense of one's identity coming from the community. "There is no I, without there first being a we" is a catch phrase of the culture.

There is also a takeoff on Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum." (I think, therefore I am.) The African version is, "I am because we are." Thinking moves from the community to the individual. It's certainly not the Western way, where, because I'm confident in who I am, now I can think about others.

Then there's the veneration of ancestors, the notion that they are benevolent guiding spirits, seeking to assist us. Africans are quick to note that it is NOT ancestor *worship*, as they worship one God, and one only. It is rather a recognition that the souls of the dead do not cease to be, and they remain active and interested in our welfare.

There are obvious parallels to the Catholic (Nicene, really) confession of the "communion of saints", and the current practice of veneration of saints, asking for their aid - and how they (and angels) are seen as benevolent spirits, interested in our welfare and active in seeking it. Spirits who want to help us (and whom we will be among someday), but.. not God; not to be worshipped, but whose help we can seek.

Also, some African theologians turn to one of the church fathers, Tertullian (who himself was from North Africa), for a definitive and culturally relevant doctrine of the Trinity as a "community" within the Godhead. They say that without this communion within God (the "we"), the Incarnation of the Son (the "I") could not have come about.

So, when we are "coupled" with someone in a love relationship.. do we get to the point where we think about "us" first (the communion of two souls), and only then about me? Do we strive first for communion with the other? Do thoughts of self always have their origin in the context of the relationship with the other? Or do we first think of self, and then modify that because there is another with us right now? Are we defined by the relationship, or do we bring ourself to the relationship to define it our way? What does loving sacrificially mean?

Verrrrrry interesting.

But it makes me tired in the head. :)

No more reading, though! Yay! Just the last paper to write. Due in two weeks. I'll see if I can get 'er done in one, so I can pick up an adjuncting job over the holidays, teaching another math class for a local college. Maybe I can pay for a few vacation days in Switzerland when I go there for business next year. :)

There I go again... me, me, me... ;)