CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

Cultural heritage is something of value, something handed down to us from previous generations. It carries the stamp of those who came before us. This is inherited property. It is inherited for its historic, cultural, or natural significance. The heritage can either be physical artifacts such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, biodiversity, books, works of art or intangible attributes of a group of people or society as a whole such as language, knowledge, norms, and values. 

Cultural heritage is a window through which a nation sees and understands itself, by learning from an inherited body of knowledge, attitudes, norms, and values. From cultural heritage, we learn the ways of life of the past, the meaning of words, appropriate behavior, and conduct. Because of its important cultural heritage is preserved or looked after with care so that it can be handed down to future generations. People travel miles across the globe to see, marvel, and learn from the cultural heritage of others. For this reason, it forms a critical component of tourism infrastructure. 

However, not every experience from the past was deemed important for the preservation and therefore, needed to be handed down. There are pieces of the past that the previous generations had wished we do not inherit. Equally, there are past experiences that we have inherited and used them because they served our selfish ends. We know such heritage should be discarded. The language of hatred, attitudes of superiority and demeaning conduct should not be prized possessions of heritage. We should, therefore, not hand it down to future generations ourselves. 

South Africa is a melting pot of cultures both from the continent of Africa, Europe, and Asia. The Asian cultures have brought with them spices and delicious food. Many celebrations are not complete without meat, beer, cheese, and wines that reflect the German and French cultures, or even the popular fish and chips of Britain. Many people have come to enjoy these across national groups.

It is the more serious aspects of heritage though, that mark our distinct differences, attitudes, norms, and values. African culture embraces values of co-existence and sharing. They affirm their humanity by recognizing other people’s humanity, existence, and wellbeing. 

Asian cultures also taught us to share but most importantly peaceful forms of struggle, even under extreme forms of violence, when life and limb were lost.

European culture brought with its competition and the elevation of individuals above the community. But worse, the use of violence to dispossess others of their land and livelihood, attitudes of superiority and racism as well as enslaving other human beings.

Cultural Heritage and Apartheid in South Africa cultural heritage is divided and, therefore, divisive. Apartheid had designated black and white spaces. Over 87% of the land with its beautiful landscapes, varied biodiversity, and fertile lands were set aside for white people. 

The land with its natural wonders was used as a weapon of conquest and oppression. Until the winds of change blew through our land the Kruger National Park and many beautiful icons of natural heritage were reserved as a trophy that affirmed racial superiority. It was white property, handed down by colonial masters for the exclusive use of their white children. Blacks were allowed in this world as servants of white masters.

White people proceeded to erect buildings, create artifacts, and celebrated heroes of their conquests through statues and other works of art. They wrote books, poetry, composed songs, and danced to their preeminence position in the southern tip of the so-called dark continent, Africa. 

They celebrate the history of European wars with Africa, battles that immortalized their generals and earned them a place on buildings and street names of the country.

They built universities, imposed their language, and passed down generations the values of conquest and superiority. The Africans were scorned and humiliated. His language, knowledge, culture, and religion were ridiculed, demonized, and curtailed on all fronts.

It is this heritage that has brought about a divided South Africa.

Tensions in the Nation

The celebration of cultural heritage, that is, enjoying the landscapes and biodiversity of the country, languages, and knowledge, monuments and statues, songs and dance, norms and values between black and white are different and carry very different and conflictual emotional responses. Black people feel undermined by the celebration of symbols of white cultural heritage because of excesses of colonial conquest and apartheid. Yet, the white population knows no other life and owns no other heroes, statues, and achievements outside the previous walls erected by apartheid separation. 

Democratic South Africa is built on a constitutional foundation of human dignity, equality, justice, and freedom for all. It guarantees the use of all languages and free cultural expression.

All citizens are free to express themselves in languages, art forms, and religious practices of their choice. Although all cultures are treated equally without discrimination the constitution provides for preferential treatment of the previously discriminated cultures with a view to uplift them. It is the only time that discrimination is permissible because it is positive discrimination. 

History of Heritage Day

Since the adoption of the new constitution in 1996, the 24th of September has been designated Heritage Day. It used to be Shaka’s Day celebrated in Kwa-Zulu Natal by the former homeland of Kwa-Zulu. The elevation of Shaka’s name represented the affirmation of the suppressed history. It was a pushback against colonial power, conquest, and plunder. It was certainly a fitting tribute to the tenacity of African warriors and their bravery. The democratic state needed a day to be used to celebrate the histories and cultures of the different national groups.

It has since been promoted by the democratic government, which hosts a multiplicity of national and provincial functions to promote social cohesion. 

 As we celebrate Heritage Day it is important for Christians to also reflect on the role of Christianity in South Africa’s cultural life. Christianity was used to buttress apartheid logic of separation, discrimination, and oppression. Christians vociferously argued for the suffering visited upon black people as God-ordained and the fulfillment of God’s will.

Those who dared challenge the racial bigotry were ridiculed, isolated, imprisoned and some killed. Those who demanded equality and justice were not only seen as seen as agitators but enemies of the state and Christianity. It is clear that such Christians had succumbed to deceit and the lust for power. 

Africans and Christianity are neither value-free nor neutral. It comes with the values of the exporting communities. When it is introduced into a local community it has to find space and contend with the values of the recipient community. The responses of Christians to many and varied cultural environments have given it a multicultural texture as a world religion. Christians who positively respond to local cultures adopt local languages, art forms, and rituals to tell the story of Jesus Christ. Places of worship, baptism, dress code, songs, burning of incense and sprinkling of water, and all rituals of worship are culture-specific and driven by local ways of life.

There are times when Christianity has taken a stand against local cultures to build its own identity. It has taken a stand against alcohol, polygamy, divorce, family planning, and abortion. 

The Jesuits saw nothing wrong in Chinese converts honoring ancestors whilst the Dominicans and Franciscans called it idolatry. In some cases, such a stand carried with it serious consequences for family life. For example, some in the local population who were in polygamous marriages were forced to choose one wife and abandon the rest upon conversion to Christianity, leaving the rest of the wives and children to wander without family belonging and protection.

In general, African life experience was seen as backward, shunned and the converts had to undergo acculturation at great personal, family, and community costs. The key question is how Christianity should interact with local cultural heritage and the constitutional framework of the country. 

Challenges of Cultural Heritage Facing Christianity

The church in South Africa has inherited people with different cultural experiences. It has inherited norms and values for itself from the previous generations of Christians from different parts of the world. It certainly carried with it a Eurocentric view of life. African life experience was rejected and demonized at great social, economic, and psychological cost to the victims.

It participated in the history of colonialism and apartheid that shaped our present, accompanied by enormous injustices. It has also inherited different rituals of worship from dominant cultures while looking down upon the rituals of the local majority.

For atonement, the church should embrace its cultural heritage but discard all that which negates its evangelizing mission and pastoral care. It must reject patriarchy, racism, and oppression of the people of God anywhere in the world. It should play a leading role in restoring justice to victims of both the state and the church, rebuilding and democratizing the country in areas of access to land for the landless, housing, education, health care, and poverty alleviation. It has to build bridges between different cultural experiences and nurture understanding. It has to insist on the fundamental Christian values, which are the love of God, love of others, and faith.

This way it will be building new norms and monuments that will serve all the people of God.

I thank you.