(Archbishop of Mbandaka-Bikoro, Zaïre)
The Word of God is fundamental in evangelisation. More than any other people the African people have trump-cards to be able to understand and accept the biblical message. These trump-cards are the intrinsic affinities of culture and Traditional African Religion with the world of the Bible.
Which are these affinities? This is not the place to list them, it is sufficient to quote some of them just as an example.
- Efficiency of the Word: We know from our African culture that the word is strength, and its power is proportional to the authority of the interlocutor and to the place he occupies in the ontological hierarchy of men. Thus, the Bible, the Word of God, for Africans has a special character which places it above anything else whatever its nature may be.
- Africans equally feel closer to the world of the Bible by the use it has of on the theme of ancestral tradition, by the meaning of relationship, the vision of the world, impregnated in providence, monotheism, unity of the sacred and the profane, symbolism, etc.
For our Christians to be able to perceive these affinities, they need good translations of the Bible which respect the meaning and form of the biblical world as well as the genius of our languages.
Therefore one must encourage ecumenical translations, since the translations of the only Word of God must not show our divisions.
- Inculturation: African reading of the Bible must also be an efficient instrument for inculturation of the message of salvation and, consequently, for evangelisation in depth.
One of our evangelisation tasks is letting our Christians daily read the Bible, share the Word of God in the living ecclesial communities, in different apostolate meetings, in the catechesis, etc.
Original text: French
