Signs, Tokens, and Points of Contact: Religious Symbolism and Sacramentality in Non-Western Christianity

The development of Christianity as a non-Western religion since the middle of the 20th century has generated changes that distinguish it from the expressions of faith inherited from the West. Christian religious innovation and new ways of expressing the faith have become the hallmarks of African Christianity. One way in which these religious changes are discernible is the use of “signs and tokens”, that is, physical substances that in the hands of religious functionaries acquire a sacramental value and that for example serves as support to the sorts of interventionist ministries associated with Pentecostal/charismatic ministries. A classic example of the new sacramental substances is the widespread use of the anointing oil. The anointing oil has become an important “point of contact” in African Christian rituals of healing and supernatural interventions. The use of oil for anointing is not necessarily new in the historic Christian traditions. However, in contemporary African Christianity, it has been reinvented and instituted in healing and deliverance and exorcism rituals that go beyond what was familiar in the older religious traditions. In this essay, we reflect on new sacraments also re-designated as signs and tokens such as the reinvention of the anointing oil as a therapeutic substance in contemporary forms of African Christianity. The new ritual order and the perception of sacraments as therapeutic substances helps us to understand what non-Western Christians, through popular religious innovations, consider important in a faith whose liturgical standards were originally set by Western missionaries.