AFRICAN THEOLOGY OF NATION BUILDING: AN IMPERATIVE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The fundamental question that this article wrestles with is to what extent African Christian theology has contributed to nation building in Africa and Nigeria in particular. The proposal here is that theology has its own contributions to make but that this depends on the deconstructions and reconstruction of the live faith that advances Africa development. For instance, in an insightful article first published in 1974, John Mbiti a professor and leading African theologian lamented what he called the theological paralysis of the church in Africa. This undesirable situation arose as a result of the failure of Christian theology to adequately articulate itself to the point that it addresses the real concerns that African nations are facing. These concerns include issues that have to do with corruption, politics of hate speech, ethnicism, political ideologies and instability, economic imperialism, and poverty. Admittedly, progress has been made in some of these areas since then, but one of the areas where theology has continued to exhibit intellectual shyness is in the area of democratic participation of the church. This article sails to demonstrate how theological discourse could lead to nation building in our nascent democratic governance and development of the people.