I left my full-time post as Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London in 2020. Since then, I’ve welcomed the freedom to research and write free from the bureaucratic pressures of modern academia, but I have also experienced a lack of focus and inspiration with regard to theological research and writing, and I have missed my students.
So I was delighted when my long-term friend and colleague, Sr Dr Anne Arabome, invited me to partner with herself and Dr Nontando Hadebe as directors of the Sophia Institute, a visionary and bold new project that Anne has launched in Namibia. I spent most of my first thirty-three years in sub-Saharan Africa, having been born and grown up in Lusaka, Zambia, and having also lived in Kenya and Zimbabwe. When Anne asked me to take responsibility for the Sophia Institute’s online theology programme, it felt like an answer to prayer. Here was an opportunity to use my theological training to engage in grassroots education and reflection with women who are on the frontline of so many of the joys and challenges, opportunities and frustrations of twenty-first century Catholic life.
Anne is a member of the Sisters of Social Service in Los Angeles. In 2024, she left the United States to base herself in Namibia, in order to serve the theological and formational needs of women religious in southern Africa. In an interview with Sister Michelle Njeri, OSF, published in Vatican News, Anne describes the vision that inspired her to make this radical act of faith:
The religious women in this area of Africa have limited opportunities for formation in theological studies and spirituality. There are so many gifted, talented, and competent women religious who are passionate about the mission of the Church – bringing the light of Christ to others. … I have a dream that this initiative will be a means for empowering and reclaiming the dignity and beauty of African women religious and their communities through creative and contextualized theological reflection, formation, renewal, spiritual accompaniment and Ignatian retreats.
The Sophia Institute offers a combination of in-person and online courses, retreats and workshops. Even in these early days, it is clear that there is a vast hunger among women’s religious communities for the kind of opportunities we are offering. Our online Introduction to Theology course has over a hundred registered students, and our first Webinar session was greeted with much interest and enthusiasm.
Reflecting on how to design a course intended to meet the needs of a variety of students with different educational and cultural backgrounds, I decided to adopt the method of story-telling, informed by narrative theology. This offers a culturally appropriate way of introducing different aspects of church doctrine and teaching, biblical studies, and theological debates, all with a particular focus on African women’s theological visions and struggles. In his book The Sacrifice of Africa, Emmanuel Katongole writes of his “conviction that all politics are about stories and imagination”. He continues:
Stories not only shape how we view reality but also how we respond to life and indeed the very sort of persons we become. … Who we are, and who we are capable of becoming, depends very much on the stories we tell, the stories we listen to, and the stories we live. Stories not only shape our values, aims, and goals; they define the range of what is desirable and what is possible. … This applies not only to individuals but to institutions and even nations. That is why a notion like “Africa” names not so much a place, but a story—or set of stories about how people of the continent called Africa are located in the narrative that constitutes the modern world.[1]
In an influential TED talk from 2009, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie cautions against the danger of a single story when referring to Africa, reminding her audience that Africa is “multiple-storied”, continuously evolving, ever-changing and contested. The single story is, she argues, an expression of power that produces only stereotypes.
To approach theology with these ideas of story-telling in mind is to open up a fertile space of reimagining and retelling. If offers a way to respond to Pope Francis’s call for a “paradigm shift” in theology:
Theological reflection is therefore called to a turning point, to a paradigm shift, to a “courageous cultural revolution” that commits it, first and foremost, to being a fundamentally contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women live daily, in different geographical, social, and cultural environments, and having as an archetype the Incarnation of the eternal Logos, its entry into culture, into the worldview, and the religious tradition of a people.[2]
An example of this imaginative retelling can be found in Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator’s African interpretation of the Trinity, in his book Theology Brewed in an African Pot.[3] The Trinity is the core doctrinal mystery upon which the whole foundation of the Christian faith rests, but it’s important to bear in mind Denys Turner’s distinction between mystery and mystification.[4] The former opens us to that which is beyond all conceptualisation or rationalisation, and it lends itself to a rich play of symbolic meanings without being defined by any one of them. Mystification obscures rather than reveals, its function being to block rather than express the limitless possibilities of mystical language. As Orobator points out,
A symbol points the way and allows us the possibility of expanding our horizon of thought: it does not pretend to contain everything that it attempts to present. … It does not block the way to understanding; rather, it opens the way to an experience of reality in a much deeper and personal way. (p. 28)
Exploring possible symbolic representations of the Trinity in African cultures, Orobator suggests the Yoruba expression Obirin meta, which means three women. It designates
a woman who combines the strength, character, personality and beauty of three women. Obirin meta is a woman with many sides, a many-sided character. She is a multifunctional woman of unmatched density and unbounded substance. (p. 31)
Those who object to such creative reimagining of trinitarian language might ask themselves why this should be any less acceptable than the culturally specific language of Greek philosophy familiar to the early Christians who, like African Christians today, were seeking ways of telling the story of their faith in the concepts and images available to them.
The Sophia project is in its early stages. There are significant challenges ahead, not least in raising sufficient funds to develop its activities. It is currently run entirely by volunteers, including Anne who is mostly self-funding. But it is exciting to be part of a project that has such rich potential for women religious and their allies and communities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Western feminists like me are often told that we are a disgruntled minority, and that women in the African church are happy and fulfilled. This is usually repeated by priests and bishops whose main source of information is—priests and bishops! In any culture or institution in which male leaders have authoritative roles, it can be difficult for women to dissent and be heard. Yet in my experience of working with African women’s groups, including women religious, there are many shared concerns and struggles. The only way to discover these is to create safe spaces for honest speaking and attentive listening. The Sophia Institute welcomes men as well as women with an interest in African theology, who are willing to listen to and learn from the stories women tell.
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[1] Emmanuel Katongole, The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011), Kindle edition, loc. 75-83.
[2] Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter, “Ad Theologiam Promovendam”, 1 November 2023. This is a link to an English translation. Official Italian and Latin versions of the text are at this link.
[3] Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator SJ, Theology Brewed in an African Pot (Orbis Books, 2008).
[4] Denys Turner, God, Mystery, and Mystification (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019)