African Traditional Religion versus Christianity

Some Semiotic Observations

Dmitry Usenco

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725271623
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

Breaking away from the centuries-long theological tradition, Dmitry Usenco offers a radically new--semiotic--reading of spirituality, proceeding on his original theory of the initial cultural unity that embraces language, technology, and religion. African Traditional Religion comes into focus as a valid alternative and--in the long run--an equal partner to Christianity in the creation of a modern pluralistic society. While the author's concepts and conclusions may seem controversial to some, none of the readers can discard them as irrelevant. Africa's future will in many respects depend on her ability to preserve her cultural heritage in which religion plays a crucial part.

Chapter I

Animality and Humanity—Nature and Culture

As I have said in the Introduction, I would like to start from the very beginning, from the very source of humanity. This is not because I expect to make any discovery or even to say anything new. Rather, this is because I am not aware of any semiotic theory that would provide a sufficient coverage of this important subject—the semiotics of human nature as a whole, rather than its specific manifestations. Usually, when a semiotician starts his discourse, both language and culture are taken for granted as things already in existence. However, this only means that the approach of most semioticians to the problem of origins is intuitive, rather than fully analytical. I want to try parting with that tradition and attempt to introduce certain definitions and assumptions which will hopefully make all further discussion much more self-explanatory than is normally the case. How successful my enterprise will prove is for the reader to judge. Even if he finds that I do not sound very convincing, I can still be consoled by the thought that I simply feel more comfortable with that way of expressing myself.

Let us start with a definition of religion. Semiotically, it can be described as a system of signs used to communicate and interact with what is believed to be the spiritual world. We should bear in mind, however, that religion is part of a much broader phenomenon which is usually denoted as culture. From the same, semiotic, perspective, culture can be defined as a comprehensive system of signs which distinguishes human beings from other animals. It follows from this definition that culture is an exclusive possession of mankind and that we can put an equal sign between culture and humanity as such. It is defined as comprehensive because it includes not only religion but also other important aspects of human identity. Thus, apart from religion, other very important factors that differentiate man from beast are what we can call (rather simplistically for the purpose of this research) technology and language. I said “simplistically” because this division is quite subjective by itself and can be drawn along different lines by other researchers of culture. However, for the purposes of the current study, I find this conventional distinction helpful for reasons to be outlined below.

Etymology can be helpful. It is true that it can sometimes be also misleading because the original and current meanings of a given word often do not match. Yet the very gap between the two meanings can prove illuminating and point in the right direction. Let us see then how much it could be the case with culture. Its etymology is well-known. Ultimately, the word derives from the Latin “colere” which is usually translated as “to till the earth.” So, it looks like the etymological meaning of “culture” simply equates it agriculture. At first sight, this may look misleading indeed. Firstly, it seems to reduce culture only to its material aspect, i.e. technology, which, as we have just mentioned, is only one of its constituent parts. Secondly, it places the origin of culture as late as the early Neolithic—the time when some peoples actually started to till the earth on an industrial basis. Yet we know very well that culture came into existence long before the rise of land cultivation and that the latter has never been universally adopted by mankind. Indeed, many nations did not choose agriculture as their main occupation and preferred to adhere to stock farming or to even more traditional hunting-gathering. Some of them stick to that choice to this day.

We shall come back to the topic of “agriculture vs. cattle breeding” (Cain vs Abel) in chapter VII when we talk about the nature of sacrifice in different religions. Right now, however, we can amplify the etymological meaning of culture and apply it not only to land cultivation but any type of cultivation, i.e. any human interference that changes the natural order of things, however slight and inconspicuous it may look at the early stages of humanity. Something very important has happened: man is no longer content to subsist by passively accepting only what his environment is able to offer him. Instead, he takes an active stand and discovers that floating with the stream is not necessarily the best option. He makes a transition from natural animal to cultural human.

We shall probably never be able to know for sure what caused that revolutionary change in the first place. From theological perspective, one can talk about a “divine spark” that was lit in the soul of the first man, endowing him with creative faculties. On the other hand, from anthropological perspective, we can perhaps say that nothing prevents us from viewing this “spark” as a necessary and logical outcome of preceding evolutionary trends. From that point of view, the discovery of creative initiative was perhaps no more “supernatural” than the other discovery that occurred billions of years before—when a few single-celled organisms suddenly “realized” that they could merge into a multi-cellular body by trading their independence for specialization within a more complex entity which was better suited for combatting external forces and ensuring survival.

Yet, as I have mentioned before, neither theology, nor anthropology is our concern in the present study. What is truly remarkable for a semiotician is the fact that the word which etymologically highlighted only the material aspect of this “rebellion against nature” is adopted to express the spiritual aspect of it as well. This was possible thanks to the perceived unity between the material and immaterial aspects of humanity in a situation when any technical innovation was also a spiritual one, i.e. always had a corresponding linguistic and religious effect.

It is time now, therefore, to define the two other essential components of culture—language and technology. Semiotically speaking, language can be characterized as a system of signs used by human beings to communicate and interact with each other. It is evident from this definition that language is a counterpart of religion in what they jointly constitute as intellectual/spiritual (as opposed to material) culture. They are not the only components of this phenomenon but they are nevertheless essential to it. It is also important to stress that communication and interaction are defining attributes of both language and religion. That could mean that the “mechanism of action” that underlies both language and religion is largely identical. In the next two chapters where we shall speak about the origins of language and religion, I will try to show that this is actually the case.

As far as technology is concerned, it constitutes the spiritual/intellectual dimension of material culture, the design that accounts for all artefacts created by human beings. From semiotic perspective, technology can thus be defined as a system of designations which mark the acquisition and use of specific objects in the specifically human way. It is important to emphasize with regard to this definition that designation plays a crucial role in distinguishing a fact of nature from a fact of culture.

It is even more important once more to emphasize that various components of culture, although conventionally distinct, can be treated as phenomena of common origin which follow essentially the same “common law.” This commonality is usually more evident and easier to trace at early stages of humanity but, as we shall see later, it remains identifiable even at very advanced stages. Therefore, throughout this book, we are going to consider religion in parallel with the other two crucial components of culture—technology and language—inasmuch as this simultaneity can be sustained without prejudice to the main subjects of our research—African Traditional Religion and Christianity.

What does it look like in practice—this primordial unity of technology, language and religion? I think the best way to understand it would be to study an example. Can we think of an object which is primarily used as a technological appliance but which at the same time can acquire certain properties that will allow us to consider it also as a religious and linguistic symbol? I believe such an object can be easily found in the history and even in the contemporary practice of mankind. It is well-known to all; it is a piece of wood that once broke off a tree and fell onto the ground, waiting for an insight of the primal inventor to put it to use. I am taking about the common wooden stick.

Its technological application is well-known. Although certain animals do use sticks for building their nests, dens or dams, their technology was not invented by them but by their selfish genes in order to assure a more efficient preservation of their species. The genes of higher primates were, on the other hand, mostly silent in that respect, leaving the initiative entirely to the individuals themselves. From the purely naturalistic point of view, a stick is nothing but a detached tree branch. It retains its “proper” use only as long as it remains attached to the tree—at the very best as something that can be gripped to facilitate climbing. A former branch lying on the ground is nothing but a useless obstacle which must be ignored or, at the very best, removed from the way. Yet, what used to signify an inconvenience suddenly changes its nature and begins to signify an opportunity to explore the potential of an object that initially seemed to be rejected by nature. Here we observe a process of “sign flipping,” or, to use the biblical allusion that originally comes from the Psalms (118:22) and is repeated by Jesus (Matt 22:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17)—the stone rejected by builders becomes the head of the corner.

However, this is just the beginning. Not only does man manage to reproduce and appropriate the experience of other species (birds, badgers or beavers), he also proceeds to discover further uses for the stick, which have no precedents among animals. From passive construction material the stick becomes an active extension of the human body. Depending on the specific application, it turns into a tool for digging or a weapon for fighting. Semiotically, it feels as if the same thing, without changing its shape or any other properties, acquires a new meaning, in a process similar to a word getting a homonym. This striking similarity suggests that the processes of acquiring technology and language (as well as religion) probably ran parallel, following the same basic rules, at least at the initial stage. We shall deal with language acquisition of little later. Right now, we can elaborate a bit on our example with the stick.

The above mentioned “homonymity” is not the only possible development. Another process which is probably even more important can, for lack of a better term, be designated as metaphorization.13 To expound on our example with the stick, we can say that this time it is used not in an alternative but a in figurative sense, or, to put it differently, we can also say that it changes its sense from the technological to the communica...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Background
• Chapter 1: Animality and Humanity—Nature and Culture
• Chapter 2: The Origin of Language
• Chapter 3: The Origin of Religion
• Chapter 4: The Fall of Man
• Chapter 5: Reclaiming the Fetish
• Chapter 6: Rethinking the Idol
• Chapter 7: Blood as Spiritual Currency
• Chapter 8: Witchcraft
• Chapter 9: Polytheism and Monotheism: Absorption vs Diffusion
• Chapter 10: The Twilight of the Gods
• Chapter 11: Lighting the Twilight: Renewal vs Denial
• Chapter 12: The Christs of Africa
• Chapter 13: The Semiotic Message of Jesus
• Chapter 14: The Conquest: Joshua vs Josiah
• Chapter 15: Exclusivism
• Chapter 16: Inclusivism
• Chapter 17: Pluralism
• Conclusion
• Bibliography