Domination and Resistance: Lamin Sanneh, Eboussi Boulaga, and the Reinterpretation of Christianity in Africa

Abstract

This article engages the work of two prominent but recently deceased scholars of African Christianity—the Gambian Lamin Sanneh and the Cameroonian Fabien Eboussi Boulaga. It argues that their reinterpretation of Christianity is designed to develop an imagination of resistance in the context of western domination in Africa. Sanneh approaches the matter from a historical perspective through which he narrates the emergence of a new form of Christianity, leading to his important distinction between “world Christianity” and “global Christianity.” Boulaga approaches the issue from the perspective of philosophical theology, through which he developed the “Christic model” as central to appropriating the Christian faith in Africa. The paper argues that one can hardly understand why Sanneh distinguishes between global and world Christianity and why Boulaga develops the radical Christic model, if one fails to locate their work within the framework of problematizing dynamics of western domination in Africa.