Pragmatism in the lenses of African Christianity: An emic approach to lived religions

Abstract

African Christianity, as the synthesis of Christianity and African Traditional Religion, is often perceived as an ideal form of belief and practice that informs religious worship and ethics for nominal Christians. However, this form of expression is mostly dismissed by conservative Christians and African rigorist religionists as being syncretistic, and thereby seeing it as the ‘pollution’ of both religions, Christianity and African Traditional Religion. Even more criticism is given to those who regard themselves as Christians and African religionists – as they are assumed to have dual identities. In this paper, I explore the validity of African Christianity, as practiced by nominal Christians, through the lenses of pragmatism. This is imperative because pragmatism, as a theory of truth, rejects the separation of rational cognition and purpose. Thus, it posits that one cannot separate the people’s systems of belief and forms of knowing from their social context, which they must inherently live by and inform their actions. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to locate and unfold the emic experiences of the experiencers of African Christianity, and to interrogate their lived experiences as guided by pragmatism as the theoretical premise.