An Assessment of John Mbiti's African Concept of Time and Its Implications for Christian Ministry

Abstract

An Assessment of John Mbiti's African Concept of Time and ItsImplications for Christian Ministry 1. Introduction More often than not, Africans are accused by the West of not being time conscious. They support their assertion by stating that; Africans are often late for appointments, fail to meet deadlines and take a lot of time many a time talking to one another about nothing in particular instead of doing something constructive. The frequency of sayings in many parts of Africa such as: time wasted is never recovered; time is money and time waits for no man are meant to sensitize the African person on the value of time and hence implies that many of them are not conscious of time.This view, however, is a misrepresentation of the traditional African concept of time; it rests on a wrong assumption that Africans look at time as the West do. Africans are conscious of time as seen in various situations. They have definite times when sacrifices are offered, initiation carried out, planning and harvesting done and so on.Following Mbiti's writing on the concept of time in Africa (this was first expressed in his doctoral dissertation where he used the Akamba tribe to examine the New Testament eschatology from an African cultural perspective before appearing in his book African Religious and Philosophy), various scholarly materials on the subject have appeared which have raised different questions regarding Mbiti's analysis of the concept of time in Africa. Some of the questions asked include: Is the African concept of time the key to understanding African religion as Mbiti contends? Is time dependent or independent of events? Is the African view time two-dimensional, three-dimensional or what? Do Africans really have a future concept of time?While there are no simple answers to these questions, the discussion among scholars reveals that Africans view of time undoubtedly affects their approach to life. Consequently, Christian ministry will do better to understand the concept of time in Africa for better contextualization of the gospel. Mbiti's Concept of TimeTime has been understood in different ways in the West, Africa as well as in other parts of the world. One of the pioneering individuals in discussing the concept of time as understood by Africans and from the African perspective is the respected scholar, the late John S. Mbiti. Regarding his work on the subject, Moreau notes, Mbiti's understanding of the African view of time was first expressed in his doctoral dissertation, in which he attempted to examine New Testament eschatology from an African cultural perspective. His dissertation was based on a study of his own tribe, the Akamba. It was grounded on an examination of two data bases: the verbal tense forms of the Kikamba language, and the body of myth within Akamba oral tradition. In his later works, these views were expanded and generalized in to include not only the Akamba but all of traditional Africa. This was based on an examination of the literature available on a number of tribes across sub-Sahara Africa (M...