Contested Translations: The Gospel versus Foreign Missionaries in John Munonye's Obi

Abstract

A thematically significant scene early in John Munonye's Obi recounts missionary priest's first in village of Umudiobia, which is on topic of polygamy. This he condemns as rock on which many a man's faith has foundered beyond rescue, warning that he [will] not tolerate a thing like that in this parish (61). When catechist/translator hesitates and subsequently rephrases his words into some unspecific caution against betraying Lord, Fr. George rebukes him, telling him Translate what I said and don't preach your own sermon (62). This contest between foreigner and indigene neatly dramatizes what is essentially a sub-textual conflict between Gospel and how is translated into with which is coming into contact and foreign missionaries trying to impose their European interpretations onto African context. The clash between mission Christianity and indigenous is a recurring theme in postcolonial African fiction. This theme can be found at heart of novels by writers as ethnically, nationally, and religiously diverse as John Munonye, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, T. M. Aluko, Kenjo Jumbam, Onoura Nzekwu, Mongo Beti, T. Obinkaram Echewa, Timothy Wangusa, Francis Selormey, and Dominic Mulaisho. Critical readers tend to discuss these novels as dramatic explorations of fundamental incompatibility of Christianity with indigenous culture. However, I believe in most instances these conflicts are dramatizations at textual level of a sub-textual contest not between Gospel and indigenous but rather between Gospel and missionary, and most often take form of a struggle between foreigner and indigene over authority to interpret or re-express Gospel message into various African cultural contexts. Ngugi's The River Between, for instance, among other things situates Gospel between missionary and indigenous attitudes towards sexuality. Jumbam's The White Man of God, in turn, raises issue of Gospel and European versus indigenous notions of sin and punishment, while Nzekwu's Blade Among Boys questions Roman Catholic demand for priestly celibacy in a with strong philoprogenative priorities. These novels often include sincere African converts in conflict not with Gospel message, but rather with missionaries over just what that message teaches and demands of them. It is, in essence, a contesting of translations: translations at level of cultural forms of universal truths of Gospel Lamin Sanneh represents most contemporary missiologists and contextual theologians when he describes evangelization in terms of translating message. The Gospel, they all agree, is something apart from but is never encountered outside of culture. As John Evangelist so eloquently expressed it: beginning was Word; Word was with God and Word was God [...]. The Word was true light that enlightens all men (1.1, 9). Christians hold that truth of Gospel message is both universal and eternal; is not something that varies from to or age to age. However, as John also observed, the Word was made flesh, he lived among us (1.14). Humans live in a physical world where environmental factors (in broadest sense) such as climate, geography, natural resources, worldview, social and political organization, and modes of production and economic activity all contribute to shaping those cultural forms that people create in order to impose order and meaning on daily existence. Jesus entered world at a particular time and place in history, that is, a particular cultural context. In order to address his immediate listeners meaningfully he had to address them in their own cultural setting, speaking to and through their particular cultural forms. Consequently, as Robert Schreiter puts it, from beginning Gospel has never come to a people in pure form: it is already embedded in less-than-pure culture of messenger, whether that messenger be Jesus living as an Aramaic Jew two thousand years ago or contemporary European missionary (New Catholicity 71). …