The rapid growth of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa has generated an immense amount of theological reflection, much of it implicit. Esther Acolatse's book is a rare attempt to articulate – and reprove – the nascent pastoral theology of some African churches.
Acolatse's focus is what she calls independent evangelical churches in Ghana, taking their practice as representative of much charismatic and pentecostal Christianity across the continent. Many people, particularly women, turn to these churches for help in healing illnesses and maladies, often moving from pastor to pastor or congregation to congregation in search of an effective remedy. Acolatse argues that these churches practise deficient healing practices which rely too heavily on traditional religious beliefs, particularly the strong sense of spirits and their influence on natural phenomena. ‘African Christianity has yet to truly transcend its cultural moment’, she writes, ‘and this failure can explain many of the pastoral problems that beset parishioners’ (p. 5). When people present with psychological or somatic illnesses, they are diagnosed as results of the demonic, and the proposed remedies fail. Rather than finding the true liberation which is the promise of the gospel, Acolatse argues that many African Christians remain in bondage to existing religious beliefs.
To correct this, Acolatse argues that both a new theology and a new understanding of psychology are needed. She draws at length on Karl Barth and Carl Jung, putting their work in conversation with existing African beliefs and practices. A new theological anthropology is needed which understands that in Christ's resurrection demons have no purchase on the individual. Undergirding human existence is God's Spirit, not local spirits. Acolatse argues against the idea that there is a basic continuity between an African cosmology and a putative universal biblical cosmology. Africans are misreading the Bible when it comes to Jesus’ encounters with demons in the gospels. Instead, drawing on Walter Wink's Unmasking the Powers, she argues that Africans need to look beyond their fixation on the demonic.
At times, Acolatse speaks without differentiation about ‘Africans’, though at other points she argues she is only referring to particular aspects of the Ghanaian context. It is unclear, therefore, how expansive she intends her claims to be and how pastoral theology is altered in the numerous different contexts of a diverse continent. She is quick to dismiss mainline mission denominations, arguing that their members are ‘commonly regarded as Christian in name only’ (p. 22). Such a claim, made without substantiation, flies in the face of the actual experience of Christianity in much of the continent, nor does it reckon with the parallels at the grassroots level between mission denominations and the independent churches she is interested in. The practices of these mainline denominations could provide a helpful parallel to her own research.
Acolatse makes no reference to Birgit Meyer's important Translating the Devil, which explained the key role that belief in demonic spirits plays in pentecostal Christianity in Ghana. In a brief paragraph, Acolatse does ask what the fixation on demon possession might say about the contemporary African pastoral landscape. ‘Is it possible that with ancient social systems in limbo and modernity not yet fully in place, Africans feel themselves floundering as if suspended between these two opposing traditions? For most Africans caught at the crossroads of modernity and tradition, life is increasingly stressful’ (pp. 125–6). Frustratingly, these themes are hardly developed.
Acolatse is right to argue that some Christian practice in sub-Saharan Africa can lead away from liberation. But culture is integral to the manifestation of Christianity. No amount of Barth or Jung, however well intentioned, will make any difference until the reasons for the centrality of the belief in the demonic are grappled with.
