Rethinking African Theology in Light of Emerging Digital Culture

Abstract

This article engages secondary sources and real-world instances of the digital mediation of contemporary culture to interrogate the responsiveness of African theological reflection to the phenomenon of digital culture. Drawing on the Ghanaian social context, it suggests that in supporting the emergence of digital culture, social media and other digital tools reshape society and culture perceptually. This applies to the role of indigenous religion, construction of gender and other forms of identity, and the convergence of local and global approaches of imagining and changing the world. In light of these changes, theological reflection must pursue and contend with new understandings of culture as a context and source of theology. The paper therefore suggests that a new ideo-theological paradigm is required in which past-oriented conceptions of what constitutes African ‘tradition’ give place to careful and critical attention to the overt and subtle ways in which digital tools democratise popular agency on religious and public issues. This is crucial if academic African Theology is to avoid a crisis of relevance and legitimacy in contemporary and future Africa.