Abstract
Best known for founding a genre of contextual theological thought—African women’s theology—Mercy Amba Oduyoye can also be considered an impactful ethicist. Oduyoye ascribes to an ethical frame with similar commitments to her theological pursuits: social interrogation and communal wellness. Categorizable under the field of social ethics, Oduyoye’s moral framing centers right cultural practice and communal moral vision toward Africa’s full visibility, especially the visibility of the conditions and concerns of her women. This chapter links Oduyoye’s theological and, subsequently, ethical voice, with the theme of a cultural-moral return, reconfiguring the communal-focused pillars of West African socioreligious thought as the moral anchor of African character.
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Notes
- 1.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), xi, and Christina Landman, “Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye: Mother of Our Stories,” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 33, no. 2, accessed November 1, 2015, http://www.christina-landman.co.za/mercy.htm
- 2.
Oduyoye makes it clear that she is “writing in the context of Africa as a person with roots in the Christian church.” Her primary context is Christian church, thus her theological and ethical reflections will have the Christian ecclesial context in mind as her primary audience (see Mercy Amba Oduyoye, “The Fire of Smoke” in Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy [Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995], 5).
- 3.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 125. Oduyoye is clear about her African feminist approach. She asserts that “African women do not perceive their men as the enemy.” She, instead, critiques patriarchal praxis detrimental to Africa’s women. She challenges those caught in the crosshairs of harmful practices to find better and more just ways to be in society and the world.
- 4.
Oduyoye pursues this mission cognizant of the various modes of African religious life. Though she is clear that she is speaking from a Christian perspective, Methodist to be specific, she is aware that the implications of Christian religious interpretation have an impact on how all Africans, Christian, and otherwise are treated in their respective contexts. (See Mercy Amba Oduyoye, “The Fire of Smoke” in Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy [Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995], 5.).
- 5.
- 6.
Mary Elsbernd, “Social Ethics.” Theological Studies, 66, no. 1 (February 2005): 137–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/004056390506600107, p. 139. Case studies are utilized as a key approach to examining the details of social ethics at work.
- 7.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 16.
- 8.
Mary Elsbernd, “Social Ethics.” Theological Studies, 66, no. 1 (February 2005): 137–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/004056390506600107, 137.
- 9.
“Ways of knowing” speaks to a cultural framing or inherent cultural epistemology gained from the practices, values, principles, and beliefs of one’s particular community. “African ways of knowing” thus gestures toward these similar values across cultures and peoples, such as the critical value of the many (the community) toward the wellness of the one (individual), and so on.
- 10.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 159. Sexism is the main area in which African communal principles and values have been overthrown by colonial ideology. She comments on the problem of African communal imbalance across gender lines, “Unfortunately, a communal view of women’s being, one which focuses on the community’s well-being and coherence, often breeds a cultural sexism that rigidly positions a woman even though it leaves a man mobile.” The life of its own that sexism has taken within African communal thriving is palpable and injurious for many African women.
- 11.
Mary Elsbernd, “Social Ethics.” Theological Studies, 66, no. 1 (February 2005): 137–58. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/004056390506600107, 138. Elsbernd categorizes social ethics as containing literature cognizant of the relationship between context and ethics.
- 12.
See Robin Lovin, “Choices” in Christian Ethics: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abington Press, 2000) and Rowan Williams, “Making Moral Decisions” in Robin Gill, Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
- 13.
See Lisa Cahill, “The Bible and Christian Moral Practices” in Lisa Sowle Cahill and James F. Childress, Eds. Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1996).
- 14.
Christian identity can be considered a root in addition to and perhaps more determinant of one’s initial form of identity in the world, their ethnic identity.
- 15.
In a way, I am making an argument for closer recognition of the presence of something akin to an ethnicized ethic. This angle illumines what one’s culture has taught them to prioritize about their life as well as another’s. I am hoping to put a name to the factors and ideations that oftentimes override and come before a (proposed “identifiable” and sometimes singularized) notion of a Christian ethic.
Though potentially controversial to organize ethical thought in this way, I am highlighting the notion of the order of Christianity’s impact and incorporation into one’s cultural identity. It is not that Christianity is not important, but that it may not have come “first” in one’s moral formation. Various peoples hold values and morals, what can be deemed ethical positions, before the influx of colonial influence and the subsequent religious messages brought with them, many being that of the Christian persuasion.
- 16.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), 28. Oduyoye describes Africans as having similar roots and recognizing “the same divinity” and recognizing a source of a “one true God.” What this clarifies is that certain social and religious ideas and practices existed before the categorization Christianity provided. It can later be classified as the God of Christian tradition or not.
- 17.
To assert that every ethical decision I make comes from my Christian identity not directed by cultural and ethnic commitments is a tough sell. Though a difficult task to parse apart entirely, given the generational and personal infusion of Christianity with my cultural identity, to assume all decisions as made through something called my “Christian ethical position” alone instead of my Nigerian-American Christian ethics is false. The ethnic aspect of my identity is just as relevant, if not most relevant, to where and how Christianity determines my ethical lens.
- 18.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 18.
- 19.
Mary Elsbernd, “Social Ethics.” Theological Studies, 66, no. 1 (February 2005): 137–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/004056390506600107, p. 140.
- 20.
Ibid., 141.
- 21.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 159.
- 22.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 17, and Awa Thíam, “Feminism and Revolution (1978)” in I Am Because We Are: Readings in Africana Philosophy (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 115. Thíam articulates black African women’s struggle as having two aspects, the second arguing for “the struggle for the recognition of and respect for the rights and duties of men and women of all races.”
- 23.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 171.
- 24.
Interestingly enough, Christian values are said to purport the same message of recognition of all and the full inclusion of the many.
- 25.
Awa Thíam, “Feminism and Revolution (1978)” in I Am Because We Are: Readings in Africana Philosophy (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 115. Thíam argues that black African women suffer both the harmful effects of colonialism and the problematic actions of the men within their families and communities, “the colonized African male.”
- 26.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 11.
- 27.
Awa Thíam, “Feminism and Revolution (1978)” in I Am Because We Are: Readings in Africana Philosophy (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 115.
- 28.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, African Women’s Theology (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 18. Oduyoye is clear to assert, “certainly not all of Africa is patriarchal, but the hegemony of the patriarchal mind-set strives to make it so…”.
- 29.
Mary Elsbernd, “Social Ethics.” Theological Studies, 66, no. 1 (February 2005): 157–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/004056390506600107, p. 157–158. Elsbernd questions whether personal and collective agency non-first-world persons requires the force of Western (and individualistic) influence that has asserted itself into these cultures.
- 30.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), 2.
- 31.
Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye, “Salvaging Nature: The Akan Religio-Cultural Perspective,” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 11/2008, Volume 13, Issue 3, 255, especially 255–256.
- 32.
Ibid., 255.
- 33.
Esther Acolatse, For Freedom or Bondage?: A Critique of African Pastoral Practices (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 61.
- 34.
Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye, “Salvaging Nature: The Akan Religio-Cultural Perspective,” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 11/2008, Volume 13, Issue 3, 256.
- 35.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1986), 91. Oduyoye notes that Ananse Kokroko is a linguistic means to avoid calling God by God’s personal name, “Nyame,” which can also be spelled, “Onyame.” See also Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye, “Salvaging Nature: The Akan Religio-Cultural Perspective,” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 11/2008, Volume 13, Issue 3, 265, and Rose Mary Amenga-Etego, “Gender and Christian Spirituality in Africa: A Ghanaian Perspective,” Black Theology: An International Journal, 11/2012, Volume 10, Issue 1, 21.
- 36.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1986), 91.
- 37.
Esther Acolatse, For Freedom or Bondage?: A Critique of African Pastoral Practices (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 69.
- 38.
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1986), 129.
- 39.
Ibid.
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Oredein, O. (2020). “Reminders of What Once Was”: The Ethics of Mercy Amba Oduyoye. In: Wariboko, N., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Social Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36490-8_33
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