Special Forum • Visiting Scholar 19

The exhibition highlights the impact of Crowther’s work in his use of vernacular for translation, which Bediako argues is at the heart of incarnation:

The ability to hear in one’s own language and to express in one’s own language one’s response to the message which one receives, must lie at the heart of all authentic religious encounters with the divine realm . . . (the) deeper significance is that God speaks to men and women always in the vernacular. Divine communication is never in the sacred, esoteric, hermetic language; rather it is such that all of us hear in our own language the wonders of God.7

He continues by arguing for the necessity of work like that accomplished by Crowther: “Taking the vernacular seriously becomes not nearly a cultural but also a theological necessity, for it is only through vernacular that a genuine and lasting theological dialogue with culture can take place.”8

The legacy of Crowther in the use of vernacular language is a great foundation for other vernacular studies as far as theology is concerned. In more recent times, theologians have deliberated on ways in which the African people can express their faith through projects such as indigenization, inculturation, contextualization, reconstruction, and Savannah Theology.9 These projects have tried to deal with issues of language, experience, and context of African people. There have also been projects developing an African hermeneutic, principles of interpretation that accord well with the African context and ethos, such as the work of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.

In Crowther’s ministry, as highlighted in the exhibition, one sees a leader who endeavours to understand his context and provide ways of responding to the needs of the people by using a language they understand. While the specifics of Crowther’s context were different, the questions being raised are not different from those that are raised today with regard to the formation of Christian leaders. Crowther dealt with a colonial context, struggling with race and being forced to justify the indigenization of the church. Even though the context of Crowther was different, the questions the church faces are still the same insofar as theology and leadership are concerned: What is the language of theology? What are the contextual realities in the study of theological education?

One other interesting way African agency was highlighted in the exhibition was the use of photography on display, particularly the display of cartoons. Paul Jenkins highlights the importance of this sort of rediscovery of mission photography:

Individual cataloguing of historical photographs is valuable in itself . . . it creates value . . . and introduces a new quality into discussion of the past and should enable new forms of disourse about the past to develop. Using visual sources correctly and with the necessary rigor and accuracy could have as revolutionary an impact as working with oral sources had in African History a generation ago.10

Even if Jenkins is discussing cataloguing and how this can be a basis for discussing the past and a source for history, other aspects come to light in this exhibition. This is understanding the context in which some of the pictures were taken and the themes the pictures bring to light, but also what they do not say. In any presentation, there is a particular narrative being told, and this exhibition certainly had one. Part of this particular exhibition narrative was to trace the humble beginnings of the Christian story in Africa, using the initiatives and imagination of the African people in particular. In this case, the exhibition, for me, served as

7 Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 73.

8 Bediako, Christianity in Africa, 60.

9 See John S. Pobee, Skenosis: Christian Faith in an African Context (Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1992).

10 Paul Jenkins, “Much More than Illustrations of What we Already Know: Experiences in the Rediscovery of Mis-sion Photography,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 26 (2002): 157-158.