Syncretism and Christian Identity in Sub-Saharan African Christianity: A Biblical Reorientation through Narrative Preaching of Genesis Origin Stories

Abstract

The African worldview is built upon origin stories that are primarily passed down via oral communication from one generation to another through the medium of story, forming a concrete foundation of personal and corporate belief and identity. However, upon Christian conversion, sub-Saharan Africans face a crisis of identity. Although accepting this new set of beliefs, the new Christian simultaneously reverts to his former religious origin stories to understand and interpret the world around him, particularly in moments of calamity, resulting in a syncretistic mix of both religions' beliefs and practices. Therefore, I argue that narratively preaching biblical origin stories, particularly from Genesis 1–11, is foundational for the sub-Saharan African Christian to formulate a contextually relevant and biblically faithful Christian identity. Drawing upon Woodridge's methodology for practical theology, this paper's findings demonstrate that biblical authors consistently point their Gentile-convert audience back to identity-reshaping biblical origin stories to ground believers in a biblical worldview and correct syncretistic conformity to pre-Christian belief and practice. Given that Africa is an oral culture where storytelling holds a prominent role, preachers would be wise to utilise narrative preaching of Genesis origin stories, particularly chapters 1–11, as exemplified in this paper, to help sub-Saharan African Christians create a new foundation for developing their identity. This paper contributes to the conversation of shaping African Christian identity through contextual utilization of storytelling by narratively preaching biblical origin stories to formulate biblical identity and worldview foundations.