Postcolonial missiology in the face of empire: in dialogue with Frantz Fanon and Steve Bantu Biko

Abstract

The challenges of neo-colonialism challenge academics and clergy alike to search for an alternative to what the Accra Confession declares as empire. For the Accra Confession, empire means the specific coming together of economic, cultural, political and military imperial power as a “system of dominance” to protect the interest of the powerful. The question is whether Missiology, given her colonial history and official collusion to imperialism, still has a role to play in the context of overcoming imperialism, today. I argue that the future of a postcolonial Missiology, in the face of empire, depends on a crosscutting dialogue with interlocutors, who engage this legacy head on. Has the critique from African anti-colonial thinkers been engaged in the development of a postcolonial Missiology for our time? Here I highlight the challenge of two younger voices, namely Steve Bantu Biko and Frantz Fanon, in particular in the publications, ‘I write what I like’ and ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, respectively, as they engage colonialism and imperialism, but more so, as they influenced South African Black Theology. This I argue is an overdue dialogue, in our ongoing quest for developing a truly postcolonial Missiology.