Stephen Fowl and Africentric Approaches to Interpretation

I want to evaluate and express appreciation for Stephen Fowl’s work from my standpoint as an African scholar. As Fowl rightly notes: “As scripture, the Bible provides the normative standard for the faith, practice, and worship of Christian communities. Scriptural texts, like all other texts, however, are not self-interpreting. . . . Christians are called to interpret scripture in a variety of different settings and contexts .”1African readers of the Bible often use methods of interpretation that have come from the Global North. Most Africans are unaware that they are not adopting a “neutral” reading but a contextual one. Critical (Eurocentric) approaches are based on assumptions that must be interrogated and either reframed or discarded (depending on the approach), because they often clash with the assumptions that undergird Africentric approaches.Africentric approaches are therefore not only valuable but also necessary. This does not imply that readings from the Global North are to be discarded completely. It is simply to suggest that like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, different contextual readings contribute to form a more complete picture of the biblical text. At the same time, Fowl’s words serve as a caution. He points out that “In countless, and often subtle, ways, Christians’ engagements with scripture are (and should be) shaped by the successes, failures, debates, discussions, and prayers of previous generations of Christians.”2 This is a good word.The first motivation for Africentric approaches comes from the rapid growth of the church in Africa. There are now more Christians in Africa (approximately 718 million) than anywhere else in the world. While we can trace this growth in four waves, beginning already in the first century, the most significant wave is that of the indigenous church movement, which began in the early twentieth century and continues into the twenty-first. This has resulted in the growth of African Instituted Churches as well as hermeneutical approaches aiming to make the Bible more relevant in an African context.A second motivation relates to challenges linked to this unprecedented growth. Dichotomy, as experienced in false teachings and syncretism, has eroded the interpretation that is received and applied by many Christians. For instance, the fastest-growing indigenous denomination in Africa today is Neo-Pentecostalism, which can have an overemphasis on power encounters, deliverance from ancestral and other curses, and signs and wonders, as well as an emphasis on objects believed to possess power.3 Biblical texts are often skewed, and both positive and negative aspects of the African worldview(s) are often incorporated uncritically into biblical interpretation. Syncretism (which is not just an African problem) also contributes to this dichotomy. This is encouraged by a desire to recover an African identity, which was eroded by the colonial-missionary enterprise. Africentric approaches are the most suitable way to counteract this sense of dichotomy so that an identity consistent with the biblical metanarrative emerges.A third motivation for Africentric approaches is the elimination of the double hermeneutical gap. This occurs when an African reader first attempts to understand the assumptions underlying methods from the Global North before entering into the biblical text. Contextual approaches are important because they guide readers from a position of familiarity and relevance. Familiarity is enhanced by the fact that the worldviews represented in the biblical text more closely approximate African worldviews in several aspects.Africentric hermeneutics have several common assumptions. Some of these overlap with Fowl’s theological approach.For most Africans the Bible is, as Gerald West accurately points out, “a tactile object of power and a text of power.”4 Africentric approaches recognize that the Bible speaks powerfully into the present. While this is generally positive, the Bible is sometimes used in the wrong way, as a mere amulet or talisman, just as other Christian objects like crosses, anointing oil, or handkerchiefs can be misused. They are believed to have power in themselves to bring about healing and/or deliverance. Imprecatory prayers, taken straight from the biblical text, are also believed to have the power to change situations and counter one’s enemies.Interpretation of the Bible in Africa is generally confessional, not only because of the belief in the sacred nature of the biblical text but also because of the view of ultimate reality. This often stems from the African conception of the Supreme Being, who holds ultimate power over all creation. In actual practice, the spiritual/theological nature of the text is elevated above the historical and literary. Because of this, the text is generally approached with trust rather than suspicion, although there are some approaches that do use a hermeneutic of suspicion.Most Africentric approaches hold that the Holy Spirit illumines truth. The Holy Spirit in Africa is usually understood through the lens of dynamism, power encounters, and holism. This paves the way for experiencing the Holy Spirit as a real and powerful person who is alive and active in the community of faith. Given this view of the Bible, no interpretation can be done without the aid of the Holy Spirit. While positive and indeed necessary, an overemphasis on this spiritual aspect sometimes leads to overly subjective interpretation. Fowl’s discussion on “How the Spirit Reads and How to Read the Spirit” is invaluable in providing positive pointers for recognizing, interpreting, and enacting the work of the Spirit.5 This is particularly relevant for some Africentric approaches that may tend towards abuses in theory and practice.Africentric approaches broadly emphasize the importance of the sociocultural, political, economic, and religious contexts of the African reader. They focus on how the biblical text speaks to concrete, contextual realities. Functionality implies that the Bible is a relevant text that allows us to engage in constructive dialogue with it and each other. Hermeneutics is not just an exercise confined to the academic/intellectual sphere, but it has a transformative impact on individuals and societies. Because it includes ordinary readers at the grassroots level, it also includes oral hermeneutical reflection.6 I understand Fowl’s approach also to be functional in this sense.All interpretation carries with it a certain ideology or ideologies. Thus, ideologies in the interpreter, the text, and the biblical authors are to be expected. Because of this, some Africentric approaches engage the text from a position of suspicion, for instance, postcolonial and feminist/womanist approaches. However, most Africentric approaches employ a hermeneutic of trust and assign ultimate authority to the Bible.Fowl addresses the issue of ideologies with great competence. He notes that “Dropping the idea that texts have ideologies will allow questions related to the fact that Christians have interpreted the Bible to underwrite their sin to be reframed in more fruitful ways.”7 However, he also observes elsewhere that “an ideologically pure scripture is impossible.”8 His point is well taken. However, I am not convinced that it is possible to divorce the text itself from ideologies, given that the authors were themselves embedded in particular social, cultural, political, and religious contexts in which ideologies, whether implicit or explicit, would have influenced what and how they wrote. In my own approach, uncovering these ideologies leads to acknowledging the text’s alterity without necessarily attacking, dismissing, or ignoring it. However, his warning against reading ideologically rather than reading with “a single eye” on God (e.g., Luke 11:34–35) is a valid concern. Self-reflection, at both individual and community levels, is crucial.9All Africentric approaches recognize the importance of the world in front of the text and are thus guided by contextual concerns, including social, cultural, religious, political, and economic issues. These approaches recognize that a hermeneutic is not just theoretical but also includes principles and methods that are implicit in the practices of interpretation.10 They therefore promote understanding and interrogation of the African contexts as well.The aim of these approaches is to decolonize hermeneutics: that is, to separate the task of hermeneutics from Global North–assumptions and recognize that Africentric assumptions are valid. The goal is to show that interpretations from the Global North are not necessarily normative for all cultures and peoples. Africentric approaches provide complementary readings of the same text while at the same time challenging so called “normative” readings.There is not one, but there are several Africentric approaches currently in use in Africa. These approaches emphasize, in their own ways, a three-way dialogue between the worlds behind, of, and in front of the text. Like Fowl’s approach, Africentric approaches are opposed to the siloing of disciplines. His approach is valuable in that it features an integrated theological vantage point. Africentric approaches are more generally eclectic.The following brief summary of Africentric approaches comes from the online platform African Theology Worldwide.11 Of note is that many of these methods assign epistemological privilege to the reader(s).The Four-Legged Stool approach is an intercultural hermeneutic.13 Before looking at its theoretical framework, it is important to engage with Fowl’s categories of determinate, anti-determinate, and underdeterminate interpretation in order to locate my approach within the context of his discussion.Fowl notes that the “aim of determinate interpretation is to produce, uncover, or illuminate the meaning of the biblical text.”14 In one sense my approach lies here. I believe that the biblical authors intended to communicate a message to their original readers, which they passed on in the language and thought-forms of their time, and this message had an intended impact (as in Speech Act Theory). This is the author-encoded historical meaning of the text or author-centered textual meaning.15 While diachronicity implies that language changes over time, and synchronicity alerts us to the socially conditioned nature of language, unearthing this message remains possible. Textual meaning, buttressed by theological, literary, and historical analysis, can with a degree of probability still be determined. Otherwise, we deny the very possibility of communication.In my African context, I try to correct extreme reader-response interpretations. With Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, I argue that “meaning is not indeterminate awaiting some reader to produce it. Meaning was encoded in the author’s speech act. However, meaning is not discerned until a reader understands it. . . . Understanding occurs when the horizon of the text fuses with the horizon of the modern interpreter, but only after some ‘distantiation’ occurs.”16In that I engage in an interrogation of my own assumptions and address theological concerns even before I begin to analyze the text, my approach finally lies between determinate and underdeterminate. This may highlight one problem with Fowl’s categories. They imply an either/or approach when in fact I believe a both/and is possible. Another of Fowl’s concerns is that “theological convictions, ecclesial practices, and communal and social concerns should shape and be shaped by biblical interpretation.”17 This is also a concern in my approach.With regard to its theoretical framework, the Four-Legged stool approach:18One of Fowl’s major aims is not to eliminate disagreement, but to foster “interpretive charity in the midst of interpretive disputes.”22 Further, it is to help Christians resolve these disputes “in ways that enable Christians to live truthful, faithful lives.”23 What Fowl is advocating here is not uniformity, but rather unity in diversity and diversity in unity. After all, as he so rightly points out, “Short of the eschatological completion of the promises of Jeremiah 31 and 1 Corinthians 13, texts which promise interpretive clarity (and in the case of the completion of Jeremiah 31, obviate the need for texts at all), Christians will need to engage scripture in the recognition that they will disagree with each other.”24 Thus, the Africentric approaches I have outlined do not have to align with every other approach. What Fowl has achieved through his work is to provide guidelines and a safe context for bringing such approaches into a common conversation, and to help us engage in meaningful dialogue when disagreements occur.