4.3.1 Introduction
Lamin Sanneh represents another voice espousing translation as a concept that captures the relationship of one gospel interacting with many cultures. Sanneh was born and raised in West Africa, in The Gambia. He left his family religion of Islam and his geographical roots to embrace Christianity and western academia. His doctoral work was in Arabic and Islamic Studies at London University. He has taught students at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Harvard, and Yale. Sanneh’s published works investigate gospel and culture issues in various historical eras. He writes knowingly and personally of both Christianity and Islam. Although I see Andrew Walls as the primary advocate for this construct of translation, I note that Sanneh more frequently uses the phrase, missional translation.
His most recognised publication is Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact
on Culture. It appeared in 1989 and was reissued in a second and expanded edition in
2009.20 In this landmark work, Sanneh asserts that Christianity translated came to exert a dual force in its historical development.
One was the resolve to relativize its Judaic roots, with the consequence it promoted significant aspects of those roots. The other was to destigmatize Gentile culture and adopt that culture as a natural extension of the life of the new religion.21 (1989:1)
The early Church, Jewish in flavour and interpreted by Paul, in its efforts to extend its mission message and praxis, entered new cultures by ‘allowing the religion to arrive without the requirement of deference to the originating culture.’ Sanneh states as an introductory definition, ‘this we might call mission by translation, and it carries with it the need for indigenous theological inquiry, which arises as a necessary stage in the process of reception and adaptation’ (2008:33-4). Sanneh contends that ‘translation creates a pluralist environment of incredible variety and possibility, and invests culture with an ethical, qualitative power. That power may be defined as the capacity to to participate in an intercultural and interpersonal exchange…’ (Sanneh 2009:242).
Sanneh observes that translation is a complex enterprise, and that it ‘forces a distinction between the truth of the message and its accompanying mode of cultural conveyance.’ He goes on to conclude that this distinction between message and medium challenges believers to affirm a primacy to the message over and against its cultural packaging. At the same time Sanneh affirms the honoured place of cultural settings because the missionary translator commits to the bold and radical step that ‘the receiving culture is the decisive destination of God’s salvific promise’ (Sanneh 2009:33-60). This sensitivity to balancing a regard to Scriptural sources and cultural
20 Sanneh’s other major works relevant for this research are: Encountering the West: Christianity and the
Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension (1993) and Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (2008).
21
Sanneh uses the term ‘translation’ both linguistically and conceptually. Primarily for him, ‘translation’ is an over-arching construct for gospel transmission into new cultural settings but he often relies on examples of linguistic translation (Bible translation) for evidence to support his claims.
settings is one of the hallmarks of mission as translation. At the same time, I acknowledge that Sanneh’s affirming of the primacy of the message conforms to the Bevans critique of a ‘translation model’ that privileges the content of the gospel.22
4.3.2 Centrality of Missio Dei
Mission as translation, in distinguishing between the message and its cultural carriage, affirms the missio Dei as the hidden light of its work (Sanneh 1989:37). Sanneh likewise sees the dynamic of one Christian gospel entering many human cultures as a version of the philosopher’s notion of the one and the many (1993:115, 142, 143, 147, 149-150, 171, 246). On the one hand he seeks to hold these two poles together, hence the comment that the gospel cannot be peeled or separated from its cultural clothing. On the other hand, he realizes that cultures must be critiqued by this transcendent gospel.23 Culture must neither be defined nor deconstructed to absolutes, nor may aspects of a culture serve as material for idols. The person, work, story, and teachings of Jesus will call into question elements of each culture. Thus an incipient distinction can be drawn between God’s good news and all cultural settings. Yet core elements of the gospel must be articulated and accomplished nevertheless, from a cultural point of view and in terms of some particular language. Sanneh states that he is concerned not only ‘to safeguard the authority of Christ but the authenticity of culture as well’ (1993:149).
Another reason for this tension in Sanneh’s works involves his two uses of the word translation. When Sanneh is thinking and writing about linguistic translation or Bible translation he more naturally separates the message from any of its carrier languages. On the other hand, when translation is used conceptually to imagine the gospel, and the
22
See Section 4.6 on pp 153ff.
23 The gospel affirms and critiques cultures because material in the Gospels manifests an ‘unavoidable
critical stance toward culture by subjecting cultural claims to the scrutiny of the gospel, especially the oppressive elements in culture’ (Sanneh 20009:38). This researcher agrees for how can one critique the Nazi Holocaust or occasions of apartheid injustice with the gospel message unless one can draw a distinction between the gospel and its cultural incarnations?
Christian faith, expressed in the various symbols and practices of a culture it becomes more difficult to sift out the one ‘faith’ from the indwelling potential of the many cultural contexts.
4.3.3 The Pentecost Rationale
Sanneh’s key historical observation notes how the early Christian church saw its Hebrew origins placed relative to the gospel as the gospel penetrated Gentile communities. The Gentile appropriation of the gospel inevitably removed the stigma of being unclean from non-Jewish cultures and made them available to receive the good news. This process of translation established a degree of cultural decentralisation so that the receiving culture became the new and decisive destination of God’s salvific promise (Sanneh 2009:37). Much as Walls located his view of translation in the biblical doctrine of incarnation, Sanneh looks to the Acts 2 account of Pentecost as providing the theological rationale for cross-cultural translation (Sanneh 1993:118, 135-6).
The primitive Christians … came to a fresh view concerning God’s impartial activity in all cultures. The watershed for this new understanding was Pentecost which set a seal on mother tongues as sufficient and necessary channels of access to God, a piece of cultural innovation that enabled the religion to adopt the multiplicity of geographical centres as legitimate destinations for the gospel … [Thus] no culture is the exclusive norm of truth and that, similarly, no culture is inherently unclean in the eyes of God. (Sanneh 1993:134)
Sanneh posits five consequences of translation (1989:24-49, 201-210). These consequences highlight what happens to and within cultures when the missionary translation dynamic is unleashed.
1. The host or receptor culture endorses the translation; see the example of Pentecost. 2. During translation the culture of the missionary is placed relative to what is translated.
3. The missionary movement and its work of translation signalled an end to Christendom, and religion effectively was separated from its western territorial identity.
4. The missionary translation fosters accountability and guards against cultural idolatry. 5. The missionary translation leads to a renaissance of the host culture.
Therefore, Sanneh argues that missionary involvement in other cultures should be assessed in light of the accomplishments of vernacular translation. He asserts and I
concur that ‘there is a radical pluralism associated with vernacular translation wherein all languages and cultures are in principle equal in expressing the word of God’ (2009:251).
4.3.4 Culture Matters
The early church was confronted by the challenge of maintaining a commitment to a mission culture, insofar as culture embodies faith in a concrete way, while avoiding the sort of cultural idolatry that fuses truth claims and exclusive national ideals. How is cultural commitment compatible with religious openness? The missioner must seek the balancing of cultural specificity with theological standard practices, such that a reconciling of Christ and culture is pursued (Sanneh 2008:4).
Sanneh sees two paradoxes in Christianity vis-a-vis culture. The first paradox is that Christianity is almost alone among world religions ‘in being peripheral in the place of its origin.’ Ever since Pentecost and the rise of the church in Antioch, Christians have turned their backs on Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The Christian crusades, beginning in the eleventh century, offer some episodes to counter this notion as wholesale. The second paradox is that Christians adopted a unique strategy in abandoning the language of Jesus (founder of the religion) and instead adopting koine (common) Greek and
vulgar (common rather than classical) Latin for the languages of scripture and theology.
The Syriac Bible (the Peshitta) is the closest analogue to a Bible in the Aramaic of Jesus, but it too is a translation from the original biblical languages. The language of revelation for the stories and message of Jesus was Greek, although scholars believe Jesus’s first language was Aramaic. Sanneh cites as a third but secondary level paradox the universal phenomenon of Christians adopting names for themselves without the warrant of scripture. This might be said to contrast with the universal identifying name of Muslim for the adherents of Islam. Christians, on the other hand, call themselves by a
variety of labels: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Orthodox, Independent, and many others (Sanneh 1993:117-120). Sanneh’s point may be nuanced by recognising the remarkable unity and durability of the Roman Catholic tradition. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge that Muslims have divisions and party labels too.24
In a 1995 article, ‘The Gospel, Language and Culture: The Theological Method in Cultural Analysis’, he seeks to make the case for the fundamental character of Christianity being a force for cultural integration.
Christianity affects cultures by moving them to a position short of the absolute, and it does this by placing God at the centre. The point of departure for the church in mission, as we saw at the outset, is Pentecost, with Christianity triumphing by relinquishing Jerusalem or any fixed universal centre, be it geographical, linguistic or cultural, and with the result of there being a proliferation of centres, languages and cultures within the church. Christian ecumenism is a pluralism of the periphery with only God at the centre. Consequently all cultural expressions remain at the periphery of truth, all equal in terms of access, but all equally inadequate in terms of what is ultimate and final. Thus while we cannot conceive of the gospel without its requisite cultural expression, we cannot at the same time confine it exclusively to that, for that would involve the unwarranted step of making ends and means synonymous. Such was the double caution missionary translation introduced into the cultural project, though we are in only the early stages of comprehending its full theological significance. (Sanneh 1995:61)
Schreiter rightly has criticised Sanneh’s view of culture for being positivist and for relying too much on Matthew Arnold. Sanneh quotes many cultural commentators so it is difficult to gain a clear picture of his own theory of culture. When Sanneh turns to discuss ‘vernacular languages and cultures under the Gospel’ his argument becomes more compelling and more useful for considering mission as translation.
4.3.5 Translation and the Scriptures
The importance of linguistic translation is the key concept for Sanneh’s elucidation of the translatability factor. From Pentecost onwards, Christian history may be viewed as a series of translations as the gospel moved from culture to culture over the centuries. This is a thesis that echoes the research of Andrew Walls. Sanneh would agree, undoubtedly, but in his scholarly work he has sought to show the ‘deeper connections
24 Muslims have multiple traditions of interpretation and various Muslim pluralities identify themselves as
between Bible translating and issues such as cultural self-understanding, vernacular pride, social awakening, religious renewal, cross-cultural dialogue, transmission and recipiency.’ He highlights ‘reciprocity in mission’ with special emphasis on translation projects in modern sub-Saharan Africa and contrasting features in Islam (Sanneh 2009:214).
For Sanneh, Christianity was a translated religion from the start. In a 1990 essay Sanneh details particular aspects of vernacular translation.
1) Vernacular translations of the gospel began with the adoption of indigenous terms, concepts, customs and idioms for the central categories of Christianity.
2) Vernacular criteria began to determine what is or what is not a successful translation—with indigenous experts moving to challenge Western interpretations of Christianity.
3) Employing the vernacular led to many new languages into which the scriptures were translated 4) In numerous cases the missionary translations were the first attempt effort to write down the language—translators had to produce lexicons, grammars, lists of idioms, proverbs, etc.
This massive effort to document the vernacular triggered many consequences arousing loyalties to the indigenous cause—serving as a seedbed of nationalism. Theologically, one might say God’s prevenient grace preceded the missionary and prepared the way to adopt existing forms—as if God was their hidden life. (Sanneh 1990:1-23)
Because all languages are missionally interchangeable, they are instrumental such that in their difference, they serve the same purpose.25
Languages were seen as the many refractions in which believers testified to the one God, so that particular cultural descriptions of God might convey in concrete terms the truth of God without in any way excluding other cultural descriptions. (Sanneh 1995:56)
The operative view of language in Christian translation assumed a close relationship between language and the God spoken of, so that in any cultural representation God can be detached in the mind from the things said to be God, even if these peculiar forms, be they peace-pipe, the bread and wine, the wisdom fire, the orita, or what have you, cannot in those specific situations be so easily detached from the idea of God as such. This gave culture and language a penultimate character, allowing them to be viewed in their instrumental particularity. (Sanneh 1995:58)
25 A postmodern critique would question Sanneh’s assumption that the same kind of similarity is found
among whole cultural systems as exists among languages. Talal Asad’s reading of cultures, for example, highlights diversity rather than unity or similarity; see Asad (1993, chapter one). I affirm Sanneh’s appreciation of cultural similarity that is elucidated by Amartya Sen who champions a notion of global solidarity. Sen also points out Pierre Bourdieu’s insight that ‘the social world constitutes differences by the mere fact of designing them’ (Sen 2006:27, 120-48).
This is another variation on Sanneh’s grounding of translation in the missio Dei. Sanneh contends it is an important matter not to confuse ‘differentiating’ and ‘unifying’, by treating the first, in terms of cultural autonomy, as the source of the second in terms of theological ideas and principles, which is to say, to boil down cultural signs and symbols into a warm, genial construction of the idea of God. It is this difficulty, Sanneh suggests, that Christian realism can help resolve. Consequently Christian commitment to God has necessarily involved commitment also to cultural forms in their historical instrumental potential (Sanneh 1995:59).
One such universal is that every Christian receives an adoptive past and is linked to all those who came before in the faith including Israel. Paul’s analogy of the olive tree and the grafted branches offers a picture of this set of relationships. The history of Israel and the patriarchal father Abraham belong to all the faithful. Among the many kinds of particulars are the ways followers of Jesus practice the discipline of praying. All manner of postures and styles and content and emphases adorn the prayers of the faithful in various eras and places.
Consequently Christianity is both a captive to and a liberator of cultures. Thus the translation of the gospel into a culture never occurs without both an endorsement of culture and a critique of culture. Sanneh provides an apt commentary on this understanding of culture that represents these two principles seen in tension.26
4.3.6 World Christianity as a Global Phenomenon
Sanneh also has directed his authorial gaze at what he describes as ‘world Christianity’. He hails the demographic transformation of Christian adherence as the end of
Christendom and sees it as one of the consequences of translation.27 Sanneh waxes poetic in the following description of world Christianity:
The exploding numbers, the scope of the phenomenon, the cross-cultural patterns of encounter, the variety and diversity of cultures affected, the structural and antistructural nature of the changes involved, the shifting coleur locale that manifests itself in unorthodox variations on the canon, the wide spectrum of theological views and ecclesiastical traditions represented, the ideas of authority and styles of leadership that have been developed, the process of acute indigenization that fosters liturgical renewal, the duplication of forms in a rapidly changing world of experimentation and adaptation, and the production of new religious art, music, hymns, songs and prayers. (Sanneh and Carpenter 2005:4)
To what extent do the constantly evolving new contexts affect, inform, shape, and change the notion of translation and even the many facets of the gospel message? Several preliminary conclusions emerge from Sanneh’s assessment of the emergence of Christianity as a world religion instead of a western religion. First, the colonial empires waned even as Christianity flourished. This conclusion mirrors Sanneh’s double concern to assert indigenous agency in receiving the gospel yet acknowledge colonialist entanglements with Christian mission. If a closer connection had prevailed then would not the Christian religion have waned as the empire retreated? Secondly, the denominational pattern of mission was challenged by twentieth-century church growth. The case of the African Independent Churches is perhaps the most notable example of this pattern of church.
Thirdly, world Christianity is not simply a transplanted European model but represents something new.28 The variety of forms and styles, the complex linguistic idioms and aesthetic traditions, and the differences in music and worship patterns show world Christianity to be hostage to no one cultural expression and restricted to no one geographical centre. This is a familiar theme repeated under a new rubric. More
27
Sanneh’s more recent publications reveal the shift in subject by their titles: Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity, The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World, and Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West.
28 Sanneh sparked an intramural debate with other mission thinkers with the publication of Whose
Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (2003). He contends that the term ‘global Christianity’ represents an older Christendom model whereas ‘world Christianity’ is the preferable ‘new name’ for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries’ phenomenon of Christian faith translated into many non-Western cultures.
languages and idioms are used in reading the Christian scriptures and in Christian liturgy, devotion, worship, and prayer than in any other religion. The unity of Christianity, however defined, has not been practiced at the expense of the diversity and variety of cultural idioms and of models of faith and practice in use at any one time and