Abstract
This essay compares the differences and similarities between the European Renaissance (±1300 – ±1600) and the African Renaissance in order to determine what an apposite Christian attitude would be. The first section describes the European Renaissance as a reaction to the Middle Ages and a return to the original sources of Western civilisation. Two different trends are distinguished, viz. classical humanism and evangelical humanism. The ideas of the great Renaissance thinker and evangelical humanist, John Calvin, about reformation receive special attention in this regard. He learned much from his contemporaries, but did so in a critical, independent way. From the five different Christian worldviews which crystallised during the Renaissance epoch, his Reformational worldview was the most strongly biblically founded one. The second main part of the essay first asks some critical questions about the African Renaissance and then provides a brief historical survey of past efforts at an African Renaissance, followed by an exposition and evaluation of Thabo Mbeki’s ideas about an African Renaissance. The third main section of the essay poses the question as to what role Christianity can and should play in the African Renaissance. Similar to the attitude of Calvin, we should both learn from it and contribute to it from the perspective of a Christian worldview.
Highlights
The notion of the African Renaissance has become a central preoccupation of Thabo Mbeki, the South African president
1981) and the same applies for the African Renaissance
As Bouwsma (1988:64) correctly indicates, the Middle Ages inherited two different cultures from antiquity: pagan Hellenistic and Biblical Hebraic, both of which were forced into an uneasy synthesis
Summary
Both the European and African Renaissance movements are complex phenomena, both being periods of deep cultural crisis in which the immediate past is rejected and something new and essentially better anticipated. There are many different interpretations of the European Renaissance (cf Rienstra, 1981) and the same applies for the African Renaissance (see Liebenberg, 1998). The contention underlying this article is that during periods of transition people are usually in search for a new worldview as previous worldviews do not make sense of reality any more, because they cannot clearly indicate one’s place and task in a changed environment. One’s worldview, has to be adapted or even replaced by a totally new worldview to provide guidance. A recent example would be the rejection of the apartheid (or Christian-national) worldview in South Africa
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