The Inculturation Debate In Africa

FIONA BOWIE The Inculturation Debate in Africa INTRODUCTION1 The term 'inculturation' is becoming increasingly fashionable in church, and in particular Roman Catholic, mission circles. The popularity of the term is due to a heightened Christian self-understanding of the necessity of adapting the Christian message to its cultural environment. There is recognition that the implantation of European values in Africa, or in other parts of the world, is not necessarily desirous or successful as a mission strategy. African and other non-western criticisms of colonial hegemony, including a rejection of Christianity as currently taught and practised, have come from both within and outside the church, to the extent that some African Christian theologians are rejecting the 'Christ figure' altogether.2 Christianity has failed to take root, often after centuries of evangelisation, if one is to judge from phenomena such as the absence or scarcity of candidates for the priesthood, or the rejection of monogamy. A perceived threat to mission churches from African Independent and Western fundamentalist churches, as well as from Islam, also contribute to a sense of urgency in the search for new solutions. In this article I look first at some of the ways in which inculturation is being defined and at what have come to be regarded as some early experiments in inculturation, whether well received or finally rejected by church authorities and local Christians. The relationship between the Roman Catholic discourse on inculturation and the politics of religious synthesis, and some of the problems involved in moving from the level of theological speculation to mission praxis are also discussed. The rhetoric of inculturation implies that here is something which can be recognised and defined as 'true Christianity' and a local culture onto or into which it can be in some way grafted. The models underlying this assumption tend 68 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY to be static and in practice can be seen as an attempt by the mainstream church authorities to maintain definitional control over the faith of the mission or former mission churches. The example of the church in the ancient Kingdom of Kongo illustrates some of the problems, which beset the modern debate. A church that was considered both African and orthodox in one century was redefined as syncretic and heterodox in another. Using ethnographic examples from my fieldwork in Cameroon in the 1980s and 1990s I look at some of the practical problems to be faced in the realisation of a concept such as inculturation. To start with, how is one to decide who is a Christian and who is not? In other words, who are the people who constitute the local church and who are required to inculturate the gospel? By what means is one to judge the validity of various experiments involving indigenous rites, symbols or practices, and who is to make such judgements? What, indeed, constitutes local or African culture? Whose culture and whose definitions are to be regarded as normative? How are competing traditional interpretations and forms of local Christian expression to be adjudicated? My aim in addressing these issues is not simply to deconstruct the term inculturation, nor to disparage missionary efforts to 'make Christianity relevant'. By viewing inculturation through an anthropological lens I wish to contribute to a debate on some of the hermeneutical and epistemologica! issues of mission praxis. INCULTURATION OR SYNCRETISM? Current debates within anthropology over the nature of religion and culture contact are relevant to mission theorists and practitioners in their examination of the political dimensions of religious synthesis. The term 'syncretism' has been reclaimed by anthropologists as a neutral concept, indeed, as a useful analytical tool with which to focus on the dynamics of cultural and religious change. Shaw and Stewart, in an important contribution to this debate, have also coined the term 'anti-syncretism' to describe 'the antagonism to religious synthesis shown by agents concerned with the defence of religious boundaries' (1994: 7). When two or more cultural systems meet they do not necessarily merge or borrow from one another in predictable ways, and issues surrounding authenticity, for instance, can centre on a particular synthesis, or on an appeal to tradition and 'purity'. Within Roman Catholic discourse on African Christianity the term 'syncretism' has been pejoratively reserved for a perceived distortion of Christian truth, often associated with nativism or apostasy. African independent churches and various non-western practices in The Inculturation Débate in Afrìca 69 mission churches are often dismissed as syncretic. The use of traditional elements in liturgy or church order are sometimes claimed to lead worshippers beyond the sphere of Christian orthodoxy.3 Inculturation is usually defined in opposition to syncretism; it is seen as the legitimate take up of selected aspects of indigenous culture into Christian practice, or the search for 'seeds of the gospel' scattered by the grace of God in pagan religions. Among such 'seeds' one could include idealised models of 'the African family' or of an 'African respect for life'. These clichés are to be found in papal pronouncements and in the writings of both African and Western writers, cited as elements of traditional culture which can give an authentically African flavour to Christianity.4 Such sentiments conflict with other perceived characteristics of African family life, such as the widespread practice of female genital mutilation, polygyny, or the common acceptance of pre-marital and extra-marital intercourse (at least for men). In practice missionaries and church leaders often see the 'African family' less as a bulwark against pagan or non-Christian values than as a major stumbling block to church growth.5 Charles Stewart reminds us of the obvious, but not always appreciated fact that all religions are syncretic, and that eventually certain forms of synthesis may come to be seen as normative and be accorded privileged (orthodox) status. Referring to the preponderance of holy wells in Ireland and mountain top shrines in Greece, once pagan sites but now christianised, Stewart remarks that: These examples suggest that the passage of time may dull recognition of 'syncretism', especially for those who practice the religion in question everything becomes equally traditional and inseparable. This cycle of conversion, accommodation and naturalization is then repeated in the process of missionization, with the difference that instead of church councils excoriating divergent forms of 'superstition' while legislating proper practice, we now hear charges of illegitimate 'syncretism' when the missionized do not get the missionaries' form of Christianity right (1994: 134). There is an tendency in mission discourse to construct Christianity and traditional religions as 'opposed ideal types' if the 'epistemological priority of interaction', as John Peel terms it, is not kept to the fore (1990: 339). 6 Peel uses the encounter between Christian missionaries and the babalawo, ritual specialists associated with the Yoruba Ι/α divination cult, to emphasise his point that, 'conversion in Africa is above all a process of impassioned communication, whose outcome, while conditioned by the 70 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY assumptions, interests and resources of the participants, is in the fullest sense the product of their interaction (ibid.).' A realistic, as opposed to an idealised, approach to inculturation, would recognise the dynamic interplay of historical, political and social factors in any religious synthesis, with a nuanced understanding of the processes of conversion and explicit acknowledgement of the balance of power between the parties involved. The Roman Catholic Church rejects the concept of democracy for its internal ordering and, convinced that it has a unique gift to offer, is not concerned to enter into a dialogue with African culture or traditional religion on a basis of equality. The self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the operation of the magisterium as it affects local church affairs, is a crucial factor in any debate on inculturation, but is often rendered invisible due to its normative and therefore invisible status to the protagonists in this debate.7 INCULTURATION: SOME DEFINITIONS The term 'inculturation' relates to a shift in thinking about the church and its mission over the past few decades. Father Joseph Masson, a Jesuit teaching at the Gregorian University in Rome, used the term in 1962, shortly before the opening of the Second Vatican Council (Shorter, 1988: lOff; Bosch, 1991: 447ff). Although given different nuances, the term basically refers to the interpénétration of faith and culture. It is related to, but not identical with, the term 'acculturation', which is more commonly used by anthropologists to refer to culture contact, and is often synonymous with 'indigenisatiori, also favoured by anthropologists. Inculturation, however, unlike the latter two terms, preserves a specifically theological agenda. Its use has become widespread in Roman Catholic circles and it is often interpreted more narrowly than just contact or dialogue between Christianity and traditional religions. Most often inculturation refers to the insertion of Christianity into a culture, generally outside the Western Judaeo-Christian context, and that culture's response to the Christian message. A statement on 'Faith and Inculturation' issued by the International Theological Commission of the Roman Catholic Church in 1987 stated that: The process of inculturation may be defined as the Church's efforts to make the message of Christ penetrate a given socio-cultural milieu, calling on the latter to grow according to all its particular values, as long as these are compatible with the Gospel. The term 'inculturation' includes the notion of growth, of the mutual enrichment of The Inculturation Débate in Africa 71 persons and groups, rendered possible by the encounter of the gospel with a social milieu (Scherer and Bevans, 1992: 156). The statement continues with a quotation from Pope John Paul II's 1985 encyclical Slavorum Apostoli: 'Inculturation is the incarnation of the Gospel in the hereditary cultures, and at the same time, the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church' (ibid.).8 This latter definition may hint at what Bishop Joseph Blomjou (in 1980) termed 'interculturation', the recognition that inculturation is not a one-way process, and that the Christian faith, or the particular form of it transmitted to a given culture, will itself undergo transformation (Shorter, 1988; 13). In practice, however, Pope John Paul II appears excessively wary of African cultures and doubtful of their ability to embody the Christian faith, let alone make a genuine contribution in their own right to Western or universal Christianity The statement above was in fact made with reference to the Pope's own Slavonic culture and its christianisation by Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. In Nairobi in 1985, John Paul II referred to the 'theological culture' and 'theological patrimony' of the Universal Church in which African's bishops and theologians must be solidly grounded (Shorter, 1988: 234). Whilst a knowledge of the contexts in which Christianity developed would be accepted by many African and other non-western Christians as desirous, the Pope seemed to infer that it was precisely this European, rather than African, cultural basis which was to form the benchmark of any authentic expression of Christianity. The process of inculturation, like that of liberation theology in South America, is apparently full of dangers and in need of close monitoring by those in authority.9 It is no secret that Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former 'Holy Office'), has little time for African cultures, preferring to stress what he calls 'the universal significance of Christian thought as it has evolved in the West'10 (Shorter, 1988: 237). At the very least there is a tension in current Roman Catholic thinking, as represented in official Vatican statements, between a desire to see Christianity take root in non-western cultures and a lack of trust in those required to incarnate this process in the local churches. Recent ecumenical statements from the World Council of Churches go much further than their Roman Catholic counterparts in stressing the mutuality of the missionary enterprise, although the term inculturation is seldom used. These ecumenical documents do not have the same authority or status as encyclical letters, being merely recommendations from assemblies to member churches, many of whom might legitimately 72 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY disagree with the approach taken. Nevertheless, the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Canberra in 1991, stated that: The gospel of Jesus Christ must become incarnate in every culture. When Christianity enters any culture there is a mutual encounter, involving both the critique of culture by the gospel and the possibility of the culture questioning our understanding of the gospel. Some of the ways in which the gospel has been imposed in particular cultures calls for repentance and healing. In each case we need to ask: Is the church creating tension or promoting reconciliation?11 (Scherer & Bevans, 1992: 87). All of these official statements betray a basic hermeneutical weakness. There is an assumption that notions such as 'the Christian faith', 'the universal patrimony of the Church', 'the gospel', or 'scripture', are selfevident as categories or concepts, and somehow stand in a distinct relation to another category, that of culture. This is sometimes referred to as the 'kernel and husk' approach to Christianity. '[Tjhe basic Christian revelation is the kernel; the previous cultural settings in which it has been incarnated constitute the husk. The kernel has to be hulled time and again, as it were, to allow it to be translated into new cultural contexts' (Shreiter, 1985: 7). Whether any particular attempt at translation is regarded as valid is judged by the Western or mission-sending church, rather than by local Christian communities or an indigenous hierarchy. An experiment by two Roman Catholic bishops in northern Cameroon and Chad, for instance, in which millet bread and millet beer, the staple food and drink of the region, were used to replace unleavened wheat bread and fermented grape wine for the Eucharist, was brought to an end by the Vatican's instruction Inaestimabile Donum (Shorter, 1988: 65). In Zimbabwe a post Vatican II experiment which sought to incorporate a traditional ceremony aimed at bringing home the spirit of a dead person into the Roman Catholic liturgy came under attack (Hastings, 1989: 33). A ritual is part of a whole complex of beliefs and practices, in the Zimbabwean instance these involve notions of spirit possession, which could be regarded as inimical to Christianity. Wherever and whenever different religious systems meet elements can be and often are transposed from one system to another. Familiar rites and holy sites are given new meanings and associations, but the process is unpredictable and not easily controlled. To give just one example, it is difficult or impossible for mission churches in Africa to dictate which aspects of healing might be regarded as Christian, or as capable of being christianised, and which aspects converts are required to reject as pagan. Notions of sickness and health are inseparable in most instances from witchcraft beliefs, which the The Inculturation Débate in Africa 73 mission churches have largely denounced as satanic or rejected as superstitious. The main problem with the kernel and husk approach, however, is that there is no clearly definable inner essence of Christianity separate from the culture in which it is incarnated. As David Bosch, in his seminal work on missions, puts it, 'Our views are always interpretations of what we consider to be divine revelation, not divine revelation itself (1991: 182). These interpretations will be affected by personal and cultural circumstances, as well as by the historical period and geographical context in which they take place. Bosch continues, 'It is an illusion to believe that we can penetrate to a pure gospel unaffected by any cultural or other human accretions' (ibid.) and he therefore prefers to talk about 'theologies' in the plural, rather than a single theology. Answering the charge of a postmodernist slide into total relativism, Bosch counters that one should not think in terms of mutually exclusive categories of 'absolute' and 'relative', and that although all theologies are partial and socially and culturally biased, it does not therefore follow that 'anything goes'. 'It is true that we see only in part, but we do see' (ibid: 186). This leads, he claims, to a creative tension between ultimate faith and commitment and personal theological perceptions, in which the whole church should learn to operate as an 'international hermeneutical community' (ibid: 197). Adrian Hastings has pointed to a shift in popular emphasis from African theology, which is concerned with questions of culture, and in the context of which the question of inculturation is usually raised, to Black theology, which owes more to the liberation theology of South America and the Black civil rights movement of the United States, which prioritises social justice. He warns against too self-conscious a preoccupation with questions of culture, which can become something of an indulgence when it distracts Christians from issues of human rights and from the economic and political issues which affect people's everyday lives. The crucial issue today is that of gospel and justice rather than that of gospel and culture ... Perhaps it is a sign of an unhealthy culture and an unhealthy church to be too culture-conscious... A culture today, I would suggest, is a justice-conscious culture; an unhealthy culture is a culture conscious culture (Hastings, 1989: 35). In the face of the enormous economic, political and social challenges facing most countries in Africa today it is difficult to argue with this. South African theologians have been at the forefront of Black theological thinking in Africa, and their concerns help to protect the church from 74 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY seeing culture as a static entity - a 'tradition' or set of traditions which need to be preserved. Cultures are dynamic, multifarious and multifaceted and are under continual reconstruction. Colonial or pre-colonial customs no more represent authentic 'African culture' than the Latin mass or 1662 Prayer Book represent the true, unchanging, liturgical tradition of the Western Church. What is at issue is the kind of culture, the nature of the traditions which individuals and societies wish to construct, and the values that underpin them. These will draw on the past but must answer to present concerns. The importance of individual agency and choice and of particular historical and cultural events in determining the way the Christian message has been received is evident when the dynamics of actual exchanges are examined. The notion that culture can be taken as a monolithic 'given' becomes untenable. CULTURE AND AGENCY Recent studies of the dynamics of conversion, or resistance to conversion, have emphasised the importance of cultural fit. Some aspects or aspects of the new religion need to resonate with, or be capable of adaptation to, existing beliefs and social patterns.12 Fast (1993), in an article on the nineteenth century Wesleyan mission in Xhosaland (South Africa) explores Xhosa resistance to the Wesleyan message, in particular Xhosa lack of understanding of the missionaries' concept of an all-powerful yet personal God and their emphasis on sin, salvation and the non-material aspects of faith: 'The missionary solution for all problems was spiritual, whereas, for the Xhosa, salvation meant prosperity and happiness in this life' (Fast, 1993: 155). The Wesleyan message was seen as largely irrelevant to the Xhosa as a people. A marked readiness among converts to pray spontaneously and alone was therefore interpreted by the Wesleyan missionaries as the action of divine grace rather than the result of a natural inclination. Fast, however, attributes Xhosa piety to the influence of two Xhosa prophets who had preached an indigenous for of Christianity a decade prior to the coming of the Wesleyan mission. They had emphasised prayer as a means of establishing correct social relations, and those recruited by the Wesleyans were largely their former converts. Another study which highlights the role of individual personalities and their choices in determining the way elements of traditional cultures and Christianity interact is Gulbrandsen's account of the Tswana (1993). In the north-western Tswana kingdoms the rulers 'not only facilitated Christian expansion', but also 'allowed themselves to be baptized in public and transformed or abandoned several important nationalritualsin which they The Inculturation Débate in Africa 75 had previously been the principal figure' (Gulbrandsen, 1993: 44). These rulers were equally ready to abandon social practices deemed 'savage' by the missionaries, and to take leading roles in missionary churches, 'attempting to attach them to the royal court as a kind of state church' (ibid.). Gulbrandsen argues that, 'precisely because Tswana 'religion' was an intrinsic aspect of the polity, there were many ways by which the spiritual force of kingship could be reproduced, even if some of its ritual externalizations were transformed in order to satisfy the missionary dichotomization' (ibid.: 45). The Tswana rulers judged that Christianity could be used to serve rather than undermine traditional cultural and religious mores.13 Birgit Meyer, in her study of Bible translation in the Ewe mission in Ghana, also emphasises the need to see African Christians as 'active agents in historical processes' (1994: 45). The Protestant missionaries of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) selected one deity, Mawu, from the Ewe pantheon to translate the term 'God'. The remaining deities were collectively associated with 'the Devil' or 'Satan'. The term Mawu retains for the Ewe the sense of a spiritual being both within the reach of human beings and simultaneously distant from them. The failure of the Christian notion of 'God' to displace traditional Ewe concepts of Mawu, is evidence, Meyer argues, in the secret nocturnal consultation of tro priests by Christians, when prayers and church-going fail to yield results. The term chosen by the Bible translators for 'the Devil' was Abosam, an Akan word, cognate with the Ewe Sasabosam, a bush monster associated with witchcraft and hostile to human beings, especially priests. The Ewe made a strong connection between the feared evil power of witchcraft and the Devil. Members of the EPC in Ewe, including many pastors, conceive of witches as agents of Satan, while the missionaries dismissed witchcraft as pagan superstition, a heathen survival that could be expected to die out with the coming of the gospel.14 An unintended consequence of the Bible translation was the reinforcing of the link between Christianity and witchcraft. Meyer quotes a female member of the EPC, who stated (in 1989) that, 'If you are a good Christian, you must believe in the existence of Satan. And if you believe in Satan, you must believe in witchcraft. And when a person behaves abnormally, he is an agent of Satan, a "witch"' (1994: 58). These studies all, in different ways, highlight the unpredictability of the indigenous response of African converts to Christianity, depending as it does on a variety of political, religious, linguistic and other social factors.15 The example of the Kingdom of Kongo allows us to look not only at an African reaction to mission teaching, but reflexively at the dynamics of 76 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY power within the central organs of the Roman Catholic Church, and at the shift from a pre to a post-Tridentine understanding of mission. THE KINGDOM OF KONGO: EXPERIMENTS IN INCULTURATION AND OFFICIAL RESPONSES The Kongo Kingdom to the south of the Congo River, in what is now Angola was missionized by secular Portuguese priests in 1491, and direct political contacts between the people of Kongo and Portugal were established. The Kongo royal family were the most important early converts in terms of their subsequent Christian influence, and a son of Nzinga Nkuwu the King of Kongo, Afonso Mvemba Nzinga, also known as Don Henrique, received training for the priesthood in Portugal, being elevated to a bishopric in 1518. The Christian Kingdom of Kongo even gave birth to what is said to be the earliest recorded example of an African-Christian new religious movement. Between 1704 and 1706 a young Kongo woman, Dona Béatrice (Kimpa Vita), who believed herself to be a reincarnation of Saint Anthony, started a group known as the Antonians (Hackett, 1995: 262). The received understanding within the Roman Catholic Church was, however, that the Kongo church disappeared in a morass of syncretism, resisting subsequent attempts at evangelisation, so that Central Africa (which was also being ravaged by the slave trade) had effectively to be reevangelised in the nineteenth century by Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries from Europe. Recent re-evaluation of the Kongo church contests this version of events.16 It was not Kongo Christianity that declined (although this may also have happened) but Western Roman Catholic understandings of the nature of the Christian Church, particularly regarding centralisation and authority, which had undergone a considerable transformation since the fifteenth century. The Church, in effect, moved the goal posts. When the Portuguese first arrived in Central Africa the Council of Trent (1545-63) was still in the future and medieval Catholicism was more tolerant of variety than the post-Tridentine Church which, in reaction to the Protestant Reformation, aimed at standardisation and centralisation. The Kongo Christians were initially free to retain many aspects of their traditional culture (including religious practices), and just as importantly, to develop an indigenous clergy and a high degree of autonomy. At the same time they considered themselves to be, and were regarded by the Western Catholic hierarchy, authentically Christian. Kongo Christianity was regarded as a valid part of the universal Catholic Church. Given their earlier experience of self-rule the Kongo Church resisted subsequent efforts to The Inculturation Débate in Africa 77 induce them to submit to the authority of Jesuit or Capuchin priests, or to westernise their church. Despite this rejection of European attempts to impose a greater uniformity upon their church, the Kongo Christians struggled for some centuries to maintain contact with Rome, but met with official refusal to ordain Kongo Christians or to offer any outside pastoral sustenance. Instead of regarding the faith and practices of the Kongolese Church as an indigenous authentic expression of Christianity, akin perhaps to the Coptic Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, later missionaries and church historians regarded the conversion of the Kongo as evidence of a failed mission experiment which led to dangerous syncretism, and which blocked the path of subsequent missionary efforts. Aylward Shorter, reflecting on the crucial factor of timing, expresses the opinion that: The tragedy of the Catholic Counter-Reformation was that this sweeping standardization of the Church coincided with the discovery of new continents and cultures. At the very moment when a rigid uniformity was being imposed on the Church in every department of the Christian life, explorers and navigators were discovering and colonizing the Americas, the West Indies, the coasts of Africa and the East Indies, and missionaries were either accompanying them or following in their wake (1988: 153-4). The Council of Trent made no distinction between faith and culture, seeing its own interpretation of Christianity as universal and ahistorical. Priestly training was standardised and Latinised, greatly increasing the gap between priest and people, in the West as well as in the newer mission fields, and the Church became identified with the colonial powers, despite occasional heroic efforts by some missionaries to mitigate the worst effects of European greed and Catholic zeal. One might mention, for instance, the Jesuit Bartholome dejas Casas who struggled to protect the Indians of Central America from Spanish atrocities. It is in the context of antiProtestant, post-Tridentine (and imperialistic) thinking that official responses to the Church of the Kongo, and other early experiments in what might now be, termed inculturation need to be viewed.17 The need to enter the mentality and embrace some of the customs of a missionized culture, where they did not seem to contradict Christian principles, was evident to many early missionaries, but an indigenising theology of mission came into conflict with the more centralising, Europeanising tendencies. In sixteenth century Japan Jesuit missionaries adopted Japanese costume, houses, social etiquette and other customs.18 Matteo Ricci and his successors in China carried their experiment of 78 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY indigenisation much further. By taking on the persona of first a Buddhist monk, and then a Confucian scholar, and by entering into an informed dialogue with Chinese culture, Ricci and his colleagues were able to gain access to the highest ranks of Chinese society. All that was not judged to be inimical to Christianity was accepted, including certain ancestral funeral rites, the appelation 'Lord of Heaven' to the Christian God and, in 1603, the celebration of the cult of Confucius. In subsequent discussions and conflicts Ricci's experiment came to be known as the 'Chinese Rites Controversy'. Ricci's contemporary, Robert de Nobili at Madurai in southern India, adopted the guide of a Brahmin holy man in order to penetrate Hinduism. Both these and other attempts to evangelise from within a culture were, despite their success in terms of external results, eventually discouraged or expressly forbidden by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and revoked by later seventeenth century missionaries (although to some extent vindicated by the thinking of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s). 19 A second type of evangelisation was through native converts, rather than Western missionaries, as was the case in the early Christian Kingdom of Kongo. In the sixteenth century in French Indo-China (Vietnam) a mission strategy based on native lay evangelists was created by Alexander de Rhodes. Although initially necessitated by the expulsion of Western missionaries, the strategy proved successful and was subsequently adopted by the Foreign Mission Society of Paris, and in the nineteenth and twentieth century evolved into the system of mission stations dependent upon lay catechists on which Roman Catholic expansion in Africa came to depend (Beaver, 1992). Some catechists became national heroes (within the Roman Catholic Church), such as the Cameroonian Andreas Mbange (baptised in 1889) who, together with the other native catechists and teachers, continued to maintain a Catholic presence in Cameroon after the expulsion of German missionaries in 1916 (Mveng, 1990: 22,39). Mbangue was unusual in having received training, particularly training abroad. Most catechists and teachers had minimal education and combined considerable autonomy in their work for the church with relative ignorance of the Christian faith and dependence upon the mission priests who employed them. The relative independence of Roman Catholic missionary orders and organisations was unacceptable to a centralising church, resulting in Pope Gregory XVs foundation of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) in 1662. Richard Grey, in his summary of the relationship between Propaganda and the missionary orders in Africa The Inculturation Débate in Africa 79 concludes that: 'The ultimate check on the powers of missionary societies depended ... on the emergence of an African priesthood from which eventually could be recruited African hierarchies in direct relation with Rome' (1990: 161). This African hierarchy, however, needs to be seen in terms of the Eurocentric model of priestly training and Christian culture which removed and alienated potential priests from their own environment. That a reconnection with the roots of African cultural and religious values can still be seen as threatening, rather than positive, is evidenced in the well-known case of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, former primate of Lusaka in Zambia (Milingo, 1984; Hastings, 1989; Ter Haar, 1992). From the time of his election to the see of Lusaka in 1969, Milingo was intent on introducing African elements into what he perceived to be an inappropriately westernised church. The trouble really started when in 1973 he discovered that he had a gift for healing people possessed by evil spirits. The incident that precipitated this discovery involved a woman who came to him in distress, claiming to hear voices and in fear of her child whom she considered to be some inhuman creature in human form. Milingo heard the women's confession and celebrated mass with her, but the voices continued to trouble her. He describes what happened next in the following terms: I contemplated various ways of helping the woman when suddenly an idea glowed in my mind, 'look three times intently into her eyes and ask her to look three times into yours. Tell her to close her eyes the third time and order her to sleep. Then speak to her soul after signing her with the cross'. I carried out this instruction systematically. The woman was overshadowed by the power of the Lord. She relaxed calmly and so I was able to reach her soul. I prayed as much as I could, then I woke her up. We both did not know what had happened to us (Ter Haar, 1992: 13-14). Milingo subsequently interpreted this experience in terms of the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the evil forces, which had taken possession of the woman. Her sickness, known to the people as mashawe, a common type of spirit possession in Zambia, is seen as the cause of many physical, psychological and spiritual ills, and is not treatable with Western medicine. Milingo, with his long years of seminary training, was not particularly familiar with traditional concepts such as spirit possession, but had no difficulty in finding scriptural parallels to his experience. He began to take Jesus' command to go out and heal the sick at face value, and made a public announcement of his healing ministry attracted large crowds. 80 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY While many Protestant and evangelical or charismatic Christians see life as a continual cosmic battle between good and evil, with the world locked in the sway of evil powers, challenged by Christian 'soldiers' equipped to do battle, such views are less popular in post Vatican II Roman Catholicism.20 Contact with the charismatic movement in the West convinced Milingo that it was not just Zambians, but people everywhere, who are in the grip of demonic forces, and that the church is failing to address the urgent task of social and individual healing which confronts it. Milingo's healing ministry evoked considerable hostility in Zambia, both within and outside the Roman Catholic Church, and was viewed by many, particularly expatriate missionaries, as dangerously syncretic. In 1982 Archbishop Milingo was summoned to Rome and in 1983 officially removed from the see of Lusaka. However, under the personal protection of Pope John Paul II, Milingo has continued to exercise his ministry to growing numbers in Italy, demonstrating the widespread popular appeal of such 'unfashionable' views. To label a practice 'syncretic' in Catholic circles is to dismiss or invalidate it. There are parallels between Milingo's healing ministry in Zambia (and in Italy) and the situation of the Zionist churches in South Africa which derive from a Protestant bible-centred tradition. In both cases the so-called syncretic features which emerged regarded healing and exorcism. In both instance the power for that healing ministry is said to derive not from traditional sources, but from the action of the Holy Spirit within the church. Kiernan (1994: 74), writing of Zulu Zionist churches, points out that, 'The synthesis... emanated from a missionary innovation, clearly at odds with the prevailing religious ethos of established or mission Christianity, yet the emphasis on divine healing remains firmly within the broad parameters of Christian tradition.' Traditional elements of ritual or cultural understandings may be added or form part of such healing ministries, but to label them syncretic, if the term is used pejoratively, can disguise the essentially Christian character of Milingo's experience, and of the activities of many African Independent Churches. In the last section of this article I move from an exposition of discourses of inculturation, and from an examination of various explicit and implicit attempts to inculturate Christianity in a mission setting, to a specific example from Cameroon. It is in the context of the local church that the dynamics of inculturation can be seen to operate on the ground, and it is only in the local church that various missionary models of church can be explored and realised or aborted. The mission paradigms worked out in the West interact with and are inevitably altered through their contact with African cultures, and by the responses of individual actors. One major The Inculturation Débate in Africa 81 'problem' seldom highlighted, but central to any mission situation, is that of authority. Who decides just who and what constitutes the local church? Who are the people receiving and supposedly inculturating the gospel? How, and with what tools and methods, is this task to be achieved? In order to illustrate some definitional difficulties I will draw on an example of mission praxis taken from my fieldwork among the Bangwa in Fontem Division (South West Province, Cameroon), carried out primarily from 1980-81 (with a return visit in 1995).21 BAPTISED PAGANS AND PAGAN CHRISTIANS Following the defeat of German troops and the expulsion of Germanspeaking missionaries in 1916, Cameroon was administered under League of Nations Mandate by the French in East Cameroon and by the British, in West Cameroon. The latter was linked for purposes of administration to the eastern Enugu Province of Nigeria. Comity agreements parcelled out territory to different Christian denominations, the Bangwa area, in anglophone West Cameroon, falling under Roman Catholic influence. The Society of Saint Joseph, based at Mill Hill in North London, gradually established bases inland from their coastal headquarters at Soppo on Buea Mountain, opening an outstation at Mbetta, among the Mbo, the Bangwa's southern neighbours, in 1936. Mbetta usually had two priests22 who would take it in turns to trek to surrounding villages to baptise children and adult catechumens, say mass, preach and hear confessions. The people who spearheaded the Christian advance were the catechists, often baptised on the coast when working on the plantations established by the Germans, who then returned to their native villages. For a nominal sum, and usually with very little training, the catechists (who were always men, but often supported by their wives who acted in effect as unpaid catechists) were responsible for the upkeep of a chapel, for leading services and for giving instruction in Christian doctrine. In many cases where there was no separate teacher the catechist also taught elementary literacy to children, primarily boys, in a church primary school. Catechists were expected to trek to their central mission station on the first Friday of each month to give a report, receive their stipend, and be given a little training - a practice that still continues today.23 Bangwa Christians depended on occasional visits from the priests based at Mbetta and local catechists until the first permanent mission was established on Bangwa territory in 1965. The Bangwa mission in Fontem (in Lebang village) is run by the Focolare Movement, and consists of a hospital, secondary school, parish church and various workshops. There 82 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY are two parishes in the Bangwa area, at Menji and at Fonjumetaw, and between them the priests cover the scattered outstations throughout the Division. The Focolare mission is untypical as the Movement is primarily lay, and does not see itself as a missionary organisation. The foundress, Chiara Lubich, was invited by the former bishop of Buea, Mgr Jules Peeters MHM, to open a mission in his diocese, when he visited Rome at the time of the Second Vatican Council.24 The examples given below illustrate the difficulties involved in defining the success or failure of the missionary enterprise, the problematic nature of attempts to decide who is to be defined as a Christian and what constitutes Christian behaviour. The term 'baptised pagan' is used by Cameroonian Christians to refer to those who have been baptised, often as children in mission schools, who show little interest in the church (Protestant or Catholic) and who certainly do not obey church rules. They may be former teachers of Catholic schools who marry a second wife when their school is taken over by the government and adherence to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church is no longer a condition of employment. They include the many young men who have been baptised but who, despite promises to marry in church, fail to follow up the traditional marriage with a church wedding (thereby maintaining the option of a polygynous marriage at a later date). Whether this indicates a superficial and instrumental view of Christianity, or points to the inappropriateness of Western social regulations and church teaching in a polygynous society is open to debate. 'Pagan Christians', on the other hand, are those people who are often the pillars of the local church, its office holders and animators, but who are ineligible for baptism. They may be women who were betrothed as infants or as primary school girls as a second or subsequent wife of a chief or notable, or a man who is named as his father's successor, inheriting his titles, ceremonial duties and widows. In a new mission outstation the first catechumens will almost certainly be men or women in polygynous marriages who, despite holding offices in the church, cannot be baptised. These pagan Christians fill the pews each Sunday, and often commit their time and energy to the evangelisation of their neighbours, actively supporting the church in a number of ways. They will not, however, appear in a census of Christians or be included in the annual collation of church statistics, based on baptisms, marriages, and communicants. A third and quite substantial category of'hidden Christians' or Christian sympathisers are those who have been baptised and who continue to take an interest in church affairs, but who are permanently excommunicated. Chief Fobellah Nkeng, a sub-chief of Lebang village with a compound and The Inculturation Débate in Africa 83 land at Belleh, adjoining the Focolare mission in Fontem, is an example of one such 'hidden' Christian.25 Chief Fobellah attended one of the first primary schools established in the area in the 1920s, an experiment which was later abandoned due to the hostility of the traditionalist grandfather of the current Fon of Fontem, Fontem Asonganyi, who was Bangwa paramount chief from 1885-1951. 26 Like most children who attend mission schools, Fobellah Nkeng was baptised and, unusually, for the time, went on to receive some secondary school training at Sasse College, a Roman Catholic school in Buea, where the Roman Catholic mission headquarters on the coast is situated. In 1924 Fobellah was named as his father's successor and returned to Bellah palace compound to take up his new duties, which included making sacrifices on behalf of his patrilineal kin group, 'feeding' the ancestral skulls, and taking responsibility for his father's widows. Although nominally husband to his mother and her cowives, this did not necessarily imply the establishment of conjugal rights. Among the Bangwa older widows must be supported, but often choose to live with grown-up children away from their husband's compound. Younger widows can be given in marriage to retainers and kin, or taken as wives by the new chief. In addition to inheriting his father's widows, Fobellah married over twenty wives of his own over a period of some sixty years.27 In 1995 Fobellah's compound was still full of young children, those of younger wives, as well as nephews, nieces and grandchildren.28 As a baptised Catholic, who is also a polygynist, Fobellah is barred from receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church, but he remains a staunch supporter of the mission and gives a warm welcome to his many Focolare friends who work in Fontem. Fobellah insists that he had determined on becoming a priest when he received news that he had succeeded his father, but sees no contradiction between polygyny and Christianity. Like other 'Christian polygynists', Chief Fobellah argues that it is better to have many wives and children, who can in turn swell the churches, than to remain monogamous with few children. All Fobellah's children are baptised (although many are themselves in polygynous marriages). Several of his wives attend church, and many of his children and grandchildren have been through Catholic primary and secondary schools. According to Catholic practice, only the first wife of a polygynist is eligible for baptism, although others may receive what is known as the 'baptism of desire'. Their intention to live as a Christian is recognised, and it is held that they will receive the merits of baptism despite their exclusion from the sacramental life of the church and their invisibility in the official church statistics.29 Deciding who is a first wife is not always 84 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY straightforward. Mr Robinson, a Bangwa man who has worked for many years for the Focolare mission in Fontem, has two wives, both of whom wanted to become Christians. Mr Robinson had been betrothed to one of these women, Teresia, while she was still young and completed bridewealth payments for her before she was old enough to live with him. In the intervening period Mr Robinson married a slightly older woman, Anastasia. Both women attended doctrine classes in the Roman Catholic parish, but when the time came to be baptised they had to decide which of the two women was the first wife and therefore eligible to become a Christian. After some 'palaver' it was decided that the younger of the two women, Teresia, who had been betrothed first, was to be regarded as the first wife and could be baptised. Polygyny is one of the main reasons for the discrepancy between the number of those baptised and those admitted to full church membership. It renders invisible those who, like Anastasia, would become Christians if canon law or church practice permitted (cf. Hastings, 1973). Polygyny is common among second generation Christians, and there is discussion within the churches in Africa as to whether this constitutes apostasy and superficiality or a process of inculturation. E.K. Ekechi has argued that: To the missions, the return to multiple marriage by the converts was not only sad but signified that Christianity had made no appreciable impact upon the individuals involved. From the viewpoint of the Africans, however, the move was certainly a reaction against European acculturation. In looking at the so-called backsliding of the converts, it is more useful to look at it from the perspective of indigenizing Christianity rather than echoing the mission cliché that the African was inherently incapable of conforming to the teachings of Christianity (1970: 337). Protestant churches in Cameroon, the most prominent among them being the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon, various Baptist churches and the Evangelical 'Full Gospel', are generally more lenient in matters concerning the baptism of polygynists. Wives of polygynists are admitted to church membership, and in some cases a man who already had more than one wife before he 'came to know the Lord' will be baptised on condition that he shows repentance and declines to take any further wives. Asonganyi's successor as Fon of Fontem, Fontem Defang (c. 1900-1982), supported the Catholic mission, and had apparently been baptised as a child,30 but he attended the local Full Gospel church (considered a 'sect' by the Roman Catholic mission) near his palace at Azi, together with several of his wives. The Inculturation Débate in Africa 85 He also received the last rites from the Catholic Church before his death and was baptised, or re-baptised, into that church. Convenience, tact, expediency and a desire to take advantage of any supernatural benefits accruing all seem to play a part in church allegiance. Only some African Independent Churches, which are common in neighbouring Nigeria but which have made little inroad in Cameroon, accept polygyny as consonant with Christian teaching. CONCLUSION The current Roman Catholic discourse on inculturation reflects a Post Vatican II recognition that the Christian Church now has its centre of gravity, numerically, if not administratively, outside Europe. A genuine desire to see Christianity take on the shape and flavour of local cultures is accompanied by anxiety on the part of the hierarchy concerning authority and orthodoxy. There are continual impassioned pleas from around the world for the Vatican to trust local churches. At the 1998 Synod for Asia meeting in the Vatican, for example, the Franciscan Bishop of Naha in Japan, Berard Toshio Oshikawa argued that despite 'frequent exhortations to root the Gospel in local cultures 'the norm for Christian life, for church discipline, for liturgical expression and theological orthodoxy continues to be that of the Western Church' (The Tablet, 2 May 1998: 565). At the same synod Bishop Francis Claver SJ from the Philippines stressed bishops' suspicion of the laity, the people entrusted with the task of bringing together faith and culture. In relation to liturgical language, for example, the bishop asks, 'Why do we have to send vernacular translations of the liturgy to Rome for approval?' implying as it does that the people are not trusted to speak the language of orthodoxy. The need for 'internal dialogue' in the Church is stressed 'if the inculturation process is to be successful' (ibid.). Similar criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church's westernised agenda, which often appears imperialistic and insensitive to local conditions, are frequently voiced by theologians and church leaders in other parts of the world. These comments make clear the political dimension of any discussion of inculturation. It is not just a question of 'drawing out the seeds of the gospel' to be found in non-western cultures, but above all a question of authority and interpretation. The historical and contemporary examples given in this article are intended to illustrate some of the cultural and political complexities of the conversion process, and to illustrate the cultural adaptation of Christianity in various settings. The term 'syncretism' has been used pejoratively by Christians, but a greater appreciation of 86 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY the syncretic nature of all religions could lead to a more fruitful examination of the dynamics of religious synthesis. The Cameroonian case studies make the further point that even deciding who is and who is not a Christian is problematic in many cases. Local churches are made up of a variety of people with degrees of adherence to traditional religion and culture, and different attitudes to mission (or other forms) of Christianity. A simplistic dualism that opposes paganism and Christianity has little heuristic or epistemologica! validity. Individual Christians are active agents in interpreting and practising their faith within changing social and cultural contexts. Whether they do this from within the Roman Catholic or other mission churches, or as members of Independent African Churches, may well depend upon the extent to which the Vatican and other ruling bodies are able to respond to the experience of local believers. The success or otherwise of the current Roman Catholic project on inculturation will rest on two key pillars - an understanding of the socially and historically contingent nature of western Christianity, and a willingness to embrace local variation. The latter implies a paradigm shift in thinking, with decentralisation of power and an optimistic attitude to the workings of the Holy Spirit in the people of God. The tension, which may or may not be creative, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy will, of course, continue to be played out by the hierarchy and lay Christians everywhere. Fiona Bowie is senior lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Wales at Lampeter. NOTES 1. An early version of this article was presented at the Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists in Oxford, July 1993, in the Associate Section on Christianities Outside Europe, convened by John Peel. I am grateful to John Peel and to the other participants for their discussion and comments. 2. Cf. Shorter (1994) on the comments of African Christian theologians and other intellectuals meeting in Nairobi, including their vehement defence of African culture and African traditional religions. 3. Cf. Pato, 1990: 25-6. 4. The family is a frequent theme in Pope John Paul IFs Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, which was issued following the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops in 1994. On pages 44-5, for instance, we read, 'In African culture and tradition the role of the family is everywhere held to be fundamental. Open to this sense of family, of love and respect for life, the African loves children, who are joyfully welcomed as gifts of God. The Inculturation Débate in Africa 87 "The sons and daughters of Africa love life. It is precisely this love for life which leads them to give such great importance to the veneration of their ancestors. They believe intuitively that the dead continue to live and remain in communion with them. Is this not in some way a preparation for belief in the Communion of Saints? The peoples of Africa respect the life which is conceived and born. They rejoice in this life. They reject the idea that it can be destroyed, even when the so-called progressive civilizations would like to lead them in this direction. And practices hostile to life are imposed on them by means of economic systems which serve the selfishness of therich".Africans show their respect for human life until its natural end, and keep elderly parents and relatives within the family.' Similarly, on page 65, The Synod Fathers acknowledged [the Church as Gods Family] as an expression of the Church's nature particularly appropriate for Africa. For this image emphasizes care for other, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust'; and on page 88, Tn Africa, in particular, the family is the foundation on which the social edifice is built. This is why the Synod considered the evangelization of the African family a major priority, if the family is to assume in its own turn the role of active subject in view of the evangelization of families through families'. The valorisation of the African family is tempered (one might say contradicted) by the statement that The Synod deplored those African customs and practices 'which deprive women of their rights and the respect due to them' and asked the Church on the Continent to make every effort to foster the safeguarding of these rights' (p.89). The idealised nature of the Pope's view of an intrinsic African respect for life can by illustrated by the irony that while the Opening Mass of the Special Assembly for Africa was taking place (10 April 1994) Hutus in Rwanda, with the involvement of the local Roman Catholic clergy, were slaughtering Tutsis who had been encouraged to take refuge in a church 'Chaplains to the killers', Amelia French, The Tablet, 2 May 1998: 573-4). 5. Cf. Bowie, 1993 for a description of attempts by the Mill Hill Missionaries to reform the African family in the Mbetta area of South West Province, Cameroon and Booth, 1994, for a comprehensive account of the Mill Hill Fathers in West Cameroon. 6. See also Peel 1968. 7. Paragraph 67 (pages 69-70) of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa deals with the Roman Catholic Church's attitude to traditional religion. It states that: 'With regard to African traditional religion, a serene and prudent dialogue will be able, on the one hand, to protect Catholics from negative influences which condition the way of life of many of them and, on the other hand, to foster the assimilation of positive values such as belief in a Supreme Being who is Eternal, Creator, Provident and Just Judge, values which are readily harmonized with the content of the faith. They can even be seen as a preparation for the Gospel, because they contain precious semina Verbi which can lead, as already happened in the past, a great number of people "to be open to the fullness of Revelation in Jesus Christ through the proclamation of the Gosper'. 8. Cf. Luzbetak, 1988. For an enthusiastic account of John Paul II's writings on inculturation see Udoidem, 1996. 9. It is also true that the Roman Catholic Church is wary of the influence of secular culture in the West, as evidenced in the Modernist debate and since. 10. Ratzinger, J. (with Messori, V.) 1985. Cardinal Ratzinger would, perhaps, have approved of the Bachelor of Philosophy dissertations currently produced by Roman Catholic seminarians at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary of Bambui in Cameroon. In keeping with their eponymous patron, the seminarians measure aspects 88 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY of their own traditions (from which some are distanced by one or more generations of urban life outside their 'home' area) against the yardstick provided by Aristotelian and Thomistic thought (and find the former wanting). The intellectual training necessary to produce a generation of Roman Catholic theologians versed in their own culture and traditions, confident of their values, and able to reflect upon their Christian faith in the light of these traditions, appears to be wanting. Cf. Richard Gray's description of African priestly training in the early years of the twentieth century: 'Cut off for almost ten years from their families, forbidden to speak their vernacular languages, provided with Cicero as recreational reading, regularly required to pass the standard examinations, few among the seminarians survived to take up their career of life-long celibacy' (1990: 162). 11. The Lausanne Covenant, Lausanne (1994). That some participants at Canberra found the practice of inculturation rather harder than the rhetoric is evidenced by the controversy surrounding Korean feminist theologian, Chung Hyun Kyung's opening dance. The performance of a Christian theology that incorporated shamanistic, Buddhist and Australian Aboriginal themes was denounced as syncretic (i.e. non-Christian) by some of the delegates. 12. See, for instance, Marshall W. Murphree's study of Christianity among the Shona (1969, Wendy James' account of the Ukuk of the Sudan/Ethiopian border region (1988), and the wide-ranging studies of conversion and cultural adaptation in Hefner (1993). 13. I am not suggesting that individual converts were not sincere in their adoption of Christianity, but conversion never takes place in a vacuum, and religion is as much about economics and politics and social structures as it is about personal piety. Indeed, personal religious sensibilities are embedded in wider social and cultural formations. 14. We can see a parallel between the attitude of the EPC missionaries and the churchmen of early medieval Europe. Village witchcraft or maléfice was dismissed by the Church as fantasy (and consequently witches could not be persecuted). In the later middle ages and early modern period witchcraft became fused with notions of heresy and Devil worship, and witches (mainly women) were recast as agents of Satan. The unintentional linking of witchcraft and the Devil took place among the Ewe as a direct consequence of Bible translation. (For an interesting collection of essays on early European witchcraft which stresses the elite dimension of the Devil-worshipping witch stereotype see Ankarloo and Henningsen, 1993). 15. See also Beidleman's (1982) study of the Kaguru response to CMS (Anglican) missionaries in East Africa, John Peel's comments on the value of archival material in drawing out the role of individual reactions to Christianity (1996), and Stephen Neill's comments on the inappropriate translation of Christian terms in to Japanese, which caused unforeseen difficulties for the missionaries (1964: 155-6). 16. See Thornton, 1984; Shorter, 1988: 145-8; Baur, 1994: 55-73. 17. Christian self-image and praxis in the West must also be seen, at least in part, as a response to Islam. The sixteenth century saw Ottoman rule extend to new areas of Europe, coinciding with European Christian expansion overseas and increased centralisation at home. The European expansion was motivated by, among more economic considerations, a desire to claim new territories for Christ, rather than leave them to fall into Muslim hands. There was the search for the legendary Préster John in the East, stemming from memories of Christian communities to the East of the Muslim world. 18. The most famous missionary to sixteenth century Japan was Francis Xavier, who maintained a considerable respect for the Japanese despite the mission's lack of outward success (Neill, 1964: 145-162). The Inculturation Debate in Africa 89 19. The Danish Halle Mission, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, sent German Lutheran missionaries to southern India, where they adopted a similar method. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg realised that he needed to ground himself in Hindu philosophy and religion if he was to evangelise successfully (Beaver, 1992). In the twentieth century the Christian ashram of the late Father Bede Griffiths, a Roman Catholic Benedictine, is probably the best known, but by no means the only attempt to create an authentically Indian form of Christianity. 20. Individuals within the Roman Catholic tradition, such as Padre Pio, the Italian Franciscan stigmatist (1887-1968), used similar language and had not dissimilar experiences to those of Milingo. Padre Pio, like Archbishop Milingo, retains a considerable popular following (cf. Wilson, 1988). 21. See Bowie 1985 and 1993. The Bangwa use the term Nweh to refer to both the people and the language spoken. The term 'Bangwa' was coined by the Germans, who first made contact with Nweh speakers around the turn of the century (Bangwa = Ba Nweh). There are nine Bangwa paramount chiefdoms of varying size and importance. The largest chiefdom or Village' is Lebang, where Fontem, the main site of my fieldwork, is located. Fontem is sometimes taken to refer to the smaller area in which the Roman Catholic mission is situated, but also used synonymously with Lebang village. During the 1980s this area was part of Fontem Sub-Division, but is now included within Lebialem Division. The name 'Fontem' derives from the title of the paramount chief (Fon or fua), Fontem. I mainly use the ethnographic present for the 1980-1 period. If speaking of later or earlier periods this is indicated. This usage is in no way intended to prioritise these particular years, merely being a stylistic device to avoid repetition. (But see Hastrup, 1995: 9-25, for a defence of the use of the ethnographic present). 22. Mill Hill missionaries included brothers (and less often sisters), but as non-ordained people they could not perform the same sacramental duties as the priests. 23. T.A. Beetham (1967: 15-16) attributes the success of Roman Catholic missions in Africa to various causes, including the ability to learn from the mistakes of their Protestant predecessors, increased control over tropical diseases, and the concentration by different missionary orders on relatively discrete areas, which allowed for a concentration of resources. While this was undoubtedly the case, European missions were still spread very thinly and relied heavily on the native catechists to prepare the ground and to maintain a Christian presence in areas often remote from the central mission station. In Lebialem Division there are numerous small Christian communities who, especially in the rainy season, will only see a visiting priest a few times a year. The catechist is the main representative of the church in almost all villages. 24. For an account of the Focolare Movement see Edwin Robertson, 1978. The workings of the Focolare mission in Fontem are discussed in Bowie, 1985. 25. The administrative territory encompassing the Bangwa and Mundani is known as 'Lebialem', after an impressive waterfall at the confluence of two major rivers on Bellen land. The waterfall is also a sacred site (fuandem) at which sacrifices for the fertility of the land are offered, although some regard the site as too dangerous to approach. It was named by a forebear of Chief Fobellah, a hunter who came across the site and exclaimed that this was indeed a 'terrible' or 'fearsome' hill ('lebialem'). 26. There was a period at the beginning of the twentieth century when Fontem Asonganyi was forced into hiding, and was then exiled to the north of the country by the German military. For afictionalaccount of this period, based on historical accounts, see Brain, 1977. 90 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY 27. I was unable to determine the exact number and status of wives, as at any one time some are living outside the compound on a permanent or temporary basis. 28. Fobellah probably has over 100 children of his own, but with an age gap of some sixty to seventy years between his oldest and youngest children, one can appreciate the difficulties involved in trying to keep track of one's kin and extended family. Fobellah's standard response to the question, 'how many children do you have?' is 'over fifty sons'. 29. Father John Distelberger and Father Celso Corbioli, the former parish priests of Fontem and Fonjumetaw, kept a record of these non-baptised Christians, but this is an unofficial practice. The Buea diocesan Sacred Returns from Fontem parish for 1994 list a total of 273 Catholic families, 3,610 baptised Catholics, 300 Protestants, and 42,000 Pagans. The estimated total population was 45,910. The accuracy of the population figures is questionable, but it is clear that baptised Christians remain under 10% of the total population of the parish. Fontem parish covers some two thirds of the Bangwa area, and part of Bayang territory to the west, an area of (very approximately as it has not been surveyed) of 900 square kms. 30. Personal communication from one of Defang's daughters, Madam Elizabeth. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ankarloo, B. & Henningsen, G. (eds). 1993. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 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London & New York: Routledge. Luzbetak, L. J. 1988. The Church and Cultures: New Perspectives in MissiologJLcal Anthropology. Maryknoll: Orbis. Meyer, B. 1994. 'Beyond syncretism: translation and diabolization in the appropriation of Protestantism in Africa', in Stewart, C. & Shaw, R. (eds), Syncretism/AnüSyncreusm: The Politics of ReligLous Synthesis, pp. 45-68. London & New York: Routledge. Milingo, E. 1984. The World Inbetween: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival. London: Hurst & Co. Murphree, M. W. 1969. Christianity and the Shona. London: University of London Press. Mveng, Ρ 1990. 'General Introduction', in 1890-1990 Album of the Century: The Catholic Church in Cameroon 100 Years of Evangelization, pp. 19-25 & 35-42. National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, bilingual French/English edition. Neill, S. 1964. A History of Christian Missions. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Pato, L. 1990. The Independent African Churches: A Socio-Cultural Approach, Journal for the Theology of Southern Africa, (72) 24-35. Peel, J. D. Y. 1968. Syncretism and Religious Change, Comparative Studies in Society and History, (10) 121-41. Peel, J. D. Y. 1990. The Pastor and the Babalawo: The Interaction of Religions in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland, Africa, (60) 338-69. Pope John Paul II. 1985. Slavorum Apostoli (Apostles of the Slavonic People). Vatican City: Vatican Press, June 2. Pope John Paul II, (n.d. but drawing on statements made in 1994 & 1995). Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II to the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women Religious and all the Lay Faithful on the Church in Africa and its Evangelizing Mission Towards the Year 2000. Vatican City: Vatican City Press. 92 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY Ratzinger, J. (with Messori). 1985. The Ratzinger Report. Leominster: Fowler Wright. Robertson, E. 1978. Chiara, London: New City. Scherer, J. A. and Bevans, S. B. (eds.) 1992. New Directions on Mission and Evangelisation 1: Basic Statements 1974-1991. Maryknoll & New York: Orbis. Schreiter, R. J. 1985. Constucting Local Theologies. London: SCM. Shaw, R. & Stewart, C. 1994. 'Introduction: problematizing syncretism', in Stewart, C. & Shaw, R. (eds) Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics ofReligLOUs Synthesis, pp. 1-26. London & New York: Routledge. Shorter, A. 1988. Towards a Theology of Inculturation. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Stewart, C. 1994. 'Syncretism as a dimension of nationalist discourse in modern Greece', in Stewart, C. & Shaw, R. (eds) Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, pp. 127-144. London & New York: Routledge. Tablet (The), 1998. Will Rome listen to the Asian bishops? 2 May, 565-567. Ter Haar, G. 1992. Spirit of Africa: The Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia. London: Hurst & Co. Thornton, J. 1984. The Development of an African Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491-1750, Journal A/rican History, (25) 147-67. Udoidem, S. I. 1996. Pope John Paul II on Inculturation: Theory and Practice. Maryland & London: University Press of America. Wilson, I. 1988. The Bleeding Mind. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ^ s Copyright and Use: As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law. This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission from the copyright holder(s). 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FIONA BOWIE The Inculturation Debate in Africa 1 INTRODUCTION The term 'inculturation' is becoming increasingly fashionable in church, and in particular Roman Catholic, mission circles. The popularity of the term is due to a heightened Christian self-understanding of the necessity of adapting the Christian message to its cultural environment. There is recognition that the implantation of European values in Africa, or in other parts of the world, is not necessarily desirous or successful as a mission strategy. African and other non-western criticisms of colonial hegemony, including a rejection of Christianity as currently taught and practised, have come from both within and outside the church, to the extent that some African Christian theologians are rejecting the 'Christ figure' alto­ gether.2 Christianity has failed to take root, often after centuries of evan­ gelisation, if one is to judge from phenomena such as the absence or scarcity of candidates for the priesthood, or the rejection of monogamy. A perceived threat to mission churches from African Independent and Western fundamentalist churches, as well as from Islam, also contribute to a sense of urgency in the search for new solutions. In this article I look first at some of the ways in which inculturation is being defined and at what have come to be regarded as some early experiments in inculturation, whether well received or finally rejected by church authorities and local Christians. The relationship between the Roman Catholic discourse on inculturation and the politics of religious synthesis, and some of the problems involved in moving from the level of theological speculation to mission praxis are also discussed. The rhetoric of inculturation implies that here is something which can be recognised and defined as 'true Christianity' and a local culture onto or into which it can be in some way grafted. The models underlying this assumption tend to be static and in practice can be seen as an attempt by the mainstream church authorities to maintain definitional control over the faith of the mission or former mission churches. The example of the church in the ancient Kingdom of Kongo illustrates some of the problems, which beset the modem debate. A church that was considered both African and orthodox in one century was redefined as syncretic and heterodox in another. Using ethnographic examples from my fieldwork in Cameroon in the 1980s and 1990s I look at some of the practical problems to be faced in the realisation of a concept such as inculturation. To start with, how is one to decide who is a Christian and who is not? In other words, who are the people who constitute the local church and who are required to inculturate the gospel? By what means is one to judge the validity of various experiments involving indigenous rites, symbols or practices, and who is to make such judgements? What, indeed, constitutes local or African culture? Whose culture and whose definitions are to be regarded as normative? How are competing traditional inter­ pretations and forms of local Christian expression to be adjudicated? My aim in addressing these issues is not simply to deconstruct the term inculturation, nor to disparage missionary efforts to 'make Christianity relevant'. By viewing inculturation through an anthropological lens I wish to contribute to a debate on some of the hermeneutical and epistemolo­ gical issues of mission praxis. INCULTURATION OR SYNCRETISM? Current debates within anthropology over the nature of religion and culture contact are relevant to mission theorists and practitioners in their examination of the political dimensions of religious synthesis. The term 'syncretism' has been reclaimed by anthropologists as a neutral concept, indeed, as a useful analytical tool with which to focus on the dynamics of cultural and religious change. Shaw and Stewart, in an important contribution to this debate, have also coined the term 'anti-syncretism' to describe 'the antagonism to religious synthesis shown by agents con­ cerned with the defence ofreligious boundaries' (1994: 7). When two or more cultural systems meet they do not necessarily merge or borrow from one another in predictable ways, and issues surrounding authenticity, for instance, can centre on a particular synthesis, or on an appeal to tradition and 'purity'. Within Roman Catholic discourse on African Christianity the term 'syncretism' has been pejoratively reserved for a perceived distortion of Christian truth, often associated with nativism or apostasy. African independent churches and various non-western practices in  The lnculturation Debate in Africa 69 mission churches are often dismissed as syncretic. The use of traditional elements in liturgy or church order are sometimes claimed to lead wor­ shippers beyond the sphere of Christian orthodoxy.3 Inculturation is usually defined in opposition to syncretism; it is seen as the legitimate take up of selected aspects of indigenous culture into Christian practice, or the search for 'seeds of the gospel' scattered by the grace of God in pagan religions. Among such 'seeds' one could include idealised models of 'the African family' or of an 'African respect for life'. These cliches are to be found in papal pronouncements and in the writings of both African and Western writers, cited as elements of traditional culture which can give an authentically African flavour to Christianity.4 Such sentiments conflict with other perceived characteristics of African family life, such as the widespread practice of female genital mutilation, polygyny, or the common acceptance of pre-marital and extra-marital intercourse (at least for men). In practice missionaries and church leaders often see the 'African family' less as a bulwark against pagan or non-Christian values than as a major stumbling block to church growth.5 Charles Stewart reminds us of the obvious, but not always appreciated fact that all religions are syncretic, and that eventually certain forms of synthesis may come to be seen as normative and be accorded privileged (orthodox) status. Referring to the preponderance of holy wells in Ireland and mountain top shrines in Greece, once pagan sites but now christia­ nised, Stewart remarks that: These examples suggest that the passage of time may dull recognition of 'syncretism', especially for those who practice the religion in question everything becomes equally traditional and inseparable. This cycle of conversion, accommodation and naturalization is then repeated in the process of missionization, with the difference that instead of church councils excoriating divergent forms of 'super­ stition' while legislating proper practice, we now hear charges of illegitimate 'syncretism' when the missionized do not get the mis­ sionaries' form of Christianity right (1994: 134). There is an tendency in mission discourse to construct Christianity and traditional religions as 'opposed ideal types' if the 'epistemological priority of interaction', as john Peel terms it, is not kept to the fore (1990: 339).6 Peel uses the encounter between Christian missionaries and the babalawo, ritual specialists associated with the Yoruba Ifa divination cult, to emphasise his point that, 'conversion in Africa is above all a process of impassioned communication, whose outcome, while conditioned by the  assumptions, interests and resources of the participants, is in the fullest sense the product of their interaction (ibid.).' A realistic, as opposed to an idealised, approach to inculturation, would recognise the dynamic inter­ play of historical, political and social factors in any religious synthesis, with a nuanced understanding of the processes of conversion and explicit acknowledgement of the balance of power between the parties involved. The Roman Catholic Church rejects the concept of democracy for its internal ordering and, convinced that it has a unique gift to offer, is not concerned to enter into a dialogue with African culture or traditional religion on a basis of equality. The self-understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the operation of the magisterium as it affects local church affairs, is a crucial factor in any debate on inculturation, but is often rendered invisible due to its normative and therefore invisible status to the protagonists in this debate.7 INCULTURATION: SOME DEFINITIONS The term 'inculturation' relates to a shift in thinking about the church and its mission over the past few decades. Father Joseph Masson, a Jesuit teaching at the Gregorian University in Rome, used the term in 1962, shortly before the opening of the Second Vatican Council (Shorter, 1988: 1Off; Bosch, 1991: 447£0. Although given different nuances, the term basically refers to the interpenetration of faith and culture. It is related to, but not identical with, the term 'acculturation', which is more com­ monly used by anthropologists to refer to culture contact, and is often synonymous with 'indigenisation', also favoured by anthropologists. Inculturation, however, unlike the latter two terms, preserves a specifically theological agenda. Its use has become widespread in Roman Catholic circles and it is often interpreted more narrowly than just contact or dialogue between Christianity and traditional religions. Most often incult­ uration refers to the insertion of Christianity into a culture, generally outside the Westernjudaeo-Christian context, and that culture's response to the Christian message. A statement on 'Faith and lnculturation' issued by the International Theological Commission of the Roman Catholic Church in 1987 stated that: The process of inculturation may be defined as the Church's efforts to make the message of Christ penetrate a given socio-cultural milieu, calling on the latter to grow according to all its particular values, as long as these are compatible with the Gospel. The term 'incultura­ tion' includes the notion of growth, of the mutual enrichment of  persons and groups, rendered possible by the encounter of the gospel with a social milieu (Scherer and Bevans, 1992: 156). The statement continues with a quotation from Pope John Paul H's 1985 encyclical Slavorum Apostoli: 'lnculturation is the incarnation of the Gospel in the hereditary cultures, and at the same time, the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church' (ibid.).8 This latter definition may hint at what Bishop Joseph Blomjou (in 1980) termed 'intercultura­ tion', the recognition that inculturation is not a one-way process, and that the Christian faith, or the particular form of it transmitted to a given culture, will itself undergo transformation (Shorter, 1988; 13). In practice, however, Pope John Paul II appears excessively wary of African cultures and doubtful of their ability to embody the Christian faith, let alone make a genuine contribution in their own right to Western or universal Christianity. The statement above was in fact made with ref­ erence to the Pope's own Slavonic culture and its christianisation by Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. In Nairobi in 1985,John Paul II referred to the 'theological culture' and 'theological patrimony' of the Universal Church in which African's bishops and theologians must be solidly grounded (Shorter, 1988: 234). Whilst a knowledge of the contexts in which Christianity developed would be accepted by many African and other non-western Christians as desirous, the Pope seemed to infer that it was precisely this European, rather than African, cultural basis which was to form the benchmark of any authentic expression of Christianity. The process of inculturation, like that of liberation theology in South America, is apparently full of dangers and in need of close monitoring by those in authority.9 It is no secret that Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former 'Holy Office'), has little time for African cultures, preferring to stress what he calls 'the universal signifi­ cance of Christian thought as it has evolved in the West'10 (Shorter, 1988: 237). At the very least there is a tension in current Roman Catholic thinking, as represented in official Vatican statements, between a desire to see Christianity take root in non-western cultures and a lack of trust in those required to incarnate this process in the local churches. Recent ecumenical statements from the World Council of Churches go much further than their Roman Catholic counterparts in stressing the mutuality of the missionary enterprise, although the term inculturation is seldom used. These ecumenical documents do not have the same authority or status as encyclical letters, being merely recommendations from assemblies to member churches, many of whom might legitimately  disagree with the approach taken. Nevertheless, the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Canberra in 1991, stated that: The gospel of Jesus Christ must become incarnate in every culture. When Christianity enters any culture there is a mutual encounter, involving both the critique of culture by the gospel and the possibility of the culture questioning our understanding of the gospel. Some of the ways in which the gospel has been imposed in particular cultures calls for repentance and healing. In each case we need to ask: Is the church creating tension or promoting reconciliation?11 (Scherer&: Bevans, 1992: 87). All of these official statements betray a basic hermeneutical weakness. There is an assumption that notions such as 'the Christian faith', 'the universal patrimony of the Church', 'the gospel', or 'scripture', are self­ evident as categories or concepts, and somehow stand in a distinct relation to another category, that of culture. This is sometimes referred to as the 'kernel and husk' approach to Christianity. '[T]he basic Christian revelation is the kernel; the previous cultural settings in which it has been incarnated constitute the husk. The kernel has to be hulled time and again, as it were, to allow it to be translated into new cultural contexts' (Shreiter, 1985: 7). Whether any particular attempt at translation is regarded as valid is judged by the Western or mission-sending church, rather than by local Christian communities or an indigenous hierarchy. An experiment by ·two Roman Catholic bishops in northern Cameroon and Chad, for instance, in which millet bread and millet beer, the staple food and drink of the region, were used to replace unleavened wheat bread and fermented grape wine for the Eucharist, was brought to an end by the Vatican's instruction Inaestimabile Donum (Shorter, 1988: 65). In Zimbabwe a post Vatican II experiment which sought to incorporate a traditional ceremony aimed at bringing home the spirit of a dead person into the Roman Catholic liturgy came under attack (Hastings, 1989: 33). A ritual is part of a whole complex of beliefs and practices, in the Zimbabwean instance these involve notions of spirit possession, which could be regarded as inimical to Christianity. Wherever and whenever different religious systems meet elements can be and often are transposed from one system to another. Familiar rites and holy sites are given new meanings and associations, but the process is unpredictable and not easily controlled. To give just one example, it is difficult or impossible for mission churches in Africa to dictate which aspects of healing might be regarded as Christian, or as capable of being christianised, and which aspects converts are required to reject as pagan. Notions of sickness and health are inseparable in most instances from witchcraft beliefs, which the  mission churches have largely denounced as satanic or rejected as super­ stitious. The main problem with the kernel and husk approach, however, is that there is no clearly definable inner essence of Christianity separate from the culture in which it is incarnated. As David Bosch, in his seminal work on missions, puts it, 'Our views are always interpretations of what we consider to be divine revelation, not divine revelation itselP (1991: 182). These interpretations will be affected by personal and cultural circumstances, as well as by the historical period and geographical context in which they take place. Bosch continues, 'It is an illusion to believe that we can penetrate to a pure gospel unaffected by any cultural or other human accretions' (ibid.) and he therefore prefers to talk about 'theologies' in the plural, rather than a single theology. Answering the charge of a post­ modernist slide into total relativism, Bosch counters that one should not think in terms of mutually exclusive categories of 'absolute' and 'relative', and that although all theologies are partial and socially and culturally biased, it does not therefore follow that 'anything goes'. 'It is true that we see only in part, but we do see' (ibid: 186). This leads, he claims, to a creative tension between ultimate faith and commitment and personal theological perceptions, in which the whole church should learn to operate as an 'international hermeneutical community' (ibid: 197). Adrian Hastings has pointed to a shift in popular emphasis from African theology, which is concerned with questions of culture, and in the context of which the question of inculturation is usually raised, to Black theology, which owes more to the liberation theology of South America and the Black civil rights movement of the United States, which prioritises social justice. He warns against too self-conscious a preoccupation with ques­ tions of culture, which can become something of an indulgence when it distracts Christians from issues of human rights and from the economic and political issues which affect people's everyday lives. The crucial issue today is that of gospel and justice rather than that of gospel and culture ... Perhaps it is a sign of an unhealthy culture and an unhealthy church to be too culture-conscious ... A culture today, I would suggest, is a justice-conscious culture; an unhealthy culture is a culture conscious culture (Hastings, 1989: 35). In the face of the enormous economic, political and social challenges facing most countries in Africa today it is difficult to argue with this. South African theologians have been at the forefront of Black theological thinking in Africa, and their concerns help to protect the church from  seeing culture as a static entity- a 'tradition' or set of traditions which need to be preserved. Cultures are dynamic, multifarious and multifaceted and are under continual reconstruction. Colonial or pre-colonial customs no more represent authentic 'African culture' than the Latin mass or 1662 Prayer Book represent the true, unchanging, liturgical tradition of the Western Church. What is at issue is the kind of culture, the nature of the traditions which individuals and societies wish to construct, and the values that underpin them. These will draw on the past but must answer to present concerns. The importance of individual agency and choice and of particular historical and cultural events in determining the way the Christian message has been received is evident when the dynamics of actual exchanges are examined. The notion that culture can be taken as a monolithic 'given' becomes untenable. CULTURE AND AGENCY Recent studies of the dynamics of conversion, or resistance to conversion, have emphasised the importance of cultural fit. Some aspects or aspects of the new religion need to resonate with, or be capable of adaptation to, existing beliefs and social patterns.12 Fast (1993), in an article on the nineteenth century Wesleyan mission in Xhosaland (South Africa) explores Xhosa resistance to the Wesleyan message, in particular Xhosa lack of understanding of the missionaries' concept of an all-powerful yet personal God and their emphasis on sin, salvation and the non-material aspects of faith: 'The missionary solution for all problems was spiritual, whereas, for the Xhosa, salvation meant prosperity and happiness in this life' (Fast, 1993: 155). The Wesleyan message was seen as largely irrelevant to the Xhosa as a people. A marked readiness among converts to pray spontaneously and alone was therefore interpreted by the Wesleyan missionaries as the action of divine grace rather than the result of a natural inclination. Fast, however, attributes Xhosa piety to the influence of two Xhosa prophets who had preached an indigenous for of Christianity a decade prior to the coming of the Wesleyan mission. They had emphasised prayer as a means of establishing correct social relations, and those recruited by the Wesleyans were largely their former converts. Another study which highlights the role of individual personalities and their choices in determining the way elements of traditional cultures and Christianity interact is Gulbrandsen's account of the Tswana (1993). In the north-western Tswana kingdoms the rulers 'not only facilitated Christian expansion', but also 'allowed themselves to be baptized in public and transformed or abandoned several important national rituals in which they  had previously been the principal figure' (Gulbrandsen, 1993: 44). These rulers were equally ready to abandon social practices deemed 'savage' by the missionaries, and to take leading roles in missionary churches, 'attempting to attach them to the royal court as a kind of state church' (ibid.). Gulbrandsen argues that, 'precisely because Tswana 'religion' was an intrinsic aspect of the polity, there were many ways by which the spiritual force of kingship could be reproduced, even if some of its ritual externalizations were transformed in order to satisfy the missionary dichotomization' (ibid.: 45). The Tswana rulers judged that Christianity could be used to serve rather than undermine traditional cultural and religious mores.13 Birgit Meyer, in her study of Bible translation in the Ewe mission in Ghana, also emphasises the need to see African Christians as 'active agents in historical processes' (1994: 45). The Protestant missionaries of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) selected one deity, Mawu, from the Ewe pantheon to translate the term 'God'. The remaining deities were collectively associated with 'the Devil' or 'Satan'. The term Mawu retains for the Ewe the sense of a spiritual being both within the reach of human beings and simultaneously distant from them. The failure of the Christian notion of 'God' to displace traditional Ewe concepts of Mawu, is evidence, Meyer argues, in the secret nocturnal consultation of tro priests by Christians, when prayers and church-going fail to yield results. The term chosen by the Bible translators for 'the Devil' was Abosam, an Akan word, cognate with the Ewe Sasabosam, a bush monster associated with witchcraft and hostile to human beings, especially priests. The Ewe made a strong connection between the feared evil power of witchcraft and the Devil. Members of the EPC in Ewe, including many pastors, conceive of witches as agents of Satan, while the missionaries dismissed witchcraft as pagan superstition, a heathen survival that could be expected to die out with the coming of the gospel.14 An unintended consequence of the Bible translation was the reinforcing of the link between Christianity and witchcraft. Meyer quotes a female member of the EPC, who stated (in 1989) that, 'If you are a good Christian, you must believe in the existence of Satan. And if you believe in Satan, you must believe in witchcraft. And when a person behaves abnormally, he is an agent of Satan, a "witch"' (1994: 58). These studies all, in different ways, highlight the unpredictability of the indigenous response of African converts to Christianity, depending as it does on a variety of political, religious, linguistic and other social factors. 15 The example of the Kingdom of Kongo allows us to look not only at an African reaction to mission teaching, but reflexively at the dynamics of  power within the central organs of the Roman Catholic Church, and at the shift from a pre to a post-Tridentine understanding of mission. THE KINGDOM OF KONGO: EXPERIMENTS IN INCULTURATION AND OFFICIAL RESPONSES The Kongo Kingdom to the south of the Congo River, in what is now Angola was missionized by secular Portuguese priests in 1491, and direct political contacts between the people of Kongo and Portugal were estab­ lished. The Kongo royal family were the most important early converts in terms of their subsequent Christian influence, and a son of Nzinga Nkuwu the King of Kongo, Afonso Mvemba Nzinga, also known as Don Henrique, received training for the priesthood in Portugal, being elevated to a bishopric in 1518. The Christian Kingdom of Kongo even gave birth to what is said to be the earliest recorded example of an African-Christian new religious movement. Between 1704 and 1706 a young Kongo woman, Dona Beatrice (Kimpa Vita), who believed herself to be a reincarnation of Saint Anthony, started a group known as the Antonians (Hackett, 1995: 262). The received understanding within the Roman Catholic Church was, however, that the Kongo church disappeared in a morass of syncretism, resisting subsequent attempts at evangelisation, so that Central Africa (which was also being ravaged by the slave trade) had effectively to be re­ evangelised in the nineteenth century by Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries from Europe. Recent re-evaluation of the Kongo church contests this version of events.16 It was not Kongo Christianity that declined (although this may also have happened) but Western Roman Catholic understandings of the nature of the Christian Church, particularly regarding centralisation and authority, which had undergone a considerable transformation since the fifteenth century. The Church, in effect, moved the goal posts. When the Portuguese first arrived in Central Africa the Council of Trent (1545-63) was still in the future and medieval Catholicism was more tolerant of variety than the post-Tridentine Church which, in reaction to the Protes­ tant Reformation, aimed at standardisation and centralisation. The Kongo Christians were initially free to retain many aspects of their traditional culture (including religious practices), and just as importantly, to develop an indigenous clergy and a high degree of autonomy. At the same time they considered themselves to be, and were regarded by the Western Catholic hierarchy, authentically Christian. Kongo Christianity was re­ garded as a valid part of the universal Catholic Church. Given their earlier experience of self-rule the Kongo Church resisted subsequent efforts to  induce them to submit to the authority ofJesuit or Capuchin priests, or to westernise their church. Despite this rejection of European attempts to impose a greater uniformity upon their church, the Kongo Christians struggled for some centuries to maintain contact with Rome, but met with official refusal to ordain Kongo Christians or to offer any outside pastoral sustenance. Instead of regarding the faith and practices of the Kongolese Church as an indigenous authentic expression of Christianity, akin perhaps to the Coptic Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, later missionaries and church historians regarded the conversion of the Kongo as evidence of a failed mission experiment which led to dangerous syncretism, and which blocked the path of subsequent missionary efforts. Aylward Shorter, reflecting on the crucial factor of timing, expresses the opinion that: The tragedy of the Catholic Counter-Reformation was that this sweep­ ing standardization of the Church coincided with the discovery of new continents and cultures. At the very moment when a rigid uniformity was being imposed on the Church in every department of the Christian life, explorers and navigators were discovering and colonizing the Americas, the West Indies, the coasts of Africa and the East Indies, and missionaries were either accompanying them or following in their wake (1988: 153-4). The Council of Trent made no distinction between faith and culture, seeing its own interpretation of Christianity as universal and ahistorical. Priestly training was standardised and Latinised, greatly increasing the gap between priest and people, in the West as well as in the newer mission fields, and the Cl;turch became identified with the colonial powers, despite occasional heroic efforts by some missionaries to mitigate the worst effects of European greed and Catholic zeal. One might mention, for instance, the Jesuit Bartholome gg_,las Casas who struggled to protect the Indians of 1 Central America from Spanish atrocities. It is in the context of anti­ Protestant, post-Tridentine (and imperialistic) thinking that official re­ sponses to the Church of the Kongo, and other early experiments in what might now be termed inculturation need to be viewed.17 The need to enter the mentality and embrace some of the customs of a missionized culture, where they did not seem to contradict Christian principles, was evident to many early missionaries, but an indigenising theology of mission came into conflict with the more centralising, Europeanising tendencies. In sixteenth century Japan Jesuit missionaries adopted Japanese costume, houses, social etiquette and other customs.18 Matteo Ricci and his successors in China carried their experiment of  indigenisation much further. By taking on the persona of first a Buddhist monk, and then a Confucian scholar, and by entering into an informed dialogue with Chinese culture, Ricci and his colleagues were able to gain access to the highest ranks of Chinese society. All that was not judged to be inimical to Christianity was accepted, including certain ancestral funeral rites, the appelation 'Lord of Heaven' to the Christian God and, in 1603, the celebration of the cult of Confucius. In subsequent discus­ sions and conflicts Ricci's experiment came to be known as the 'Chinese Rites Controversy'. Ricci's contemporary, Robert de Nobili at Madurai in southern India, adopted the guide of a Brahmin holy man in order to penetrate Hinduism. Both these and other attempts to evangelise from within a culture were, despite their success in terms of external results, eventually discouraged or expressly forbidden by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and revoked by later seventeenth century missionaries (although to some extent vindicated by the thinking of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s).19 A second type of evangelisation was through native converts, rather than Western missionaries, as was the case in the early Christian Kingdom of Kongo. In the sixteenth century in French Indo-China (Vietnam) a mission strategy based on native lay evangelists was created by Alexander de Rhodes. Although initially necessitated by the expulsion of Western missionaries, the strategy proved successful and was subsequently adopted by the Foreign Mission Society of Paris, and in the nineteenth and twen­ tieth century evolved into the system of mission stations dependent upon lay catechists on which Roman Catholic expansion in Africa came to depend (Beaver, 1992). So e catechists became national heroes (within the Roman Catholic Church), such as the Cameroonian Andreas Mbange (baptised in 1889) who, together with the other native catechists and teachers, continued to maintain a Catholic presence in Cameroon after the expulsion of German missionaries in 1916 (Mveng, 1990: 22,39). Mbangue was unusual in having received training, particularly training abroad. Most catechists and teachers had minimal education and combined considerable autonomy in their work for the church with relative ignor­ ance of the Christian faith and dependence upon the mission priests who employed them. The relative independence of Roman Catholic missionary orders and organisations was unacceptable to a centralising church, resulting in Pope Gregory XV's foundation of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) in 1662. Richard Grey, in his summary of the relationship between Propaganda and the missionary orders in Africa  The lnculturation Debate in Africa 79 concludes that: 'The ultimate check on the powers of missionary societies depended . . . on the emergence of an African priesthood from which eventually could be recruited African hierarchies in direct relation with Rome' (1990: 161). This African hierarchy, however, needs to be seen in terms of the Eurocentric model of priestly training and Christian culture which removed and alienated potential priests from their own environ­ ment. That a reconnection with the roots of African cultural and religious values can still be seen as threatening, rather than positive, is evidenced in the well-known case of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, former primate of Lusaka in Zambia (Milingo, 1984; Hastings, 1989; Ter Haar, 1992). From the time of his election to the see of Lusaka in 1969, Milingo was intent on introducing African elements into what he perceived to be an inappro­ priately westernised church. The trouble really started when in 1973 he discovered that he had a gift for healing people possessed by evil spirits. The incident that precipitated this discovery involved a woman who came to him in distress, claiming to hear voices and in fear of her child whom she considered to be some inhuman creature in human form. Milingo heard the women's confession and celebrated mass with her, but the voices continued to trouble her. He describes what happened next in the following terms: I contemplated various ways of helping the woman when suddenly an idea glowed in my mind, 'look three times intently into her eyes and ask her to look three times into yours. Tell her to close her eyes the third time and order her to sleep. Then speak to her soul after signing her with the cross'. I carried out this instruction system­ atically. The woman was overshadowed by the power of the Lord. She relaxed calmly and so I was able to reach her soul. I prayed as much as I could, then I woke her up. We both did not know what had happened to us (Ter Haar, 1992: 13-14). Milingo subsequently interpreted this experience in terms of the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the evil forces, which had taken possession of the woman. Her sickness, known to the people as mashawe, a common type of spirit possession in Zambia, is seen as the cause of many physical, psychological and spiritual ills, and is not treatable with Western medi­ cine. Milingo, with his long years of seminary training, was not particu­ larly familiar with traditional concepts such as spirit possession, but had no difficulty in finding scriptural parallels to his experience. He began to take Jesus' command to go out and heal the sick at face value, and made a public announcement of his healing ministry attracted large crowds.  While many Protestant and evangelical or charismatic Christians see life as a continual cosmic battle between good and evil, with the world locked in the sway of evil powers, challenged by Christian 'soldiers' equipped to do battle, such views are less popular in post Vatican II Roman Catholicism.20 Contact with the charismatic movement in the West convinced Milingo that it was not just Zambians, but people everywhere, who are in the grip of demonic forces, and that the church is failing to address the urgent task of social and individual healing which confronts it. Milingo's healing ministry evoked considerable hostility in Zambia, both within and outside the Roman Catholic Church, and was viewed by many, particularly expatriate missionaries, as dangerously syncretic. In 1982 Archbishop Milingo was summoned to Rome and in 1983 officially removed from the see of Lusaka. However, under the personal protection of Pope John Paul II, Milingo has continued to exercise his ministry to growing numbers in Italy, demon­ strating the widespread popular appeal of such 'unfashionable' views. To label a practice 'syncretic' in Catholic circles is to dismiss or inval­ idate it. There are parallels between Milingo's healing ministry in Zambia (and in Italy) and the situation of the Zionist churches in South Africa which derive from a Protestant bible-centred tradition. In both cases the so-called syncretic features which emerged regarded healing and exorcism. In both instance the power for that healing ministry is said to derive not from traditional sources, but from the action of the Holy Spirit within the church. Kiernan (1994: 74), writing of Zulu Zionist churches, points out that, 'The synthesis ... emanated from a missionary innovation, clearly at odds with the prevailing religious ethos of established or mission Christianity, yet the emphasis on divine healing remains firmly within the broad parameters of Christian tradition.' Traditional elements of ritual or cultural understandings may be added or form part of such healing ministries, but to label them syncretic, if the term is used pejoratively, can disguise the essentially Christian character of Milingo's experience, and of the activities of many African Independent Churches. In the last section of this article I move from an exposition of discourses of inculturation, and from an examination of various explicit and implicit attempts to inculturate Christianity in a mission setting, to a specific example from Cameroon. It is in the context of the local church that the dynamics of inculturation can be seen to operate on the ground, and it is only in the local church that various missionary models of church can be explored and realised or aborted. The mission paradigms worked out in the West interact with and are inevitably altered through their contact with African cultures, and by the responses of individual actors. One major  The Inculturation Debate in Africa 81 'problem' seldom highlighted, but central to any mission situation, is that of authority. Who decides just who and what constitutes the local church? Who are the people receiving and supposedly inculturating the gospel? How, and with what tools and methods, is this task to be achieved? In order to illustrate some definitional difficulties I will draw on an example of mission praxis taken from my fieldwork among the Bangwa in Fontem Division (South West Province, Cameroon), carried out primarily from 1980-81 (with a return visit in 1995). 21 BAPTISED PAGANS AND PAGAN CHRISTIANS Following the defeat of German troops and the expulsion of German­ speaking missionaries in 1916, Cameroon was administered under League of Nations Mandate by the French in East Cameroon and by the British, in West Cameroon. The latter was linked for purposes of administration to the eastern Enugu Province of Nigeria. Comity agreements parcelled out territory to different Christian denominations, the Bangwa area, in anglo­ phone West Cameroon, falling under Roman Catholic influence. The Society of Saint Joseph, based at Mill Hill in North London, gradually established bases inland from their coastal headquarters at Soppo on Buea Mountain, opening an outstation at Mbetta, among the Mbo, the Bangwa's southern neighbours, in 1936. Mbetta usually had two priests22 who would take it in turns to trek to surrounding villages to baptise children and adult catechumens, say mass, preach and hear confessions. The people who spearheaded the Christian advance were the catechists, often baptised on the coast when working on the plantations established by the Germans, who then returned to their native villages. For a nominal sum, and usually with very little training, the catechists (who were always men, but often supported by their wives who acted in effect as unpaid catechists) were responsible for the upkeep of a chapel, for leading services and for giving instruction in Christian doctrine. In many cases where there was no separate teacher the catechist also taught elementary literacy to children, primarily boys, in a church primary school. Catechists were expected to trek to their central mission station on the first Friday of each month to give a report, receive their stipend, and be given a little training - a practice that still continues today.23 Bangwa Christians depended on occasional visits from the priests based at Mbetta and local catechists until the first permanent mission was established on Bangwa territory in 1965. The Bangwa mission in Fontem (in Lebang village) is run by the Focolare Movement, and consists of a hospital, secondary school, parish church and various workshops. There  are two parishes in the Bangwa area, at Menji and at Fonjumetaw, and between them the priests cover the scattered outstations throughout the Division. The Focolare mission is untypical as the Movement is primarily lay, and does not see itself as a missionary organisation. The foundress, Chiara Lubich, was invited by the former bishop of Buea, Mgr Jules Peeters MHM, to open a mission in his diocese, when he visited Rome at the time of the Second Vatican Council.24 The examples given below illustrate the difficulties involved in defining the success or failure of the missionary enterprise, the problematic nature of attempts to decide who is to be defined as a Christian and what constitutes Christian behaviour. The term 'baptised pagan' is used by Cameroonian Christians to refer to those who have been baptised, often as children in mission schools, who show little interest in the church (Protestant or Catholic) and who certainly do not obey church rules. They may be former teachers of Catholic schools who marry a second wife when their school is taken over by the government and adherence to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church is no longer a condition of employment. They include the many young men who have been baptised but who, despite promises to marry in church, fail to follow up the traditional marriage with a church wedding (thereby maintaining the option of a polygynous marriage at a later date). Whether this indicates a superficial and instrumental view of Christianity, or points to the inappropriateness of Western social regulations and church teaching in a polygynous society is open to debate. 'Pagan Christians', on the other hand, are those people who are often the pillars of the local church, its office holders and animators, but who are ineligible for baptism. They may be women who were betrothed as infants or as primary school girls as a second or subsequent wife of a chief or notable, or a man who is named as his father's successor, inheriting his titles, ceremonial duties and widows. In a new mission outstation the first catechumens will almost certainly be men or women in polygynous marriages who, despite holding offices in the church, cannot be baptised. These pagan Christians fill the pews each Sunday, and often commit their time and energy to the evangelisation of their neighbours, actively supporting the church in a number of ways. They will not, however, appear in a census of Christians or be included in the annual collation of church statistics, based on baptisms, marriages, and communicants. A third and quite substantial category of 'hidden Christians' or Christian sympathisers are those who have been baptised and who continue to take an interest in church affairs, but who are permanently excommunicated. Chief Fobellah Nkeng, a sub-chief of Lebang village with a compound and  The Inculturation Debate in Africa 83 land at Belleh, adjoining the Focolare mission in Fontem, is an example of one such 'hidden' Christian.25 Chief Fobellah attended one of the first primary schools established in the area in the 1920s, an experiment which was later abandoned due to the hostility of the traditionalist grandfather of the current Fon of Fontem, Fontem Asonganyi, who was Bangwa para­ mount chief from 1885- 1951.26 Like most children who attend mission schools, Fobellah Nkeng was baptised and, unusually, for the time, went on to receive some secondary school training at Sasse College, a Roman Catholic school in Buea, where the Roman Catholic mission headquarters on the coast is situated. In 1924 Fobellah was named as his father's successor and returned to Bellah palace compound to take up his new duties, which included making sacrifices on behalf of his patrilineal kin group, 'feeding' the ancestral skulls, and taking responsibility for his father's widows. Although nominally husband to his mother and her co­ wives, this did not necessarily imply the establishment of conjugal rights. Among the Bangwa older widows must be supported, but often choose to live with grown-up children away from their husband's compound. Younger widows can be given in marriage to retainers and kin, or taken as wives by the new chief. In addition to inheriting his father's widows, Fobellah married over twenty wives of his own over a period of some sixty years.27 In 1995 Fobellah's compound was still full of young children, those of younger wives, as well as nephews, nieces and grandchildren.28 As a baptised Catholic, who is also a polygynist, Fobellah is barred from receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church, but he remains a staunch supporter of the mission and gives a warm welcome to his many Focolare friends who work in Fontem. Fobellah insists that he had determined on becoming a priest when he received news that he had succeeded his father, but sees no contradiction between polygyny and Christianity. Like other 'Christian polygynists', Chief Fobellah argues that it is better to have many wives and children, who can in tum swell the churches, than to remain monogamous with few children. All Fobellah's children are baptised (although many are themselves in polygynous marriages). Several of his wives attend church, and many of his children and grandchildren have been through Catholic primary and secondary schools. According to Catholic practice, only the first wife of a polygynist is eligible for baptism, although others may receive what is known as the 'baptism of desire'. Their intention to live as a Christian is recognised, and it is held that they will receive the merits of baptism despite their exclusion from the sacramental life of the church and their invisibility in the official church statistics.29 Deciding who is a first wife is not always  straightforward. Mr Robinson, a Bangwa man who has worked for many years for the Focolare mission in Fontem, has two wives, both of whom wanted to become Christians. Mr Robinson had been betrothed to one of these women, Teresia, while she was still young and completed bride­ wealth payments for her before she was old enough to live with him. In the intervening period Mr Robinson married a slightly older woman, Anastasia. Both women attended doctrine classes in the Roman Catholic parish, but when the time came to be baptised they had to decide which of the two women was the first wife and therefore eligible to become a Christian. After some 'palaver' it was decided that the younger of the two women, Teresia, who had been betrothed first, was to be regarded as the first wife and could be baptised. Polygyny is one of the main reasons for the discrepancy between the number of those baptised and those admitted to full church membership. It renders invisible those who, like Anastasia, would become Christians if canon law or church practice permitted (cf. Hastings, 1973). Polygyny is common among second generation Christians, and there is discussion within the churches in Africa as to whether this constitutes apostasy and superficiality or a process of inculturation. E.K. Ekechi has argued that: To the missions, the return to multiple marriage by the converts was not only sad but signified that Christianity had made no appreciable impact upon the individuals involved. From the viewpoint of the Africans, however, the move was certainly a reaction against Eur­ opean acculturation. In looking at the so-called backsliding of the converts, it is more useful to look at it from the perspective of indigenizing Christianity rather than echoing the mission cliche that the African was inherently incapable of conforming to the teachings of Christianity (1970: 337). Protestant churches in Cameroon, the most prominent among them being the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon, various Baptist churches and the Evangelical 'Full Gospel', are generally more lenient in matters concerning the baptism of polygynists. Wives of polygynists are admitted to church membership, and in some cases a man who already had more than one wife before he 'came to know the Lord' will be baptised on condition that he shows repentance and declines to take any further wives. Asonganyi's successor as Fon of Fontem, Fontem Defang (c. 1900-1982), supported the Catholic mission, and had apparently been baptised as a child,30 but he attended the local Full Gospel church (considered a 'sect' by the Roman Catholic mission) near his palace at Azi, together with several of his wives.  He also received the last rites from the Catholic Church before his death and was baptised, or re-baptised, into that church. Convenience, tact, expediency and a desire to take advantage of any supernatural benefits accruing all seem to play a part in church allegiance. Only some African Independent Churches, which are common in neighbouring Nigeria but which have made little inroad in Cameroon, accept polygyny as consonant with Christian teaching. CONCLUSION The current Roman Catholic discourse on inculturation reflects a Post Vatican II recognition that the Christian Church now has its centre of gravity, numerically, if not administratively, outside Europe. A genuine desire to see Christianity take on the shape and flavour of local cultures is accompanied by anxiety on the part of the hierarchy concerning authority and orthodoxy. There are continual impassioned pleas from around the world for the Vatican to trust local churches. At the 1998 Synod for Asia meeting in the Vatican, for example, the Franciscan Bishop of Naha in Japan, Berard Toshio Oshikawa argued that despite 'frequent exhortations to root the Gospel in local cultures 'the norm for Christian life, for church discipline, for liturgical expression and theological orthodoxy continues to be that of the Western Church' (The Tablet, 2 May 1998: 565). At the same synod Bishop Francis Claver SJ from the Philippines stressed bishops' suspicion of the laity, the people entrusted with the task of bring­ ing together faith and culture. In relation to liturgical language, for example, the bishop asks, 'Why do we have to send vernacular translations of the liturgy to Rome for approval?' implying as it does that the people are not trusted to speak the language of orthodoxy. The need for 'internal dialogue' in the Church is stressed 'if the inculturation process is to be successful' (ibid.). Similar criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church's westernised agenda, which often appears imperialistic and insensitive to local conditions, are frequently voiced by theologians and church leaders in other parts of the world. These comments make clear the political dimension of any discussion of inculturation. It is not just a question of 'drawing out the seeds of the gospel' to be found in non-western cultures, but above all a question of authority and interpretation. The historical and contemporary examples given in this article are intended to illustrate some of the cultural and political complexities of the conversion process, and to illustrate the cultural adaptation of Christianity in various settings. The term 'syncret­ ism' has been used pejoratively by Christians, but a greater appreciation of  the syncretic nature of all religions could lead to a more fruitful examina­ tion of the dynamics of religious synthesis. The Cameroonian case studies make the further point that even deciding who is and who is not a Christian is problematic in many cases. Local churches are made up of a variety of people with degrees of adherence to traditional religion and culture, and different attitudes to mission (or other forms) of Christianity. A simplistic dualism that opposes paganism and Christianity has little heuristic or epistemological validity. Individual Christians are active agents in interpreting and practising their faith within changing social and cultural contexts. Whether they do this from within the Roman Catholic or other mission churches, or as members of Independent African Churches, may well depend upon the extent to which the Vatican and other ruling bodies are able to respond to the experience of local believers. The success or otherwise of the current Roman Catholic project on inculturation will rest on two key pillars - an understanding of the socially and historically contingent nature of western Christianity, and a will­ ingness to embrace local variation. The latter implies a paradigm shift in thinking, with decentralisation of power and an optimistic attitude to the workings of the Holy Spirit in the people of God. The tension, which may or may not be creative, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy will, of course, continue to be played out by the hierarchy and lay Christians everywhere. Fiona Bowie is senior lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Wales at Lampeter. NOTES An early version of this article was presented at the Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists in Oxford, July 1993, in the Associate Section on Christianities Outside Europe, convened byJohn Peel. I am grateful toJohn Peel and to the other participants for their discussion and comments. Cf. Shorter (1994) on the comments of African Christian theologians and other intellectuals meeting in Nairobi, including their vehement defence of African culture and African traditional religions. 3. Cf. Pato, 1990: 25-6. The family is a frequent theme in Pope John Paul H's Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, which was issued following the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops in 1994. On pages 44-5, for instance, we read, 'In African culture and tradition the role of the family is everywhere held to be fundamental. Open to this sense of family, of love and respect for life, the African loves children, who are joyfully welcomed as gifts of God.  "The sons and daughters of Africa love life. It is precisely this love for life which leads them to give such great importance to the veneration of their ancestors. They believe intuitively that the dead continue to live and remain in communion with them. Is this not in some way a preparation for belief in the Communion of Saints? The peoples of Africa respect the life which is conceived and born. They rejoice in this life. They reject the idea that it can be destroyed, even when the so-called progressive civilizations would like to lead them in this direction. And practices hostile to life are imposed on them by means of economic systems which serve the selfishness of the rich". Africans show their respect for human life until its natural end, and keep elderly parents and relatives within the family.' Similarly, on page 65, 'The Synod Fathers acknowledged [the Church as God Family] as an expression of the Church's nature particularly appropriate for Africa. For this image emphasizes care for other, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust'; and on page 88, 'In Africa, in particular, the family is the foundation on which the social edifice is built. This is why the Synod considered the evangelization of the African family a major priority, if the family is to assume in its own tum the role of active subject in view of the evangelization of families through families'. The valorisation of the African family is tempered (one might say contradicted) by the statement that 'The Synod deplored those African customs and practices 'which deprive women of their rights and the respect due to them' and asked the Church on the Continent to make every effort to foster the safeguarding of these rights' (p.89). The idealised nature of the Pope's view of an intrinsic African respect for life can by illustrated by the irony that while the Opening Mass of the Special Assembly for Africa was taking place (10 April 1994) Hutus in Rwanda, with the involvement of the local Roman Catholic clergy, were slaughtering Tutsis who had been encouraged to take refuge in a church 'Chaplains to the killers', Amelia French, The Tablet, 2 May 1998: 573-4). Cf. Bowie, 1993 for a description of attempts by the Mill Hill Missionaries to reform the African family in the Mbetta area of South West Province, Cameroon and Booth, 1994, for a comprehensive account of the Mill Hill Fathers in West Cameroon. See also Peel 1968. Paragraph 67 (pages 69-70) of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa deals with the Roman Catholic Church's attitude to traditional religion. It states that: 'With regard to African traditional religion, a serene and prudent dialogue will be able, on the one hand, to protect Catholics from negative influences which condition the way of life of many of them and, on the other hand, to foster the assimilation of positive values such as belief in a Supteme Being who is Eternal, Creator, Provident and Just Judge, values which are readily harmonized with the content of the faith. They can even be seen as a preparation for the Gospel, because they contain precious semina Verbi which can lead, as already happened in the past, a great number of people "to be open to the fullness of Revelation in Jesus Christ through the proclamation of the Gospel"'. Cf. Luzbetak, 1988. For an enthusiastic account of John Paul II's writings on inculturation see Udoidem, 1996. It is also true that the Roman Catholic Church is wary of the influence of secular culture in the West, as evidenced in the Modernist debate and since. Ratzinger, J. (with Messori, V.) 1985. Cardinal Ratzinger would, perhaps, have approved of the Bachelor of Philosophy dissertations currently produced by Roman Catholic seminarians at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary of Bambui in Cameroon. In keeping with their eponymous patron, the seminarians measure aspects  of their own traditions (from which some are distanced by one or more generations of urban life outside their 'home' area) against the yardstick provided by Aristotelian and Thomistic thought (and fmd the former wanting). The intellectual training necessary to produce a generation of Roman Catholic theologians versed in their own culture and traditions, confident of their values, and able to reflect upon their Christian faith in the light of these traditions, appears to be wanting. Cf. Richard Gray's description of African priestly training in the early years of the twentieth century: 'Cut off for almost ten years from their families, forbidden to speak their vernacular languages, provided with Cicero as recreational reading, regularly required to pass the standard examinations, few among the seminarians survived to take up their career of life-long celibacy' (1990: 162). The Lausanne Covenant, Lausanne (1994). That some participants at Canberra found the practice of inculturation rather harder than the rhetoric is evidenced by the controversy surrounding Korean feminist theologian, Chung Hyun Kyung's opening dance. The performance of a Christian theology that incorporated shamanistic, Buddhist and Australian Aboriginal themes was denounced assyncretic (i.e. non-Christian) bysome of the delegates. See, for instance, Marshall W. Murphree's study of Christianity among the Shona (1969, Wendy James' account of the Ukuk of the Sudan/Ethiopian border region (1988), and the wide-ranging studies of conversion and cultural adaptation in Hefner (1993). I am not suggesting that individual converts were not sincere in their adoption of Christianity, but conversion never takes place in a vacuum, and religion is as much about economics and politics and social structures as it is about personal piety. Indeed, personal religious sensibilities are embedded in wider social and cultural formations. We can see a parallel between the attitude of the EPC missionaries and the churchmen of early medieval Europe. Village witchcraft or malefice was dismissed by the Church as fantasy (and consequently witches could not be persecuted). In the later middle ages and early modem period witchcraft became fused with notions of heresy and Devil worship, and witches (mainly women) were recast as agents of Satan. The unintentional linking of witchcraft and the Devil took place among the Ewe as a direct consequence of Bible translation. (For an interesting collection of essays on early European witchcraft which stresses the elite dimension of the Devil-worshippingwitch stereotype see Ankarloo and Henningsen, 1993). See also Beidleman's (1982) study of the Kaguru response to CMS (Anglican) missionaries in East Africa, John Peel's comments on the value of archival material in drawing out the role of individual reactions to Christianity (1996), and Stephen Neill's comments on the inappropriate translation of Christian terms in toJapanese, which caused unforeseen difficulties for the missionaries (1964: 15 ). 16. See Thornton, 1984; Shorter, 1988: 145-8; Baur, 1994: 55-73. Christian self-image and praxis in the West must also be seen, at least in part, as a response to Islam. The sixteenth century saw Ottoman rule extend to new areas of Europe, coinciding with European Christian expansion overseas and increased centralisation at home. The European expansion was motivated by, among more economic considerations, a desire to claim new territories for Christ, rather than leave them to fall into Muslim hands. There was the search for the legendary Prester John in the East, stemming from memories of Christian communities to the East of the Muslim world. The most famous missionary to sixteenth century Japan was Francis Xavier, who maintained a considerable respect for the Japanese despite the mission's lack of outward success (Neill, 1964: 145-162).  The Danish Halle Mission, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, sent German Lutheran missionaries to southern India, where they adopted a similar method. Bartho­ lomew Ziegenbalg realised that he needed to ground himself in Hindu philosophy and religion if he was to evangelise successfully (Beaver, 1992). In the twentieth century the Christian ashram of the late Father Bede Griffiths, a Roman Catholic Benedictine, is probably the best known, but by no means the only attempt to create an authentically Indian form of Christianity. Individuals within the Roman Catholic tradition, such as Padre Pio, the Italian Franciscan stigmatist (1887-1968), used similar language and had not dissimilar experi­ ences to those of Milingo. Padre Pio, like Archbishop Milingo, retains a considerable popular following (cf. Wilson, 1988). See Bowie 1985 and 1993. The Bangwa use the term Nweh to refer to both the people and the language spoken. The term 'Bangwa' was coined by the Germans, who first made contact with Nweh speakers around the tum of the century (Bangwa = Ba Nweh). There are nine Bangwa paramount chiefdoms of varying size and importance. The largest chiefdom or 'village' is Lebang, where Fontem, the main site of my fieldwork, is located. Fontem is sometimes taken to refer to the smaller area in which the Roman Catholic mission is situated, but also used synonymously with Lebang village. During the 1980s this area was part of Fontem Sub-Division, but is now included within Lebialem Division. The name 'Fontem' derives from the title of the paramount chief (Fon orJua), Fontem. I mainly use the ethnographic present for the 1980-1 period. If speaking of later or earlier periods this is indicated. This usage is in no way intended to prioritise these particular years, merely being a stylistic device to avoid repetition. (But see Hastrup, 1995: 9-25, for a defence of the use of the ethnographic present). Mill Hill missionaries included brothers (and less often sisters), but as non-ordained people they could not perform the same sacramental duties as the priests. T.A. Beetham (1967: 15-16) attributes the success of Roman Catholic missions in Africa to various causes, including the ability to learn from the mistakes of their Protestant predecessors, increased control over tropical diseases, and the concentration by different missionary orders on relatively discrete areas, which allowed for a concentration of resources. While this was undoubtedly the case, European missions were still spread very thinly and relied heavily on the native catechists to prepare the ground and to maintain a Christian presence in areas often remote from the central mission station. In Lebialem Division there are numerous small Christian communities who, especially in the rainy season, will only see a visiting priest a few times a year. The catechist is the main representative of the church in almost all villages. For an account of the Focolare Movement see Edwin Robertson, 1978. The workings of the Focolare mission in Fontem are discussed in Bowie, 1985. The administrative territory encompassing the Bangwa and Mundani is known as 'Lebialem', after an impressive waterfall at the confluence of two major rivers on Belleh land. The waterfall is also a sacred site (fuandem) at which sacrifices for the fertility of the land are offered, although some regard the site as too dangerous to approach. It was named by a forebear of Chief Fobellah, a hunter who came across the site and exclaimed that this was indeed a 'terrible' or 'fearsome' hill ('lebialem'). There was a period at the beginning of the twentieth century when Fontem Asonganyi was forced into hiding, and was then exiled to the north of the country by the German military. For a fictional account of this period, based on historical accounts, see Brain, 1977.  I was unable to determine the exact number and status of wives, as at any one time some are living outside the compound on a permanent or temporary basis. Fobellah probably has over 100 children of his own, but with an age gap of some sixty to seventy years between his oldest and youngest children, one can appreciate the difficulties involved in trying to keep track of one's kin and extended family. Fobellah's standard response to the question, 'how many children do you have?' is 'over fifty sons'. Father John Distelberger and Father Celso Corbioli, the former parish priests of Fontem and Fonjumetaw, kept a record of these non-baptised Christians, but this is an unofficial practice. The Buea diocesan Sacred Returns from Fontem parish for 1994 list a total of 273 Catholic families, 3,610 baptised Catholics, 300 Protestants, and 42,000 Pagans. The estimated total population was 45,910. The accuracy of the population figures is questionable, but it is clear that baptised Christians remain under 10% of the total population of the parish. Fontem parish covers some two thirds of the Bangwa area, and part of Bayang territory to the west, an area of (very approximately as it has not been surveyed) of 900 square kms. Personal communication from one of Defang's daughters, Madam Elizabeth. BIBUOGRAPHY Ankarloo, B. &: Henningsen, G. (eds). 1993. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 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The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American Theological Library Association. 80 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY 82 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY 84 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY The Inculturation Debate in Africa 89 92 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY The Inculturation Debate in Africa 87 68 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY 76 STUDIES IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY The Inculturation Debate in Africa 73