444 - Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture

Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture
By Lamin Sanneh
Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis, 1989. 255 pp. $17.95

This book is one of the distinguished series of missiological studies published by Orbis Books in cooperation with the American Society of Missiology. It is also the most important publication in the field for a very long time, perhaps since van Leeuwen's Christianity in World History. Its author is the recently appointed Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and the first African to hold a chair there. Sanneh's work is of fundamental importance to anyone who is interested in the problem of the relation of the gospel to culture, whether it is the culture of the New Guinea Highlanders or that of New York commuters.

Sanneh shows great boldness and vast, wide-ranging scholarship in attempting to interpret the history of Christianity in terms of his key concept of "translation." His approach is rooted in the original and decisive translation from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek, and neither then nor in the many later translations was this simply a matter of substituting words from one language for words from another. Sanneh shows, convincingly, that the very success of Christianity during the first centuries of its existence was because of effective translation from one culture into another so that it could become Greek, Latin, Armenian, Coptic, Celtic or Slavonic. The central Christian activity of translation de-absolutizes any cultural form in which the gospel is expressed despite the attempts by some Christians to resist this process in favor of making one cultural form or another essential to the wholeness of the gospel. This is why, as Sanneh insists, the fantastic proliferation of "Independent" and Zionist churches in Africa is not a sign of failure but of true success.

445 - Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture

One of the examples of his intricate and sophisticated argument most easily summarized within the necessary restrictions of a review is that of Black Africa in the nineteenth century. Everywhere the missions went, Catholic or Protestant, the missionaries decided, sometimes after some delay and argument, to use the local name for the "High God" found in most African cultures for the God of the Bible. This was more than a useful translating device and led to more far-reaching results than all but a few percipient missionaries dreamed of. It meant that everywhere the God of the Ancestors was identified with the Yahweh of Israel and the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. When this development was combined with vernacular literacy, which all the missions vigorously pursued, then, in Sanneh's words, "the genie was out of the bottle."

A beautiful example of what he means is one of the glorious hymns sung by the million or more Xhosa Christians in South Africa. The first two thirds of this hymn of praise to God is pre-Christian, the last third was added by a Xhosa Christian more than a hundred years ago. The point that Sanneh makes about the new version is one he makes again and again, in different ways, in different historical contexts throughout the book. The addition makes a new whole and represents both a new stage in the Christian story and a new stage in Xhosa culture. It was created by the Xhosa people, it represents their response to the gospel message, their creation not that of missionaries. It is an example of that reciprocity Sanneh sees as a necessary concomitant of all successful Christian translation down the centuries.

Almost inevitably this study raises questions it does not answer. One is that of Christian translation when Christianity is faced by Hinduism. Another is the omission of any real analysis of the position of those nineteenth-century missionaries who wanted to spread higher education in the metropolitan languages. Nevertheless, no one, in the future, should be able to discuss the relationship of Christianity and cultures, the history of Christianity, or indeed the nature of the gospel without reference to this work.

Andrew Ross
New College, University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland