A Reimagination of Dialogue and Democracy in Africa via an Afrocentric Reading of the Parable of the Sower (Lk. 8:4–8)

Abstract

precis: One of the key principles of dialogue argues that participants in dialogue are to describe themselves and not to be described by others. Understandably, this is to avoid an incorrect characterization of others. Hence, by applying an Afrocentric lens to the Parable of the Sower, an African Christian self-description in relation to the concept and practice of dialogue and democracy in Africa is attempted in this study. This is needful since Africans have long suffered from the negative imagination and description by many Westerners. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Africans were seen as a "people without history" and, lately, as a "people without democracy," despite the existence of people-centered values and rich social systems in Africa. By adopting a qualitative research design that combines Afrocentric hermeneutics with appreciative inquiry, the study examines the Parable of the Sower and the themes of seed-sowing, fertile ground, and transformative growth through the lens of African cultural values and experiences. It draws on the concepts of African personhood and the social ethics of communalism and ubuntu to demonstrate how an Afrocentric reading of the parable can inform a reimagination of dialogue and democracy in Africa.