16 Theological librarianship • Vol. 12, No. 1 april 2019

Expressions and Encounters: Experiencing the Histories and Theologies of African Christianity in the Collections of Pitts Theology Library

A Visiting Scholar’s Reflection

by Esther Mombo

“When an old person dies, we have lost a library.”

Doing research with a colleague a few years ago, I visited several aging people to discuss their encounters with missionaries and the Christian faith. They gave us valuable information; some shared with us letters and pictures they were holding, and they were impressed that we had showed some interest in what they had. They were excited to share, and we were glad to receive. This made us curious about what else was kept in the houses and offices, material that was being eaten away by mold and ants. How would these be recovered and be of use for the young and future generation of researchers of world Christianity and particularly African Christianity? Scholars may not have access to the old people with whom we were privileged to meet with in our field research.

Addressing the group, my colleague reminded them that they were important for the church because they are our living libraries, and meeting with them was such an honour because we got to hear what was not in any of the university libraries we had consulted. He concluded with the remark, “When an old person dies, a whole library is lost.” It is with this view that I offer my reflection on the exhibition “Expressions and Encounters: Experiencing the Histories and Theologies of African Christianity in the Collections of Pitts Theology Library.” For my experience of the exhibition was nostalgic, a mixture of joy and sadness: joy because I was able to see it myself, sadness because there was much more that could be included but was still rotting away in some homes of early Christian converts, and we have no means to retrieve it for good use. While visiting the exhibition, certain questions came to mind in terms of how many of the students of African Christianity would never have a chance to see and experience such materials. Studying away from home to use the kinds of material that was displayed would be an expensive prospect for them, and they can only get information from secondary data. This raised for me a further fundamental question on the imbalances there are in terms of research and production of knowledge. I am grateful, however, for being there at that time to experience the exhibition. My reflections cover areas that were of interest to me but also are themes that continue to be discussed in the story of the African church. Most significant of these is the role of women in the church.

THE STRENGTH OF NUMBERS IN AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY

The exhibition served for me to be a confirmation of the documented statistics about African Christianity. The exhibition’s geographical sphere is widespread, as it includes materials from different locations in Africa. The exhibition’s variety of the church families includes African Instituted Churches, Orthodox, Methodist, and the ones known to be mainline in the language of Christianity in Africa, churches that happen to have relations with the World Council of Churches.