MUSIMBI’S HERMENEUTICAL PRINCIPLE
AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CHIN COMMUNITY[1]
Stanley
Introduction
Hermeneutics (interpretation or reading) is about interpreting and relating the message of a text to a context or to make interpretation be able to meet the needs of a society. Hwa Yung said, “One of the criterion of an adequate theology of mission would be whether it is able to speak to the physical and social needs of humanity as a situation wherein poverty, political and economic injustice, ethnic, ideological and national divisions, and oppression of all forms prevail.”[2]
In order to meet the needs of society, many interpretations come out, including feminist cultural hermeneutics or engender cultural hermeneutics, which I will present. I will base my presentation on Musimbi’s book, Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective.[3] In the conclusion part, I will try to analyze her hermeneutical principle and its contribution for the Chins.
Introducing Musimbi’s Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics
In her book, Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics, Musimbi reflects the experiences of African women under the oppressive African cultures, husbands, and presents their own interpretations (readings) of the Bible in the light of their cultures. It is doing a communal theology, a challenge and critical analysis of the oppressive community and cultures, and introduction of “engendered cultural hermeneutics.”
For Musimbi, the hidden-painful stories and experiences of African women; child marriages, levirate marriages, unfaithful husbands, polygamy, female circumcision, etc, become the grounds or motivations for her theological insights.
Again, Musimbi presents the lives of African Christians as living in the dilemma of the two-forked paths of gospel and culture (p. 20). Often women are being made silence by culture and the Church so that they cannot experience the message of God’s liberation in the Bible. Therefore, for her, “cultural hermeneutics is a first step towards a biblical hermeneutics” (p. 19).
For Musimbi, “it is not enough simply to analyze culture without reference to the people who maintain the culture and on whom the culture impacts” (p. 18). Therefore, she proposes “engendered cultural hermeneutics” (gender-sensitive approach) as an examination of culture because it challenges the concept and practice of equality and discrimination determined by social, economic, religious and cultural factors (p.17), and “seeks to identify such injustices and to suggest a societal correction” (p. 18).
Musimbi presents one of methods of doing theology through story-telling in the third chapter of the book. She writes that story is a basis for theology (p. 23) because it challenges the society to rediscover the hidden truth and the lives of the forgotten people, and brings out the reality (sins) of the society and the Church, and forces the church to listen to the voices of the oppressed, particularly women.
In the research area, Musimbi presents the interpretations of the Book of Ruth by the African women as solidarity between two women, faithfulness of Ruth, the universality of women’s subordination and oppression, the story of marriage and childbirth, of widowhood and childlessness (fertility) from within women’s experience, otherness (p. 33-34), as a model of women’s friendship and commitment to each other (in different nationalities), and as a story of God’s empowerment of the powerless, and as a courage of women. Musimbi writes, “Culture is the best weapon for silencing African women” (p. 47). Therefore, Musimbi concludes that “culture is a key to the reading” of the Bible (p. 49 & 55) and “cultural hermeneutics is a key to African women’s liberation” (p. 55). [4]
In cultural hermeneutics, Musimbi introduces alternative methods, sifting the good from the bad, i.e., celebrating with and recognition of the community by naming child, and critiquing the celebration in which “without child is to be considered a lesser person,” and “the boy child celebrated much more than the girl child” (p. 69).
Musimbi concludes her book with challenging the issues of accountability of:
(1) the Church in Africa as to be the Church of future rather than the future of the Church (p. 80), to speak out a prophetic task (p. 81), and to have partnership of men and women in God’s ministry in the Church (p. 82).
(2) Women in Africa as to build solidarity with each other in the community (p. 83), to have confidence to face the dilemmas and contradictions within their present situation (p. 85), and to challenge and examine cultural practices (p. 85).
(3) Churchwomen’s organizations as to hold leadership training, social, economic and political analysis and gender conscientization while living within the Church (p. 87).
(4) African Women Theologians as to promote the well-being and fullness of life for women in Africa, to reject dehumanization of African women (p. 89), to contribute something new to theology by bringing in the voices of women in Africa, to discover the God of the Bible as Liberator (p. 90), to educate women, and to improve the status of women (p. 92), and to build a just society (p. 93).
Conclusion: Analysis of Musimbi’s Hermeneutical Principle for the Chin Community
To sum up, Musimbi’s engendered cultural hermeneutics is a challenge and critical analysis of oppressing cultures from the perspective of the people, who are being made silence and blind by cultures, with communal not individualistically.
Throughout the book, Musimbi is silent about the canonical Bible and its authority, which is one of the major concerns of postcolonial hermeneutics. She seems to have an optimistic attitude towards the canonical Bible and biblical authority. Her concern is only on culture. Therefore, Musimbi’s concern is not on biblical texts but on ways of interpretation of them within culture.
For my conclusion, I would like to analyze Musimbi’s three key concepts in her hermeneutics for the Chin Community; story-telling, critical approach to culture, and communal theology.
Story-telling: As I have stated, story-telling is very important in doing theology because God is working and communicating with human in history. Musimbi writes, “Our stories are a basis for theology” (p. 23). Only through story-telling, we can know the real situation or feeling of the oppressed where there is no safe place, like in Burma, because the real feeling and experiences are only in unwritten texts as minorities and oppressed. There are many people who cannot write and read. Even the ones who can write and read dare not read and write and challenge about the real situation. Kyaw Win, one of the most famous writers in Burma, said that as the real feeling and experience (situation) cannot be expressed publicly in Burma, you can find them only in their songs and proverbs, and only through their story-telling. Therefore, in order to discover the hidden truth and bring out the reality, method of story-telling, without exaggerating, will be one of the most effective methods in doing theology.
Critical Approach to Culture: The proposed methodology of Musimbi in hermeneutics is engendered cultural hermeneutics, which is challenging and critically analyzing oppressive cultures from the perspective of the people, who are being made silent and blind by cultures.
During the 19th century Western missionary movement, our cultures were deculturated,[5] and the 19th century Western missionaries’ forms of Christianity, not only in our theology but also in our dresses, organizations, buildings and practices, but also in understanding of the Bible (inerrancy of the Bible) and reading the Bible (literal interpretation) have traditionally exercised a strong influence on churches, especially among the so-called evangelicals in Burma as Oduyoye has stated, “the culture of the churches has also been marked by a strong Western influence.”[6]
Nowadays, people try to cease (stop) the Western dominance, and try to find alternative ways of reading the Bible and produce their own theologies with the idea that cultures are blessing from God and Christ is present in our cultures, Christ in culture in Yeow Choo Lak’s word.[7] This is true for the Chin community. They try to appreciate their own cultures again, which were eliminated (extinguished) during the Western missionary era.
In doing the appreciation of our own cultural values, we have to be very aware of the fact that not to commit any other faults as some of the 19th century missionaries did (intentionally or unintentionally). They did not give enough attention to others and failed to find the real meaning and appreciate its values. Culture has both good and bad or liberative and oppressive elements. As Musimbi has proposed, when we try to construct our own ways of reading, we have to be very critical towards our own cultures (celebrating liberative elements and critiquing oppressive elements). Our hermeneutical principle must be a challenging and critical to the biblical text, the interpretation of the text, and to our own oppressing cultures, which make people silence in our society.
Doing Communal Theology: In the modern society, individualism has increased not only between people but also between denominations and churches, and effort has been to their own survival and opportunity. But in Burma, poverty, ignorance of minority rights, neglect of religious freedom (especially Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism), ignorance of women and children, and oppression from both outside and within, are communal life-experiences and realities. Political uncertainty and economic chaos created a situation in which change was not only officially sanctioned but fundamental to the survival of the regime. As a community, our situation in Burma, being exploited, neglected and as refugees, are not individual’s experience, but communal experiences. As Musimbi presents African’s situation as living “in a troubled present and uncertain future,” also is true in Burma. As all of the above experiences are the communal experiences, interpretation based on individualism[8] is problematic for the Chins as a community. Therefore, as Musimbi has proposed, our interpretation must be communal based on community experiences for community building.
[1] Chin State, one of the poorest and the most neglected ethnic minority group, is located in western Burma (Myanmar). It has a population of about 518,144 with 36,019-square-kilometre. The Chins are world known for loyalty to the masters. Many of the Chins become refugees because of poverty and the abuses of military government. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin_State, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma and http://www.chinlandguardian.com/news-2009/1598-about-300-chin-leaders-to-meet-in-rangoon.html (18/10/2011).
[2] Hwa Yung, Mangoes or Bananas? (New Delhi: Regnum Books International, 1997), 17. Letty Russel also argues that no theology is adequate if it cannot speak to and from the experiences of its participants, its doers and its hearers (Musimbi, 11).
[3] Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro, Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective. New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. Later on, I will use the name Musimbi instead of Kanyoro to give respect to her contribution. The name Kanyoro is an adoption from her husband.
Musimbi is the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and has been a passionate advocate for the health, development and human rights of women, girls and minority groups throughout her life. She also served ten years as General Secretary of World YWCA. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musimbi_Kanyoro and http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/who-we-are/welcome-our-new-ceo/about-musimbi-kanyoro (30/09/2011).
The book, composed of six chapters, was first written as a dissertation for the D. Min. program at San Francisco Theological Seminary of San Anselmo, in California (Preface). The book is about doing communal theology out of African women’s stories (experiences). It came out with the home-return of Musimbi to her own village, Bware, Western Kenya. She realizes that the best place or ground of doing theology is “home.” Therefore, for me, the book is the conversion of Musimbi in doing theology, i.e., from doing theology by presenting and applying the existing theology which we learned at universities and read theological books to present situation to doing theology by listening the stories and experiences of a community and reading the Biblical texts critically from their perspective. For Musimbi, doing theology is not “applying existing theological insights to present situations” but “reflection out of which theological reflections arise” (p. 1).
[4] We can see the full text of their readings or understanding of the Book of Ruth in p. 47-48.
[5]Act of causing a person or group to abandon its culture or customs, http://www.dictionarist.com/deculturation (18/10/2011).
[6] Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Hendrik M. Vrom, eds., One Gospel – Many Cultures: Case Studies and Reflections on Cross-Cultural Theology, Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi B.V., 2003, introduction p. 1.
[7] Yeow Choo Lak, “Christianity in a Southeast-Asian Metropolis: Cross-Cultural Hermeneutics,” in One Gospel – Many Cultures: Case Studies and Reflections on Cross-Cultural Theology, pp. 19ff.
[8] Musimbi criticizes that Western feminist theologians’ hermeneutics are highly dependent on individual experiences and are avoid of the experiences of the communal living (p. 38).
