It's only been recently that I've become aware of the new scholarly fascination with tracing the neglected African roots of Western Christianity. Thomas Oden wrote in 2007 How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind and has a new book in press, The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition. Last fall Inter-Varsity Press conducted a fascinating interview with Oden. More information, he says, is available at www.earlyafricanchristianity.com
In his five-star review of How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind," Amazon reviewer C. Stephens wrote:
Thomas Oden writes, "Christianity would not have its present vitality in the Two-Thirds World without the intellectual understandings that developed in Africa between 50 and 500 C.E. The pretense of studying church history while ignoring African church history is implausible." (10) Yet, in his book "How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind," Oden purports that for centuries Western intellectuals have in fact ignored or downplayed the momentous contributions of African Christians to church history and theology. According to Oden, today's Christian mind has its roots in the writings and teachings of the early church leaders from Africa, in the struggles of the early church martyrs from Africa, in the lives of the desert Fathers of Africa, and in the early Christians who fled Africa taking their faith throughout the Mediterranean cities. Oden suggests that it is critical for contemporary African Christianity to learn of its prestigious heritage--to learn that Christianity is a vital, traditional African faith rather than a foreign imposition.
He writes, "The profound ways African teachers have shaped world Christianity have never been adequately studied or acknowledged, either in the Global North or South." (9) This is a story that Oden believes needs to be told throughout African villages and cities and must especially reach the African child. He believes it is a story best told fully by young African scholars. The story of African Christianity conveys extraordinary faith, courage, tenacity and intellect that must serve as inspiration and guides not only for African Christianity but for universal Christianity today.
Oden asserts that in Christianity's first 500 years, "the period of its greatest vitality," the African Christian intellect was the model that was sought and widely emulated by Christians of the northern and eastern Mediterranean shores. (29) Oden claims, "The Christian leaders in Africa figured out how best to read the law and the prophets meaningfully, to think philosophically, and to teach the ecumenical rule of triune faith cohesively long before these patterns became normative elsewhere." (29-30) Through the third, fourth and fifth centuries, African Christian ideas were flowing to the other centers of Christianity.
The book is divided into two main parts: "The African Seedbed of Western Christianity" and "African Orthodox Recovery." Oden also includes an Appendix that outlines the challenges of early African research and a literary chronology of the first 1000 years of Christianity in Africa. Oden focuses on seven ways that Africa from the first to the fifth century shaped the Christian mind. These seven ways provide the foundation for his thesis in the book:
1.The Western idea of a university and Christian scholarship was born in Africa, mainly in Alexandria which possessed an unrivaled library and a vast learning community of philosophers, scientists, writers, artists and educators. Influential figures include Clement of Alexandria and Pantaenus.
2.Christian exegesis of Scripture first matured in Africa by writers like Origen, Didymus the Blind, Tyconius and Augustine of Hippo.
3.African sources like Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine and Cyril shaped early Christian dogma on subjects such as Christology and the Trinity. Many problems of Biblical interpretation and Christian definitions were worked out through African Christians' battles against the major heresies of Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism and Manichaeism.
4.Early ecumenical decision making followed early African conciliar patterns that provided a practical model for ecumenical debate and resolution. African church leaders like Demetrius of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage, Optatus of Milevis and Augustine raised and helped settle issues on penitence, diocesan boundaries, episcopal authority and ordination and on Christian doctrine.
5.The African desert Fathers birthed worldwide monasticism through their patterns of personal sacrifice, ordering of the life of prayer, study, work, radical discipleship and balance of solitude and communal life. Oden elaborates on the example of how the monastic patterns of Antony, Pachomius and Augustine would have lasting influence in Italy, France and all the way to Ireland.
6.Christian neoplatonism emerged in Africa with Africans Philo, Ammonias Saccas and Plotinus being the central figures. Clement of Alexandria was among the earliest to convey the connections and distinctions between logos philosophy and the Christian teaching of God.
7.Rhetorical and dialectical skills were honed in Africa prior to advancement in Europe with Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius and Augustine excelling.
According to Oden, the time for Orthodox recovery in Africa is now and urgent for three reasons:
1.rapid numerical expansion of Christianity
2.a new hunger for intellectual depth
3.the perceived might of the Muslim world, and the concurrent exhaustion of modern Western intellectual alternatives.
African Christianity does not have the comfort to invest in the Western idea of ecumenism and unity that equates all ideologies and rejects absolute truth and moral superiority of the historic doctrines. Likewise, a faith devoid of the supernatural is of no use to African Christians who rely on miraculous intervention. Oden asserts that African Christianity is rejecting a "permissive ecumenism" and tolerance for sin in favor of the truths found in its wellspring of classical exegesis that deals with the problem of sin through penitence and humility. (116) Oden sees in the heart of African Orthodoxy a model for a contemporary Christianity revitalized by a corrected perspective on the relationships between tradition and Scripture and between faith and charity inspired by the Holy Spirit.
He presents what is basically the tip of the iceberg of evidence for his thesis. He admittedly limits himself to the task of being a catalyst to ignite African and other scholars to take the initiative to fully develop his ideas. The book is sufficient to whet readers' appetites and pique interest in discovering the rest of the iceberg not seen in this book.
Oden writes, "Among the benefits of reading early African Christian teaching are the courage to face complex tasks, reduced anxiety and the consolation of knowing that suffering can be transcended by hope. Seemingly impossible obstacles do not intimidate." (135) If a lesson for all Christians stands out from early African Christianity, it may be what is articulated by Alan Paton's seminal South African novel "Cry, the Beloved Country:" "there is one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power." Oden has illustrated that African Christianity has been characterized, since it inception to the present, by power sourced in a keen sacrificial love flowing with grace, faith, hope, and courage while remaining anchored in truth and community.
Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays