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THE AFRICAN VIEW OF LIFE: COMMUNAL AND HOLISTIC
Anybody who wants to approach African culture will have to understand the centrality of the common life and communal life in these cultures. Setiloane says: ‘The well-known changing of the Descartion [sic] dictum by Mbiti is right, when he says: I belong, therefore I am’. Setiloane himself adds: ‘It needs to be stated clearly that this African sense of community extends to the family, the clan or the tribe’ (Setiloane, 1986:1 0).
This confirms the fact that ‘the key to a proper understanding of the Bantu customs and institutions would thus appear to be the fact of an existing community which symbolises the unity of life. Life itself is furthered by the relations among the members of the community’ (Mulago, 1955:143, own translation).
About his own tribe, Kenyata says: ‘According to the Gikuyu way of thinking, nobody is an isolated individual, but rather, his uniqueness is a secondary fact about him; first and foremost he is several people’s relative and several people’s contemporary’ (Kenyata, 1965:297). And he declares: ‘The spirit of collectivism was (so) much ingrained in the mind of the people’ (Kenyata, 1965:297). Mbiti writes: ‘In traditional life, the individual does not and cannot exist alone, only corporately. Man owes his existence to other people, including those of a past generation, as well as to his contemporaries. He is simply a part of the whole.
The community must therefore make, create or produce the individual; for the individual depends on the corporate group’ (Mbiti, 1969:106). Danders also confirms that: ‘Furthermore, solidarity and brotherhood are fundamental aspects which characterise Bantu relationships: ‘solidarity and brotherhood make the network of life in the community’. (Danders, 1985:150). He adds that fecundity, procreation and prosperity in life are not seen in terms of the individual, but with reference to the whole community (Donders, 1985: 150). With Senghor, one can say ‘ours is a communal society’ (Senghor, 1965:93-94). Ethnologist Delafosse (1925 :84) describes African society as ‘collectivistic in its nature’.
CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTORY ORIENTATION
1.1 ORIENTATION
1.1.1 Research Problem
1.1.2 Conceptual Framework
1.1.3 Aim, Purpose and Objective
1.1.4 Hypothesis
1.1.5 Delimitation ofthe Study
1.2 METHOD OF RESEARCH
1.2.1 Documentary Study
1.2.2 Field Work
1.2.3 Research by Interview
1.3 CLARIFICATION OF TERMINOLOGY
1.3.1 A Community
1.3.2 A Group
1.3.3 A Mutuality
1.3.4 An Association
1.3.5 A Society
1.3.6 An Ethnic Group
1.3.7 A Clan
13.8 A Tribe
1.3.9 A Race
1.3.10 A Nation
1.3.11 A State
1.3.12 A Collectivity
1.3.13 Collectiveness
CHAPTER II – COLLECTIVE SIN IN AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION
2.1 THE AFRICAN VIEW OF LIFE: COMMUNAL AND HOLISTIC
2.2 AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION (ATR)
2.3AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY
2.4AFRICAN POLITICAL IDEOLOGISTS
2.5THE AFRICAN VIEW OF SIN
CHAPTER III -DIFFERENTIATION OF COLLECTIVE SIN
3.1 TEMPORARY GROUPS
3.1.1 The Crowd
3.1.2 The Mass
3 .1.3 The Public
3.1.4 The Sins ofthese Groupings
3.2 SOCIAL SIN
3.2.1 Examples of Social Sin in a Social Institution: the Case of the Mental
Hospital and Prison
3.3 CULTURAL SIN
3.3.1 Cultural and Collective Sin
3.3.2 The Concepts of Culture and Prejudice
3.3.3 Sin and Need
3.4 STRUCTURAL SIN
3.4.1 Justification of the Theology of Structural Sin
3.4.2 Structural Sin: an Antithesis
3.5 INTERACTION BETWEEN COLLECTIVE SINS
3.5.1 Group Sin
3.5.2 Social Si
3.5.3 Structural Sin
3.5.4 Cultural Sin
3.6 COLLECTIVE SIN: TRANSMISSION
3.6.1 Cultural Heredity
3.6.2 Biological Heredity
3.6.2.1 Examples of Specific Genetic Sins
3.6.2.2 The Biological Diversity ofHuman Beings
CHAPTER IV – A SPECIFIC TRIBE AND A SPECIFIC SIN
4.1 THE LUBA ETHNIC GROUP AND THEIR SIN
4.2 AN OVERVIEW OF THE LUBA ETHNIC GROUP
4.2.1 The Baluba’s Concept of Sin
4.2.1.1 Cilema
4.2.1.2 Cibau
4.2.1.3 Cibindi
4.2.1.4 Mikiya
4.3 CEREMONIES AND RITES OF PURIFICATION
4.4 THE BALUBA AND THE SIN OF PRIDE
4.5 SUMMATIVE COMMENTS
CHAPTER V – COLLECTIVE SIN AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
5.1 SIN AS A THEOLOGICAL PROBLEM
5.2 COLLECTIVE SIN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
5.3 COLLECTIVE S1N IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
5.4 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER VI – COLLECTIVE SIN IN AFRICA
CHAPTER VII COLLECTIVE SIN IN THE WORLD AND IN THE CHURCH
CHAPTER VIII – THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
