let me say how glad I am to have been invited to share my thoughts with you first of all I'm not a theologian and I know you are accomplished theologians but I feel confident because I'm sufficiently curious to talk about God and therefore I believe that my thoughts some of which you may not agree with and must not indeed agree with speak to the same God I've written a paper which will be distributed it's more disciplined than what I will present in a eclectic fashion but I'm acutely aware that I've been asked to talk about
problems bedeviling Africa but before I say that letest it be that it is only Africa that has problems it is not true as I speak only yesterday in the United States of America there is a state of emergency in the state of Texas so there are problems in the United States as I speak to you now there is a war in Ukraine so there are problems in Europe as I speak to you now there are tribal problem problems in nagon kabak amongst the azanis and Armenians so there are problems in that part of the world
because there is the tendency to assume in popular media that problems are only in Africa completely untrue and let therefore my presentation be understood in that context we are speaking about Africa because we are in Africa and because we are focusing on the continent of Africa when I came in the devotion also said that there are diseases in Africa true but there are diseases everywhere so let it be understood in that context that said and you being theologians of the Christian extraction let it also be understood before I make my contribution that Christianity is a
very young religion is a post Christ religion and I invite those who are present here to read the book that I love written by desmondo tutu God God is not a Christian and I believe that God is not a Christian Christianity from my theology is a human construct created after Christ was assumed into heaven controversial that is the standpoint from which I come I profess Christianity but I read all holy books I read the Hindu guitar and I'm familiar with Hindu mythology I read the mahabarata I hope all of you have read the mahabarata because
the writers of the mahabarata say that he who has not and she who has not read the mahabarata has read nothing and I agree with him the Hindu mahabarata was written 5,000 years before Christianity and is 11 times longer than the Christian Bible and when I talk about the Christian Bible I mean the Bible that includes the 12 D canonical books sometimes referred to as the Apocrypha and when I watch the Hindu mahabat I begin to see theology because the characters in that book are tenders School under a tree a ban tree and they are
being taught theology I urge you to read the mahabat when I talk about theology I'm also talking about theology before Christianity and many of you will have read The Works of Socrates [Music] The Works of Plato The Works of Aristotle from whom St Thomas Aquinas borrows very heavily and that theology is also important because it was a theology that talked about Gods Not God that theology informed modernday Christian Theology and you are familiar with it as students of the theology when I talk about theology I'm also talking about African Theology and those of you you
who are Africans will be familiar with the Theology of runer among the Yuba peoples perhaps not documented but that is also theology those of you and many of you are students of comparison comparative religion we must also be familiar with Islamic theology so there is not one theology there are theologies and if one comes from that standpoint one must therefore be very humble I'm one who presently very slow to talk about denominations Catholic Church Anglican Church SDA Church Methodist church today when you tell me I'm an Anglican I resist it although I was baptized in
that church and that to me represents an Enlightenment I feel I'm becoming closer to God when I run away from organized denomination ations because organized denominations bottle God and confine him to a very small space to which he does not belong and the danger of theology therefore is that in my Anglican Church sometimes I hear the priest saying we are going to learn about anglicanism and I said is that about God that anglicanism we are going to learn about Roman Catholicism is that about God or Roman Catholicism we are going to learn about SDA is
that about God or sism and many of us are caught in that wpo today I dare say that one of the greatest problems that bevils bevils Africa Israel religion it is one of the things that debilitates Africa Africa now finds ourself in a space where many believe wrongly in my view that all our problems will be solved through prayer and fasting wrong the Divine instruction as I understand it was going oh ye and subdue the Earth and by the sweat of thy brow thou shal eat there is no shortage in Kenya even those of you
who came from outside who have seen many crusades in Billboards in Nairobi Kenya and when you travel across Africa there is no shortage of individuals going by different names prophet prophetes and yet those of you who are students of theology will be told that the age of prophethood ended some say with John the Baptist some say with Micah but they are prophetess and prophets there is no shortage of Apostles running around Africa producing rabbits out of hearts in the name of fake Miracles there is no shortage of them that is part of the African problem
but we do not want to confront it particularly you theologians you don't not want to confront it there is now a theology in Africa of making people feel good without making them good that is wrong theology it is unbiblical and is dangerous to Africa cuz the Bible that I read does not say it the Bible that I read is specific and unequivocal when I read the book of First Kings and I read the story of the Prophet Elijah and his confrontation with Ahab and Jezebel he says bring forth the 400 prophets of Bal and the
450 prophets who are prophets of aera and let them come to Mount Caramel that we may know if God is God let him be worshiped and if Bal is God let him be worshiped not two ways choose and a choice is made that is the Bible that I read and I don't think it has changed even if you have the American or the NIV or the King James that one has never changed so there is no equivocation in the Bible it's about Choice the other Bible that I read is to be found in Joshua 24
and you'll be familiar with it the last meeting between Joshua and the Elders of Israel before he passes on at sheim says remember before we crossed before I called Abraham and N from his father Tera they worshiped other gods and he narrates what he did to them and how he came into the land of the amorites and he tells them choose you now whether you want to worship the gods that your fathers worship before they cross the Jordan or the Gods of the amorites in whose land you dwell as for me and my house I
Shall Serve the Lord no equivocation Clarity choices being made I read that the Bible that I read also tells me in Matthews 24:24 that in the last day there'll be many christs they'll come and they are coming now many of them they shall walk one ERS and that they would even lead the very elect but for divine intervention that Bible I read and I suspect you also read the same Bible the Bible that I read in Paul second letter to Timothy 3 also tells me that in the last days there shall be a form of
Christianity where people will be lovers of themselves and they would cheat everybody just like Janice and jambus did to Moses in the desert I read that Bible I also read another Bible vers in the Bible Roman 130 that shall people shall be lovers of themselves and they will have committed all sins and they manufacture new sins like lgbtq nowadays I go to church and pastors are equivocating my own church I saw in England the clergy coming completely with the dog scholar apologizing for people who are engaged in lgbtq saying that God loves them yes he
does but God does not love sin and the last time I checked and the Bible has not been revised one of the reasons why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed was because they engaged in those so when you ask me to talk about the role of theology and the problems beving Africa I'm situating my presentation in those Biblical verses which are clear and une equivoca and Africans like all peoples face numerous problems and human beings face numerous problems s we seldom forget but we must never forget that this continent and her people were enslaved we must
never forget that you must never forget that 18 million Africans were taken from the Eastern part of Africa into the Arab world and men were castrated you must never forget that because the effect of it is with us today we must never forget that over 12 million Africans were taken and taken to the [Music] Caribbean taken to Europe and America we must never forget that we must never forget that in southern Africa the appeide regime was underwritten through verses from the Bible by the Dutch Reformed Church you must never forget that Upon A theology based
in the Bible fact we must never forget that the Roman Catholic Church was involved in slavery and they have apologized for it we must never forget that the Church of England was involved in slavery and they have apologize for it using the Bible theology slaves obey your masters like you obey Christ in the Bible not revised you go and read it there is a viice like that so when we talk about Theology and African problems we must remember that the effects of slavery are alive and with us today when slavery was gone it is Christians
again William Wilbur Force and I can through history see him standing in the House of Commons saying that slavery should be abolished but that Africans should not be freed even when slavery is abolished and slave trade after slavery colonization came and as I speak to you you Europeans sat in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 and divided Africa into spheres of influence Africa was a hunting ground divided amongst the British the Italians the Dutch the French the belgians the the [Music] Germans and today we are in this assembly I'm using English language which was imposed on
us and those of you who come from English speaking countries you referred to as anglophone those of you who come from French speaking countries you are referred to as lcof as francophone and those from Portuguese are referred to as lusophone soon there'll be sinophone we don't speak Yoruba I'm not speaking Yoruba I'm not speaking kahili there is no kahili interpreter here there are only French and Portuguese and English part of the African problem we are confused when my friend res existed there being called a perfect Frenchman I could understand his anger because the colonial project
was a dehumanizing and humiliating process and religion and theology were at the heart of it that is why when the European colonizer we used to be taught in school that the flag followed the cross I went to Zanzibar and a young man was taking me through the Dungeons and he showed me there was the school where they taught Africans that they may use them in their labor there is the church that they touch their spirit that they may be spiritually confused and there is the hospital where they treated them that they may use them as
labor had never had such interpretation that is why when theology came we were told that in order to be a Christian you must be John or James or Joel you cannot be taiw will no that is not a Christian name Christian name must be John Joseph who said it whose theology is it who said that in order to be a Christian you must be John who said it that is jist theology that is racist theology because when you want to change a person you give him there your name those of you who have watched Roots
will know this Alex his roots you capture kin and in order to dehumanize him you call him Toby that is also theology so African problem is also colonization so as we speak now they are Nigerians here they are ghans yeah they are conges democratic Republican of Congo and then there is Congo name after fedin and de Braza called brazaville I look forward to the day they change brother fi's name at least they changed Leopold field into kinas this is the reality this is part of the problem the Democratic Republic of Congo will never know peace
because of religion Roman Catholicism and colonization these are the problem Ling Africa and we never say it King Leopold of the belgians cost 13 million congales to be killed twice the number of the Jews that were killed by Adolf Hitler at Holocaust but we have forgotten we Africans have a short memory but the Jews will never allow you to forget never ever but we Africans have forgotten part of the African problem is short memory Amnesia is part of our problem and that is why we keep on repeating the same mistakes time and over colonization is
part of the problem that affects Africa because after colonization ended we have another thing called NE colonization and it is alive and well that thing called neoc colonization he's alive and well and if you doubted whether he's alive and well I want you to see what is happening in Gin kre I want you to see what is happening in N I want you to see what is happening in bukina Faso I want you to see what is happening in chard and I want you to see the arrogance of the French President when he says my
Ambassador shall not leave my bases shall not be removed at least yesterday he capitulated the neoc colonial project is alive and well did you hear the voice of the church throughout what is happening in Guin BAU no the church is silent the church is complicit so when you talk about Theology and what it can do sometimes courtesy of theology because you want to be good you don't raise your voices the last time I checked John the Baptist voice was alive and well in the wilderness where is the voice of the church amidst all this Africa's
problem is also neoc colonization is the From Slavery to colonization to neoc colonization which is an ongoing project and Ghana's Kuma was right in 1965 when he said the last stage of colonization is neoc colonization and is alive and well and we see it today I tell Africans because of neoc colonization I'll come to what I think theology can do today in Africa here in Nairobi Kenya if you want to buy something from a supermarket you go to Caro which is French you want to buy fuel you go to Total energies or rubies which is
French you want to have your pizza which is made by Kentucky Fried Chicken which is American you had it carried have it carried by globe which is Spanish if you want to have security you have it by G4S which is British if you want your home guarded is guarded by KK which is G World from Quebec if you want to have chicken is Kentucky Fried Chicken if you want your airports manage is swis Port from Switzerland that is the state of Africa consuming what we do not produce and producing what we do not consume just
look at it that is it and when you are in that state you are slave when you are in that state you are dehumanized when you are in that state you are not behaving as if you are made in the image of God if you run across Africa there is no shortage of organizations which are designed to [Music] debilitate Africans through NGS usid right now they are busy dropping food in Sudan and Somalia yeah uk8 Dana G there is no shortage of them and quami was right again the colonialist comes under different guises but they
kill your spirit to survive so Africa is bedeviled by all these things and until the scale Falls from our eyes and The Works Melt from our ears we will not go anywhere so what can you do amidst all these things what can religion do what can theological schools do can they do anything that is useful can they change people's lives can they Empower people the Bible can't be disempowering and the Bible can also be empowering you know several years ago when my child was young and wanted to be baptized I went for pre reparation she
had not attained the age of majority she was one and my provos at the All Saints Cathedral asked me whether I believed in child baptism I said I don't it's not biblical there is nowhere in the Bible where anybody was baptized as a child and if it was biblical Christ would have been baptized as a child then he said why do you bring your child I say because I know you people when my child comes here as an adult you'll ask her why were you not baptized so she got baptized but I said it has
no biblical basis completely this is man-made then they say but they used to dedicate the children I say that was Jewish tradition Christianity has roots in Judaism but it's not Judaism so the Bible can be misinterpreted and another time I'm invited to speak to politicians here in Kenya and when they have read they say that all leadership comes from God I said no it's not true there's so many Crooks in leadership in Africa and elsewhere they could not possibly be coming from God then they say but it's biblical I said the book of Romans was
written by Paul in the year 1577 to 158 ad 57 ad 58 when he was going to Rome on trial and some of the things are not inspired they were informed by the politics of the day he was softing the rulers in Rome but he did not help him when he arrived there was arrested detained and he was executed so it is not true that all these things are inspired and if you read Rome and the Book of Romans historically you'll see that there are things that are Paul's own opinion and you who are theologians
May debate about it I'm giving you this because I'm now coming to the Theology of it you may now know that there is a committee that is doing the rounds in Kenya which is collecting views about about religion and how religion should be regulated because of an incident called shakah hola I appeared before them and during my presentation I made this statement and the chairman almost jumped out of his seat I said that the nien Creed was a political settlement he said that is heretical he must have said said that from his body language and
I said it was political then I say he said the person said why when in 324 ad they invited the 100 or so many Bishops in Nika only 80 attended U theologians Know and how the ni Creed then came came about that the spirit proceeds from the father and the son was a battle between Aran and aanus and aanus won the day and even now I told him in the Eastern Orthodox the filo key is removed and you don't say the spirit REM remove proceeds from the son it says proceed from the father only it
was a political settlement then he said but why are you saying this I told him because I'm a Christian of Bera the Christian of Bera questions and Paul is him who says in Acts of the apostle that why like the barans when the gospel has been preached to them they went home and asked we heard you saying all these things we are fact checking you we are fact checking you because we now have a theology in Africa particularly and in the world where preachers of the Gospel are busy writing little explanatory books about the Bible
and their congregation reads those books rather than the Bible the joy of many preachers today is that have written 20 books read my books and they don't say buy my books they say donate deception just be right say bye my books and if you ask people whether they have read the Bible many have not I did a challenge I'll not do it here because some of you will fail I told in a congregation I want you to recite to me the Lord's Prayer without referring to any book out of 10 only to then I said
I want you to tell me the Ten Commandments in the order in which they were given only two only two but say what the pastor has said in his book about the last days they can memorize everything in the last days Matthew 24:24 there shall be many Christ and they shall mislead many in even the very elect so the question is with all these problems facing Africa Education Health bad governance and all these things in Africa we have some of the lowest quality politicians African countries say that they are democratic they are and kakistocracy is
a government of the very worst you are led by your very worst that is kakistocracy if you combine that with kleptocracy which is a government of Thieves then you can see why Africa continue to punch below her weight in all areas we continue to do so so that many Africans have now surrendered what they are remaining with is prayer and fasting Africans pray for what they can work for that is not the Divine instruction Paul was still making TS we must continue working faith and works we have converted God into an operator of a lottery
and a casino where upon tithing then you will get more you say tithe and you'll get more that is why you have all these dangerous things that are now emerging even in Christianity extremism we have had shakah hola where people died here in Nairobi I hope you've been you've been told about 300 dead and some are still being counted in the olden days not too long ago when I was a young boy you had the Reverend Jim Jones of Guyana outside of Africa the branch devidians in Texas in wo and many of these fellows are
running Riot and African theology has always been there in an attempt to interpret religion and Christianity in a manner in which is in Conformity with African realities we have the African independent churches here before independence they are still there they are trying to understand Christ because in Christ mind there are no Jews nor Gentiles nor men nor women that is the Christian theology no Jew no Gentiles those of you who are from the Democratic Republic of Congo will know of Donna beatric sometimes known as kimpa and her theology he was trying to make people understand
Christ from a conges environment if you have not read about Donna beatric or Kim pavita go and read about she was burned on the stakes by the colonialists just like Johan many of you are from Congo will also remember Simon Kim Bang in prison died in 1951 in prison kimangu was also trying to come with a theology that responded to African reality I'm now trying to suggest to you that theology can be useful but theology must be decolonized if we don't decolonize theology then we will continue to believe that the theology handed down to us
is what is going to solve our problems and permit me to be a little bit uh unsettling you know when you look at the Anglican Church I understand how it was created King Henry VII wanted to anal his marriage with Katherine of Aragon in order to marry an Bolin and established the Church of England and for it St Thomas mo was executed that is not a very good beginning as we speak now the head of the Anglican Church is the king of England that is the titler head of the Anglican Church established now if you
want that theology where the head of the Anglican Church is my head to solve my African problems can they solve my African problems no when they are now saying that before they give African Aid and ask Uganda they must follow lgbtq I personally was the victim of a demonstration in South Africa because I had spoken firmly and unequivocally against LGB btq when I went to deliver a lecture at kep captown University there were demonstrations against me on the 29th of May but I said that is what I believe in and we must not equivocate we
must not in the name of political correctness now say oh because we want IMF and World Bank to help Africa therefore we must say but God loves everybody yes indeed he does but he tells you to do things in a particular way if we allow aberations to be mainstreamed then there is no sin we are going getting into a level where there is no untruth everything is Right everything depends that is the theology that is now beginning to emerge from Europe and America he's going to be the dominant theology and he going to have everything
pegged on it Uganda has had Aid cut from it because the Ugandan president has spoken about it we I'm still talking about the problems beving Africa IMF is saying we are inclusive it is the same people who came here in 19 1800s and gave us the the pin of C which had some sex against the order of nature that was the offense sex against the order of nature now tell me when did nature change yeah tell me when Nature changed and we must say this whether people are angry or not because if we want to
change Africa we must not fear to speak the truth as we know it because if you fall for everything there is a saying he who abandons his C and traditions is a slave there is another saying say conquer yourself that you may be a Victor Africans must make that choice in order for all these problems to begin to disappear we must reexamine our theology we must ask ourselves what we are teaching in our theological schools I know that many theological schools when you still go there they tell you this is how theology started it started
before Socrates in GRE the word Theo means God then it came from Socrates it was articulated much better by Plato in the republics then it was articulated much better by Aristotle then it came to St Thomas Aquinas then it came to Ambrose of Milan then it came to Austine of Hippo they'll tell you all that no African is all eurocentric when you tell them the there was a run Miller in they tell you that was a witch doctor not a theologian and you and me whose education is Western founded believe it cuz that is your
factory setting so you must unlearn some of these things in theology you must question when you go to your theology St Paul's theological College United theological College who are the prime writers the book that you say this is the Los Locust Classics that must be read by all theologians all eurocentric all how many theologians here are writing books how many of you here have done a study on Simon kimbangu how many of you here have done a study on on Donna beatric zero you argue that Donna beatric was misled by the devil you argue that
Kim Bita was misled by the devil who told you education miseducation of the Negro K G Woodson 1933 in the United States so Brethren as I conclude the time is now for theological schools to be the salt in the society to be the light otherwise you are just but an ivory Tower who is separated from the congregation by the pulpit sometimes when you are in the Pulpit do you ever imagine how distant you are from your congregation that the pulpit actually isolates you do you ever think that when you wear the GBS they separate you
and that that is physic do you ever imagine and I'm saying this noting that some of you are wearing the dog's colar that the dog scholar if you are not careful separates you from the congregation if you are not conscious of these things then there is a problem because the theology that comes must be based in the Bible who amongst you is the greatest he who is last shall be first his theology about the bread you'll ask me many questions and I'll answer them to the best of my ability but I want to conclude with
this particular one why do you think that Christ fed the 5,000 Christ must have realized that when your body is not nourished the soul cannot receive information that is my interpretation so the body must be fed so that the soul is ready to receive the theology in which you are engaged must do that if it does not do that then it is sterile theology thank you very much e e e e for [Music]
