African Christian Ethics

Samuel Waje Kunhiyop

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780310107088
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

An introduction to African Christian ethics for Christian colleges and Bible schools.

African Christian Ethics is divided into two main parts. The first deals with the theory of ethics, while the second discusses practical issues. The issues are grouped into the following six sections:

• Socio-Political Issues
• Financial Issues
• Marriage Issues
• Sexual Issues
• Medical Issues
• Religious Issues

Each of these six section begins with a brief general introduction, followed by the chapters dealing with specific issues in that area. Each chapter begins with an introduction, discusses traditional African thinking on the issue, presents an analysis of relevant biblical material, and concludes with some recommendations.

There are questions at the end of each chapter for discussion or personal reflection, often asking students to reflect on how the discussion in the chapter applies to their ministry situation.

PART ONE

ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS

1

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF AFRICAN CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Every society is influenced by its history, beliefs and values. We need to know something of Africa’s history if we are to be able to understand and address its present political and economic condition. Similarly, we need to understand the ethical values and beliefs that guide moral action in Africa if we are to develop an ethical system that is both African and Christian. Without such an understanding, teaching Christian ethics is like pouring water on a duck’s back. The water runs off without even wetting the duck! Failure to appreciate this important point has led to shallow Christian teaching that often has little impact on moral behaviour.

Part 1 of this book thus introduces the subject of ethics and presents the different streams, Traditional, Western and Christian, that combine to produce African Christian ethics. It lays the groundwork for the more detailed discussion of specific ethical issues in Part 2.

Some Definitions

Before we begin this study it is important to define a few of the key terms involved in any discussion of ethics.

Ethics and Morality

The terms “ethics” and “morality” are so closely related that the Encarta Dictionary can define ethics as a “system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct of an individual or group”. Some people use the terms as if ethics relates to the theoretical study of right and wrong, good and bad, while morality relates to actual behaviour, the “living out of what one believes to be right and good.”¹ Thus James William McClendon writes:

Morals and morality come from the Latin word, mos, meaning custom or usage, while ethics comes from the Greek word, ethos, whose meaning is roughly the same. So it is hardly surprising that today, as earlier, these two words are often used interchangeably. When a distinction is made, “morals” nowadays refers to actual human conduct viewed with regard to right and wrong, good and evil, “ethics” refers to a theoretical overview of morality, a theory or system or code. In this sense, our morality is the concrete human reality that we live out from day to day, while ethics is an academic view gained by taking a step back and analyzing or theorizing about (any) morality.²

I do not like this compartmentalization because it often blurs issues. People tend to assume that theoretical issues are good only for the scholar, teacher, student or professor in the classroom, while the practical is what is real, useful and true in life situations. Thus in this book I will use the words “morality” and “ethics” interchangeably. This approach matches the African understanding that ethics is not based on abstract principles but on behaviour in specific situations.

For the purposes of this book, ethics and morality are thus defined as the definitions, principles and motivations for conduct and behaviour.

Personal and Social Ethics

A distinction is often made between personal ethics and social ethics. Personal ethics deals with individuals’ obligations or duties, or in other words, with what is required of them. Most Western societies emphasize personal ethics because in the West the individual’s desires, satisfactions, decisions and accomplishments take precedence over those of the community. Social ethics, on the other hand, deals with community morality and emphasizes communal values and interpersonal relationships at the expense of the individual’s desires and decisions.

In Africa the focus falls on social ethics rather than personal ethics, for African peoples emphasize the community rather than the individual. Individuals are not neglected, but they are expected to fulfil their roles in a way that fits with the ethos of their society. Communal morality regulates and controls their conduct. For example, a man may marry not because he wants to but because his parents want to have grandchildren.

Values and Ethics

Values are underlying, fundamental beliefs and assumptions that determine behaviour. In Africa, as in the West, these beliefs and assumptions often remain unchanged even after there has been a religious conversion. Thus many African societies may have converted to Christianity or Islam but they still cling to traditional beliefs and assumptions that determine how they act morally. It is therefore critical to know and appreciate the role of values in the study of moral actions.

African and Western Ethics

If this book is to deal with African ethics, we also need to define what we mean by the term “African”. The African continent contains many different people groups and cultures. It would theoretically be possible to produce a sociological or anthropological study of the ethics within each group, but that is not the goal here. Rather, this book deals with some general principles of cultural and moral life that apply across a wide range of groups. Thus chapter 2 presents general ethical principles and motives governing African morality and illustrates them with examples from various groups in Sub-Saharan Africa.

African ethical thinking did not develop in isolation, but has been richly influenced by the forces of Westernization, Christianization, and Islamization. Western influences have been particularly strong in Sub-Saharan Africa, and so chapter 3 explores Western ethics with its deep Judeo-Greco-Christian roots. This chapter also examines how the humanistic and secular world views associated with the Enlightenment and the technological-electronic revolutions have shaped current Western ethical thinking in many areas.

African Christian Ethics

A cursory look at the syllabi in many Bible colleges and seminaries in Africa will show that Christian ethics is often packaged along with Western ethics as if they are one and the same thing. They are not. The two have become confused because Western missionaries did not bring a naked gospel but one dressed in their own clothes and shoes. Students who should be studying African Christian ethics are too often engaged in wrestling with teleological, deontological, utilitarian and relativistic ethical theories emanating from the West.

What should be taught in African theological colleges is an ethics that is African, biblical and Christian. That is what this book seeks to provide. Thus chapter 4 presents a careful study of key elements in general Christian ethics, while chapter 5 presents a brief outline of what an African Christian ethics should look like, a theme that will be the subject of the whole of Part 2 of this book. Before proceeding to address specific ethical questions, however, chapter 6 offers a brief discussion of some of the problems involved in ethical decision-making, particularly in situations involving conflicting ethical principles.

Questions

1. Write your own one-sentence definitions of ethics and morality. Then ask some Christians and some non-believers in your community to give you their definitions of these terms. Compare these definitions to the definitions given in this chapter.

[Your Response Here]

2. What words are used in your native language to express concepts like ethics and morality, or other concepts defined in this chapter? What nuances of meaning do these words emphasize?

[Your Response Here]

3. Describe the relationship of personal and social ethics in your situation. How does your understanding of personal and social ethics assist (or inhibit) your ability to minister effectively?

[Your Response Here]

Notes

¹ Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest: The Foundations of Christian Ethics (Leicester: Apollos, 1997), 23. Arthur H. Jentz observes that “morality refers to social orders; ethics is the intellectual scrutiny of such orders and of the reasonings which articulate, support, or oppose them.” “Some Thoughts on Christian Ethics”, Reformed Journal 30 (1976): 52.

² James William McClendon, Systematic Theology. Vol. I: Ethics (Rev. ed.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 45–46.

2

FOUNDATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ETHICS

Failure to understand key elements that regulate African morality led many Westerners to misinterpret African moral life. For example, when Western missionaries saw a Christian take a second wife, they assumed that he was committing adultery. The fact that his polygamy was public and endorsed by his society was taken to show that African peoples are very immoral and “quite without a European sense of shame.”¹

In making this judgment, the missionaries were looking only on externals and were assuming that the only factor at play was sexual desire. They failed to recognize the values intrinsic to the African view of marriage and procreation, sexuality and immortality that underlay the practice of polygamy. To the man involved, the important question was not whether he married a second wife, but whether the marriage would produce a child (especially a male child) who would continue his lineage and honour him as an ancestor.

If Westerners did get a glimpse of these values, they often dismissed them, finding “it ludicrous to apply any such terms as ‘moral’ to African beliefs and actions were perceived as ‘perversely irrational and ghost-ridden’.”²

But the Westerners were wrong. African behaviour was not irrational or lacking morality. Thus in this chapter, we will set out to answer the question, “What are the roots of African values and moral behaviour?” The ethical principles explored in this chapter are not necessarily Christian, but they are the general principles that have shaped African behaviour. If we do no...