John Mbiti

John Mbiti was a Kenyan philosopher, theologian and Anglican priest who taught at Makerere University in Uganda and later at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His African Religions and Philosophy was one of the first major attempts to describe African religious and philosophical thought as a whole, and it shaped the study of African religion for decades. He is remembered especially for his account of an African sense of community, summed up in the line 'I am, because we are', and for a much-debated theory of African concepts of time.

Key ideas

• In traditional African life the individual exists through the community: 'I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.'
• Religion permeates every part of traditional African life, so there is no sharp line between the sacred and the secular.
• Traditional African thought, he argued, conceived time mainly as past and present (Zamani and Sasa), with little sense of a distant future.
• African peoples across the continent recognised a supreme God, and their beliefs can be studied as serious religious thought.
• The departed, the 'living dead', remain part of the community while they are personally remembered.

Major works

• African Religions and Philosophy (1969)
• Concepts of God in Africa (1970)
• New Testament Eschatology in an African Background (1971)
• Introduction to African Religion (1975)
• Bible and Theology in African Christianity (1987)

In the Book corner

• African Religions and Philosophy 1969; revised 1990 · Beginner
  A survey of the religious thought of African peoples by a Kenyan theologian and Anglican priest, drawing on material from some three…

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