Abstract
From a Christian anthropological perspective, the article seeks to answer the question: what does ubuntu mean when analysed from the anthropocentric nature of African traditional religions (ATR)? This leads to another question: how does the ATR informed meaning of ubuntu challenge Christian anthropology in Africa in the light of the prevailing context of human suffering and poverty? These related questions are answered by critiquing the common tendency in modern scholarship on ubuntu of linking the concept with the Nguni proverb umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. A plea is made that ubuntu should instead be interpreted according to the anthropocentric nature of ATR that leads to an existential view of ubuntu as human flourishing. The article concludes by looking at how Christianity in Africa should develop an anthropological perspective that promotes human flourishing by enabling African human agency and enhancing a holistic engagement of the socioeconomic and political factors that hinder human flourishing on the continent.
Highlights
Introduction and backgroundUbuntu remains an important concept in Africa it maybe be fraught with “vagueness, collectivism and anachronism” (Metz 2011:534), resulting in the concept being used arbitrarily. Magezi (2017:113) highlights that ubuntu is a fluid concept with many diverse voices having core features which characterise it
The knowledge that the popular linking of ubuntu and umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu is a recent development leads to the question: what does ubuntu mean when viewed from the anthropocentric nature of African traditional religions (ATR)? how is Christian anthropology in Africa challenged by this ATR informed meaning of ubuntu in light of the prevailing context of human suffering and poverty? These interrelated questions will be answered by first critiquing the common virtuous and communitarian understandings of ubuntu and highlighting their problems to being human in Africa
The article sought to answer from a Christian anthropological perspective the question: what does ubuntu mean when analysed from the anthropological nature of African traditional religions? This question further led to another question stated as: how is Christian anthropology in Africa challenged by this ATR informed meaning of ubuntu in light of the prevailing context of human suffering and poverty? The article observed that modern views led by post-Apartheid South African scholarship commonly view ubuntu in term of ubuntu umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, leading to viewing the concept in largely virtuous and communitarian terms
Summary
Ubuntu remains an important concept in Africa it maybe be fraught with “vagueness, collectivism and anachronism” (Metz 2011:534), resulting in the concept being used arbitrarily. Magezi (2017:113) highlights that ubuntu is a fluid concept with many diverse voices having core features which characterise it. The modern embrace of ubuntu may be accredited to its use by post-1994 South African national leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki and various prominent academics such as Mogobe Ramose and Augustine Shutte, who all popularised ubuntu as a conceptual framework of building humane, democratic and just society (Gade 2011:315; Houtman 2011:32). The limited vision of human flourishing in ubuntu is further expressed by a discriminatory and exclusive view of human identity that narrowly defines ideal personhood. That one can find violent and deadly clashes even over different soccer teams within a continent claiming to be one hundred percent ubuntu, is testimony that personhood is applied conveniently and that the human flourishing of other people is not part of the vision of this notion of ubuntu
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