Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care

Challenges of Care in a Neoliberal Age

Emmanuel Y. Lartey, Hellena Moon, Emmanuel Y. Lartey, Hellena Moon

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781532685576
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Ministerio cristiano

This anthology is about caring for all persons as a part of the revolutionary struggle against colonialism in its many forms. In recognition of the varied ways in which different forms of oppression, injustice, and violence in the world today are traceable to the legacy and continuing effects of colonialism, various authors have contributed to the volume from diverse backgrounds including differing ethnic identities, religious and cultural traditions, gender and sexual orientations, as well as communal and personal realities.As a postcolonial critique of spiritual care, it highlights the plurality of voices and concerns that have been overlooked or obscured because of the politics of race, religion, sexuality, nationalism, and other structures of power that have shaped what discursive spiritual care entails today. Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care presents voices of practical and pastoral theologians, academics, spiritual care providers, religious leaders, students, and activists working to provide greater intercultural spiritual care and awareness in the areas of healthcare, community work, and education.The volume, as such, expands the discourse of spiritual care and participates in the ongoing paradigm shifts in the field of pastoral and practical theology.

1

Be-ing in Relation

The Goal of African Spiritual Practice

Emmanuel Y. Lartey

In engaging a study of spiritual care through postcolonial lenses we necessarily privilege and give pride of place to unacknowledged, despised, marginalized, subjugated, and down-played voices. We allow and raise these voices precisely because the hegemonic forces of colonialism have suppressed them, denigrated them and rendered their contribution to any subject of study unappreciated and irrelevant. It is true that there are many notions and expressions of spirituality, and as such what spiritual care might be is not easy to define, pinpoint or specify. As a contribution to the exploration of spiritual care the focus in this chapter is on African notions drawn from African life and experience. African ways of framing spirituality, I wish to suggest, offer important insights into practices of spiritual care in the world today.

All of Life Is Sacred

One of the central features of African life and thought is a widely and generally held affirmation of the sacrality of all of life. Magesa argues correctly that, in contrast to a Durkheimian separation of “sacred” and “profane” domains of life and therefore spirituality, African experience offers a quite different way of understanding spirituality and religion. “In Africa,” Magesa points out, “there is an essentially ‘transcendental’ perception of all life because all reality is situated in the sacred realm, which is a spiritual sphere. A people’s life is their religion, so that “religion,” or “spirituality” for that matter is not identifiable as a separate institution but permeates the whole society. The spiritual is not opposed to the physical or material, but both are intricately merged.”19 In fact, as Magesa goes on to say, “the idea that there is a “spiritual life” distinct from any other kind of existence is foreign to the African mind and spirit. All reality is spiritual and has ethical implications.”20 Not only is there no effective separation between a so-called “sacred” and a so-called “profane” in African life but rather spirit and spirituality constitute the essential core of human being.

Magesa is emphatic about the centrality of spirituality in African thought and practice. He puts it this way: “African thought and action, both of which structure culture, are rooted in spirituality. This is the culture by and through which Africans as agents identify themselves.”21 Spirituality then, is the root and center of African life. It is also the identifying and self-defining core of human existence.

Spirit and Spirituality Are Central

At the base of African anthropologies and healing traditions lies a central organizing aspect of the human personality. The Akan peoples of West Africa refer to this central core of personality as okra or kra. To the Gã people of Ghana, it is called kla. For the Ancient Egyptians it was ka. The Yoruba peoples of Nigeria and Benin refer to it as ori. The reference in all these examples is to a God-given essence that is received or uniquely chosen in the divine realm prior to one’s entry onto the earth. This essence serves as the core or key driving force of a human being’s life, purpose, and personhood. It is this component of one’s personality that links one with the divine and is also the core of one’s psychology.

Decades ago, in the 1950s, Anglican Bishop John V. Taylor explored African religion in the face of the increasing presence of Western Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. Taylor, unlike other European thinkers, correctly articulated the essence of African understanding and practice of spirituality. Quoting French Roman Catholic priest and anthropologist Placide Tempels, with approval, Taylor argued that the Bantu peoples of Southern Africa do not conceptualize “man [sic] as an individual existing by himself, unrelated to the animate and inanimate forces surrounding him.” Taylor continued his quote of Tempels in critique of the oft-thought ‘sociality of African peoples,’ asserting that “it is not sufficient to say that he [African man] is a social being; he feels himself a vital force in actual intimate and permanent rapport with other forces—a vital force both influenced by and influencing them.”22 In other words, Africans are not merely social beings but rather see themselves as spiritual beings in active quest of rapport and relationship with other forces. Taylor is right to assert that to the African, “A man’s [sic] well-being consists in keeping in harmony with the cosmic totality.”23 In this African view then, “man’s [sic] position vis-à-vis the world is not one of exploitation but of relationship.”24 The sense of humanity as a vital spiritual force among other forces continues to be widely felt and expressed in Africa and across the African diaspora. This belief has fueled and continues to be expressed in the many African Heritage Religions such as Cuban Santería, Brazilian Candomblé and Haitian Vodou, that increasingly thrive in the Caribbean and the Americas.

The fact of African spirituality as central to African personhood is not in doubt. But the intriguing question concerns the nature of African spirituality. What then are some of the characteristic features of African spirituality?

African Spirituality Is Relational and Action-Oriented

In African life and thought, as Magesa makes clear,

[Spirituality] is based on interactive relationships among human beings and between humans and the entire order of existence. It understands this relationship to be the essence of religion, the sacred. . . . It is an approach that is absolutely relational and completely unitary. It perceives all reality, whether seen or unseen, as composed of sacral mystery and destiny.25

African spirituality is indeed a matter of interaction and relationality. It is also practice-oriented based very squarely in action and activity. Magesa highlights the pragmatic and active nature of African spirituality by declaring that in the African worldview,

Spirituality is more of an activity than a passive quality. Rather than a “state of being,” it is a way of behaving or, rather, relating. It involves dynamic relationships between visible and invisible power. Better yet, it entails the mutual exchanges of energies among all beings.26

Spirituality Is Dynamic and Can Be Developed

The Akans of Ghana and La Côte D’Ivoire, term a crucial dimension of human existence sunsum. The Gã of Ghana refer to this anthropological dimension as susuma. Sunsum is conceived of as a spiritual aspect or element in a person’s personality accounting for their character, disposition, intelligence, ability to inspire or motivate self and others. One’s sunsum is said to be subject to change for it can be developed, educated, or trained from a state of being “light” to one of being “heavy,” strong, or hard. A lightweight personality can—through ritual and/or training—become a heavyweight social presence. A person with a strong sunsum can repel evil spiritual agents, whether human or non-human. A highly developed or educated sunsum is manifest in a person’s appearance, social demeanor, self-confidence, ability to motivate or influence others, leadership qualities and strong personality. It is also the case that not only individuals possess sunsum. Whole families forming a clan are also spoken of as having sunsum. Fathers are believed to transmit their sunsum to their children.27 A whole community of peoples can be strong or healthy in spirit. This is a most desirable value to which spiritual car...