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(Southern) African Anglican Biblical Interpretation: A Postcolonial Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Gerald West
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Abstract

This article argues that context is an important fourth factor, alongside the more familiar three, in understanding Anglicanism in (Southern) Africa. As imperialism was an important part of the early context of the Bible’s presence within Southern African Anglicanism, the bulk of the present article charts the contours of imperial Southern African Anglicanism. Having mapped this territory, the article then probes what a postcolonial analysis of Southern African Anglican biblical interpretation might look like, outlining two related components: a descriptive component and an interventionist component. The descriptive task asks how Southern African Anglicans have read the Scriptures, and the interventionist task asks how Southern African Anglicans should read the Scriptures. The former requires a careful Foucault-like ‘archaeological’ analysis and the latter a recognition of the contextually-related resources of African biblical scholarship.

Keywords

African biblical hermeneuticsimperialismSouthern African Anglicanism
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , November 2010 , pp. 140 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2009

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Footnotes

1.

School of Religion and Theology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

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