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Religion and Culture In West Africa
By Edmund C. O. Ilogu

THESIS: How can courses in religion and theology in the new West Africa universities be related to the emerging problems of culture change? Apart from being the study of a system of thought and belief, theology is also a way of looking at life. This means that theology must concern itself with the culture of a people. Theology must provide insight for the criticism of culture as well as for the social norms and community values that uphold the culture. The problems connected with culture change in West Africa are immense. A more adequate curriculum for the study of theology must include the "new fangled ideas" of psychology, sociology, and political science.

THE problem which this paper is concerned with is the organization of university theological courses in our new West African nations so as to help, through such courses, in directing the cultural change now taking place in these countries. To say this is to imply that there is a close relation between religion and culture; that a thoroughly planned and systematically executed university theological education will stimulate thinking and action in a way that largely influences people's decisions, value systems, and choices; and that such influences will in the end create adequate channels along which communities will reorganize their way of life according to the light given them by these theological courses.

I

Let us examine further the first statement, namely, that there is some close relation between religion and culture. Paul Tillich

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speaks of this relationship in very clear terms: "Religion as ultimate concern is the meaning-giving substance of culture, and culture is the totality of forms in which the basic concern of religion expresses itself. In abbreviation: religion is the substance of culture, culture is the form of religion,"¹ If we go further to define culture as that pattern of life which man has developed in implements, charters of social groups, human ideas, beliefs, and customs, we see how easy it is to move from religious contents to culture. It is culture that helps man to cope with the concrete problems which face him in his adaptation to his environments in the course of the satisfaction of his needs. One of these needs of man is to find rest for his restless soul which more often than not transcends both himself and his total environment in search of ultimate reality. This search is described as religion.

Furthermore the systematic study of culture reveals three principal parts: material apparatus, social organization, and value concepts. In our own West African societies we see how most of our material apparatus of house building, pottery, and wood-carving served the demands of religious faith and cult. The best our social organizations did, be it in the form of age grades or title taking or chieftaincy institution, was to receive sanction and legitimization from religious ceremonies which did in fact create these social organizations. To speak of the values of any society, either of the Ga or the Ibo, the Hausa or the Fante, is to speak of that society's gods and religious beliefs from which the values were deduced.

Mark you, I have attempted to describe the three objective parts of culture scientifically analyzed, and without knowing it we have passed into a statement about the religion of the people mentioned. So close is the link between religion and culture that any useful academic discipline in theological studies must be related to the cultural problems facing these peoples. Culture is primarily produced by the creative impulse in the nature of man. Because of the important part played by value concepts in the determination of cultural patterns, there is a close affinity between morality and culture. We are all aware of the fact that to most people the essence of religion is morality. This is another aspect of the close relationship between culture and religion. Therefore any theological system which fails to realize this vital relationship will fail to grip the

¹ Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 42.

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unconscious levels of individual and community life and in that measure fail to be a useful, academic discipline capable of producing effective results in the on-going human activities of our age. Theology will then be grouped among the dead and useless disciplines for which the tempo and speed of young developing nations have no sympathy whatsoever. Our young countries of West Africa are bubbling with life, and like a foaming tide the movement is fast and devastating. The danger of such a situation is quite obvious. Nevertheless, we all desire this rapid social change which we hope will transform our countries from backward, underdeveloped status to modernity. But before we are unconsciously carried away by it all, a thorough examination of the change might give us a better vantage point from which we can view the positive contribution theology can make in directing the change.

II

There are two main agents of culture change in West Africa today-technology and national independence, These two are component parts of culture itself; but because they carry in themselves ideas and tremendous powers as well as tools operated by such powers, their impact on the existing cultures of West Africa has become great. Whereas the industrial revolution in England was an evolutionary growth more or less directed from within, ending up with the development of modern technology of our so-called modern civilization, the desire for technological conveniences in West Africa on the other hand has come from the outside. Such impact through contact with outside culture has resulted in diffusion of culture-a process of reorganization on entirely new and specific lines. Culture diffusion as Malinowski reminds us is not a mixture of cultural elements which can be disentangled from their cultural matrix and traced back to their provenance in parent cultures. It is the growth of new species. The units of such transformation are institutions. These institutions assume new functions or new forms in response to the new needs engendered in the situations created by the impact.

Let me illustrate with certain aspects of social change which we all know so well from the growth of towns and cities and the attendant moral lapse that follows such growth. Owing to transport facilities, the desire to engage in money-income occupations, and to enjoy the facilities of technology like electric light, motion pictures, radios,

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and televisions, many West Africans leave their village homes to go to the big towns. A casual survey in Kano, one of such "new" cities of Nigeria, reveals usual city problems of congestion, slum areas, criminal facilities, and desire for anonymity. These peoples are now separated from their clan or tribe, families, or the extended family group from which they have learned moral sanctions and social codes of behavior. Uprooted from these, they lack a new basis for moral strength and a concept of worth-while living. There is created at once in them a moral vacuum and lack of the sense of purposeful living. They become cultural hybrids-people desperately ill at heart, unable to fit into the new technical culture which has allured them away from their neat tribal cultural pattern into the town, and yet they are unwilling to return to the village life against which they have revolted. There is no available record of mental cases in Kano City, but the type of bewilderment caused by the feeling of being a stranger in the available cultural situation in which these peoples find themselves is strong enough to cause insanity. The crucial handicap in the new situation created by technological changes in our societies is the absence of an acceptable and binding philosophy of life resulting from a common shared value.

Let me cite another example. In a small agricultural town called Ihiala in eastern Nigeria where I lived as a boy, various age grades performed specific functions for the well-being of the town community. The five- to ten-year-olds swept the public places; the newly-married wives cleaned up the market places; the fifteen- to twenty-five-year-olds built new homes for any member of the extended family group whose mat house had fallen down or needed rebuilding; the titled men settled all cases of misunderstanding and quarrels between individuals or even between young couples. This was a neat cultural pattern of social organization in which every individual had a significant role and made what he believed to be a worth-while contribution to the community. Such a community he religiously believed to be composed of the spirit of dead ancestors, the living generation, and those yet unborn-a permanent structure which he had the privilege to sustain and help develop.

With the introduction of self-governing local councils these various age groups and units have lost their significance and functions. Self-seeking individuals have gone into local councils to arrange, more often than not, how to share the booty of office. The public

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squares and market places remain unswept, the gray-haired, aged men moan the good old days that are past, and the soul of the community seems to disappear in the conflicts of partisan interest either of actual political partymen or of debating young idealists. Certainly there is no goal toward which the community moves like one army!

These are some examples of cultural change in West African countries. It is in this kind of situation that we want to organize our new university theological courses so as to provide, by the vitality and the usefulness of such academic discipline, a new sense of direction, a new value concept, a new community consciousness. What type of theological education can best help us in achieving these results and how best can we as university teachers of theology be the architects to help in the building of the new structures of our West African technical civilization? In other words, do we believe that religion and religious factors, which are the academic tools we handle, can condition our new West African culture?

III

I quite agree that a university course in theology is meant to achieve quite a lot, but from the standpoint of this paper the one great aim of such a course must be to help in bringing into existence in all our West African countries a new pattern of culture which we will be proud to call our own. This culture must be composed of all that is satisfying in the tools of technology, in the arts and sciences of our forefathers, and in the truth of the beliefs, customs, and ideals which we must pursue as citizens of our beloved countries who love the part we play in the comity of nations in a world God has allowed us to enjoy in the atmosphere of true humanity for which God himself cares. To describe the new cultural patterns which I envisage for West Africa in these words is to state my position which is that I accept wholeheartedly that cultures are conditioned by religion and that religion and culture are dovetailed the one into the other. Christopher Dawson has undertaken a great study of the earlier phases of the development of the West to show how far the formation of cultural complex was conditioned by religious factors.² I hold that one of the most important functions of

² Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1956), p. 23.

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religion is to be a principle of continuity and conservation and to provide the source of new spiritual life in any given community. Lord Acton goes further than this to say that "religion is the key to history," and Christopher Dawson commenting on Lord Acton's statement says: "Today when we realize the tremendous influence of the unconscious on human behavior and the power of religion to bind and loose these hidden forces, Acton's saying has acquired a wider meaning than he realized."³ When we remember how the whole of West African life is dominated by religion, we can realize how true these observations are for our nations.

The question can now be put: Can we so organize university courses on religion as to penetrate the darkness of our past (dark because most of it is unwritten), and then see something of the creative work of religion in the depths of our people's social unconsciousness? Can we then recapture and revitalize that creative work of religion so as to influence our new cultural patterns? If we can, what religion can we hope to do this for us-Christian religion or indigenous religions? Or have we done enough work in reinterpreting Christianity in our countries so as to include it in the term indigenous religion? Christianity did not start in England, but I suppose most English people regard it as an indigenous religion. Will politics and nationalism make it impossible for Christianity to be regarded as an indigenous religion in West Africa, thereby denying us, the university teachers of theology, the full academic expression that will make it possible for us to play the role of counselor and philosopher to the citizens of our nations through the teaching of theology as a dynamic course capable of guiding our cultural change?

Let us assume that we shall be free to teach all aspects of theology as an unfettered academic discipline in which all aspects of religious experiences and faiths will be handled in a manner that allows the truth and the vitality of each one to assert itself and be the accepted because acceptable dogma of life and community organization. If we as university teachers of theology accept this basis, we will resist the attempts to restrict us to very narrow fields of religious studies. Any new university that organizes its theological education as "comparative study of religion" or as "African and indigenous religions" or "Islamic and Arabic studies" must be told that it has not made

³ Ibid, p. 15.

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provision for the true and proper academic handling of theology. Our university curriculum must therefore include all the emphasis in the study of religion made by such branches as the psychology of religion, philosophy of religion, history of religion, sociology of religion, comparative study of religions, ethics and moral philosophy, as well as the anthrpologist's insight into religion in relation to culture. All these branches of theology will be handled in such a way as can be best illustrated by Christianity, Islam, and West African indigenous religions. The overall aim of this type of theological education is to enable the students to acquire a definite religious faith, develop loyalty to God as Creator and Preserver of mankind, and above all make it possible for all students who have had a liberal arts education in our universities to have that balanced judgment by which they can appreciate the birth pangs and problems connected with the new cultural patterns.

What is crucial here is not only what subjects are to be included in a balanced theological curriculum but also what emphasis teachers are to bring into the handling of their subjects and what orientation such teachers need. The red brick university product who teaches theology in a West African university and lacks insight into the social ferment in which we find ourselves in West Africa might as well ask himself whether he is really helping to make theology a dead and useless discipline or a living and dynamic force for the integration of our society. A West African nationalist who teaches indigenous religions in that glorious idolization of the past and describes in a most fascinating manner the cults and shrines of our forefathers must stop and ask himself what exactly he is doing. If he cannot lead his students to the vision of the One above the all and unearth all the religious roots of our past in a manner that builds up new and stronger roots, stronger because they are built on the final revelation of God to man, then he might as well pack up and go into the museum and display his specimens of dead, ancient kingdoms which can never be revived. His place surely is not in a university. For there within the four walls of that noble institution must live and move only such disciplines as flower and blossom forth into the glories of an abundant life. Any teacher of theology who cannot do this with his subject and his students cannot help West Africans in their struggle to bring about new, virile, healthy, and satisfying culture.

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No teacher of theology can teach unless from the standpoint of faith, faith in the validity of his own background and faith in God himself. The teacher is not to indoctrinate his students into accepting his own brand of religious faith, but he must convince his students as to the vitality of his own personal faith. I can never forget the argument in our own Department at Ibadan as to whether we should have on the curriculum systematic theology or historical theology. "Of course it must be historical theology," said one of us, and the majority said, "Oh yes of course." N. P. Williams defines systematic theology as "the attempt to arrive at as near an approximation to absolute truth concerning ultimate reality as the human mind is capable of attaining, through the investigation of that which God is believed to have revealed concerning his own being, his operations in the universe and his dealings with man." He also defines historical theology as "merely the investigation of certain ideas which men actually have held about God and presupposes no particular assumptions either for or against their truth."⁴ In an effort to understand why my colleagues preferred historical theology to systematic theology, I discovered that they were interested in attracting many students who would not want specific Christian indoctrination which is suggested by the term systematic theology. There is no doubt that systematic theology can only be properly studied, appreciated, and digested by those who believe in or are convinced about the truths of Christianity. What I find hard to understand is that those of us who are Christian teachers of theology shy from fully teaching the facts of religious experience, history, and system, because we do not want to give the impression that we are indoctrinating others. Is it not our duty to teach all aspects of religious experience, system, or faith with all the amount of conviction we possess, hoping that those we teach will develop their own convictions? And when that conviction is strongly built up, sometimes against our own, sometimes as the ally of our own faith, men begin to live creatively with a sense of value and meaningfulness capable of channeling all our cultural activities towards the fulfillment of life's noblest ideals which are also God's divine intention for man.

⁴ N. P. Williams in The Study of Theology, edited by K. E. Kirk (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939), p. 14.