Author
Peter K. Sarpong
Publisher
Cabo Publications – Accra Ghana
Date Added to the Noyam Research Archive
Monday, 12th October, 2020
In this brief paper, I attempt a very simple description of what I understand by African Theology. It is a description based on experiences rather than on academic proficiency to which I have no pretensions.
I am a Church leader; in any case, I am supposed to be. As a leader, I should be able to help my flock. I am the leader of a Church which opts for the poor. Christ has said clearly, “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom” (Luke 6:20). My interpretation of Christ’s words is that in me, the poor should find consolation, the poor should find rest, the poor should find the assurance that they too are God’s children. But what can I do? I visit the rural areas of my Diocese with a degree of regularity and frequency. In those places I come face to face with misery. I see squalor. I notice hardships. I encounter hunger. I have experiences of disease. I am confronted with “superstition”. People lack the most elementary necessities of life.
Helplessness
I wish to do something for them. But I am helpless. Nothing worries me and nothing shocks me more than my utter impotence in the face of such situations which call for my immediate, effective intervention.
I begin to ask myself: why am I a leader? How am I performing my tasks as a Christian leader? The situation evokes even more cause for concern when I consider critically the origin of what I am confronted with. I come to the realization that much of the hardship and suffering of my people is totally uncalled for. Granted that drought, for example, is not in the control of man: it still remains a fact that much of the oppression of my people is caused by their own kith and kin. The leaders, both political and civil, that the society has produced are, in large measure, responsible for what we see around us.
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©2016 Peter K. Sarpong
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