Code Switching in Religion: From Ancestors to Christian Prophets in Southern Africa

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

With their hands humans create religious objects, with their eyes they view them as part of a religiously meaningful whole, and with their minds and bodies they engage in rites that have decisive symbolic meaning. All these codes, be it material objects, verbal, or non-verbal actions, are interrelated, and together they signify a coherent way of understanding human life. But religion would be no religion if humans do not, through their bodily actions, communicate to each other that supernatural forces are also involved in their common world and individual lives. The involvement of supernatural forces are constantly communicated in experienced by community members in their religious human actions. During their first encounters it was impossible for Europeans, who understood their world in terms of the great stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition, to understand the religious codes of the indigenous African inhabitants.

Because of the European agent's inability to recognize the Khoikhoi language, Khoe, with its many clicks as a linguistic code, this difficult language was often equated with animals sounds and became the natural link between the language of men and that of animals. The Khoikhoi were regarded by the Europeans as the creatures that bridge human and animal domains. The denial of Khoikhoi religion was based on the perceived absence of language, Christian doctrines and practice in the lives of indigenous people.

From the position of mediating true revelation about God, and his salvation of the world through Christ, the tendency of western Christianity was to uproot heathen objects, actions and words, and to replace these with a new cultural and religious order based on the norms and principles of Christianity. Mission influence therefore stretched beyond merely providing a religious framework to the cultural transformation of the societies touched by their work. Apart from not understanding the importance of the indigenous practices for the indigenous people, missionaries also failed to switch religious and cultural codes into viable alternatives for the advancement of indigenous societies. This situation caused the distortion of Christian references by indigenous converts, since new African meanings were assigned to old Christian/European signs/codes.

The close association of the missionaries and their Christian faith with the European culture led to a crisis on the part of the indigenous people, who were the recipients of the mission wo가. This crisis led to an explosion of African religious codes into various new forms of African religion, resulting in the emergence of African Indigenous Churches, whose leaders play important roles in religious code-switching in Southern Africa. Breaking away from the traditional western churches, African Independent Churches (AICs) have been formed. The founders of the AICs have remolded Christianity from their experience of traditional African religion, The liturgies, diction, ethos, ceremonies, style and protocol are designed to serve the needs and character of the African people. African Independent Churches are a result of the interaction between African people's peculiar African indigenous approach to a western Christianity and their own traditional customs and ideals. The adaptation of a western religious ethos to a traditional African sometimes borders on syncretic distortion. The other side is also true where adaptations lead to "an imaginative transformation of ancient customs so that it amount to a legitimate christianizing of Christian indigenisation."

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 Dube, S. W. D, "The interface between biblical revelation and extra-biblical revelation: An axiom in the development of African indigenous churches in: Independent Churches today. African Studies 44. United Kingdom: Th"

2 Krige, E. J, "The Realm of a Rain-Queen" Oxford University Press 1953

3 Delius, P, "The Land Beongs To Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the nineteenth-century Transvaal" Ravan Press 1983

4 Chidester,S, "Savage systems: Colonialism and comparative religion in Southern Africa" University Press of Virginia 1996

5 Mfusi,S.K, "Religious Communication: Prayer, Sacrifice and Divination in: African Independent Churches today. African Studies 44" The Edwin Mellen Press 1996

6 Daneel, I, "Quest for belonging" Mambo Press 1987

7 Oosthuiqen,G.C, "Post-Christianity in Africa: A Theological and Anthropological Study. London"

8 Xulu,M, "Music and Leadership in the Zionist Churches In: African Independent Churches today. African Studies 44" The Edwin Mellen Press 1996

9 Maluleke,S.T, "Morula Tree Between Two Field" University of South Africa, Pretoria 1995

10 Ruether,K, "Heated Debates over Crinoliness: European Clothing on Nineteenth-Century Lutheran Mission Stations in the Transvaal" 28 (28): 350-378, 2002

11 Kitshoff,M.C, "From veneration to deification of Isaiah Shembe: Reflections on an oral history in: African Independent Churches today. African Studies 44" The Edwin Mellen Press 1996

12 Lestrade,G.P., "European Influences Upon the Development of Bantu Languages and Literature in: Western Civilization and the Natives of South Africa" Routledge and Kegan Paul 1967

13 Strother,Z.S, "Display of the Body Hottentot In: Africans on Stage" Indiana University Press 1999

14 Troeltsch,E, "Die Absolutheit des Christentums" Sibenstern Taschenbuch Verlag 1929

15 Geertz,C, "Dichte Bescheibung" Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1994

16 Saayman, W, "Christian Mission in South Africa" University of South Africa 1991

17 Sundkler,B.G, "Bantu Prophets of South Africa" Lutterworth Press 1948

18 Turner,H.W, "African Independent Chruch. Vol. 1: The Church of the Lord(Aladura). Oxford"

19 Turner,H.W, "A Topology for African Religious Movements" 1 : 1-34, 1968

20 Spuy, R. J. R, "A Reformed African Indigenous Chruch? In: African Independent Churches today. African Studies 44" The Edwin Mellen Press 1996