Cardinal Dery Fourth Colloquium: Project Statement

Theme:

Thinking Pass Missionary Christianity and the Generation of Cardinal Dery (Rev. Fr. Edward B. Tengan @70)

Introduction

By the beginning of the 1950s, missionary Christianity as propagated by the White fathers under the leadership Fr. R. McCoy and supported by the pioneer generation of converted Catholics led by, now ‘servant of God’ Cardinal Peter Dery, had taken firm roots in northwest Ghana. This was particularly so among the Dagaaba/Dagara and Sisaala populations. Signs that the local church in northwest Ghana was growing into maturity began to show with the ordination of Peter Poreku Dery to the priesthood in 1951. The mass numbers of people turning up every Sunday in the many parish churches that has been constructed between 1929 and 1951 was not waning but continued to grow and there were now more infant baptisms in each parish church than that of adult ones. The rapid growth and maturity of the church soon led to the creation of a new diocese, the diocese of Wa, and the appointment of the first local bishop, Peter Poreku Dery, as its prelate.

Rev. Fr. Edward Bekyane Tengan was born the same year that Cardinal Dery was ordained priest in the Catechist school in Kaleo near Wa where his parents with two other siblings were undergoing training in Christian catechetics and Primary Evangelisation. He, like many of the children born to the new convert to Catholicism, took infant baptism and began the long journey of formal education and later priesthood outside Dagara traditional life of hoe-farming. The missionary Christian project focused exclusive attention on three socio-cultural programs of conversion: provision of Western model school education; provision of Western model health system for the physical wellbeing of people; and the daily and weekly dispensation of ritual and religious services. The four most influential institutions in the education sector that help shape and carry through this missionary project include St. Victor’s Major Seminary, St. Francis Assisi Secondary, St. Francis Xavier Junior Seminary and Nandom Secondary School.

As a pioneer student of Xavier, a graduate of St. Victor’s who later went on to become a professor and acting head of this institution and as a teacher and chaplain of Nandom Secondary, Edward Tengan has been at the centre of this aspect of the missionary project; not just as a student and pastoral agent, but most significantly as an academic scholar. Over the years, he has demonstrated that intellectuals from northern Ghana within his generation are not only capable of passing exams and amassing certificates, diplomas, degrees and doctorates, but are above all, also capable of producing scholarships that are of global significance. @70, this scholarship is mature enough for critical review, assessment and redirection. Cardinal Dery Fourth Colloquium is offering an opportunity for this.

The Crisis of Christianity in Traditional Culture and Civilisation

I was recently informed about an incident that happened in Tom within Ko parish. An educated elder of the village has recently launched a fight against certain activities that he described as traditional witchcraft and sorcery. He has employed the services of a lady who was previously expelled from her village after being accused of practicing ‘exorcism’. The event consists of the lady demanding that accused persons undress in public. Any object found under their clothes and directly attached to their bodies, such as waistband or waist beads, will be proof that they have been engaged in witchcraft.

In 1983, Edward Tengan defended a thesis in Leuven with the title: “The Personalism of Emmanuel Mounier: a philosophical response to a crisis of civilization” (Tengan 1983) in which he made a philosophical case that could apply to the converted Christians in northern Ghana today, a crisis of civilisation in relation to personhood and individual worldviews. Later, he will come to plead for the adoption of ‘Personalism’ in our lives as way of dealing with crisis. Hence, he wrote in 1987:

To adopt the person-attitude in life is to live in humility. Since truth is always dialectical, no one person from his partial stance can claim knowledge of the whole truth. There is, therefore, the need for openness to dialogue and for a constant self-criticism. In the second place, it warns us against fixing a “character” on someone, thus failing to admit the dynamic and mysterious dimensions in his life. The Christian exhortation “Thou shall not judge” gets its philosophical backing in this trend of thought. (E. Tengan 1987:80)

The incident in Tom, put into context the cultural crisis within the context of Christian conversion that Edward Tengan has been writing about when he said:

Whilst Dagara profess the triune God as the supreme creator and sustainer of the universe, they continue to hold onto their traditional conception of the spirit world and the diffused mystical power that pervades their universe. If earlier missionaries tried to deny the existence of the spirits and such other beings that wield mystical power in the Dagara universe as witches and so on, contemporary missionaries prefer to gloss over them. The result is that, many Dagara Christians who still hold onto the powers of these beings and their effects in their lives see nothing wrong in going to other churches as they would to their former medicinal and other cults for salvation and assistance. (E. Tengan:145).

Proposal

As part of the preparation of the for the 70^th birthday celebration of Edward Tengan in October 2021, it is proposed to organise the fourth cardinal Dery Colloquium a symposium focusing on the writings and scholarship of Edward Tengan in mind. The ideas put forward aim at initiating this process. It is hoped that a publication will be issued and launched during the celebration.

Chapters

Philosophical Foundations for the Christian Faith and African Spirituality

“In a very personal way, I came to be convinced of the truth that freedom is not so much the ability to choose between alternatives, but more an internal capacity to responsibly assume and direct the given conditions in which  one finds oneself according to the set of values one has set for oneself” (E. Tengan 1987).

Chapter by Edward B. Tengan: Human Freedom as a Philosophical Foundation

Respondent:

Chapter by Alexis B. Tengan: Human Life as a Cosmic Property

Respondent:

Anthropological Foundations for Christian Practice and African Socialisation

The Sisala notion of the person and the manner in which it is believed to manifest itself are noticeably similar to their view about the universe. For, though they see their universe to be a unity, they also believe it is a composite entity observable from three perspectives. These are, the land as a structured spatio-temporal entity of the material and the immaterial, the universe in its socio-political structure, and thirdly, the land as a personalised being. (E. Tengan 1991)

Chapter by Edward B. Tengan: Sisaala Totina and Catholic Priesthood: Identity and Function of Personhood in religious leadership

Respondent: Aexis B. Tengan

Chapter by Richard Baawobr: The Christian Covenant and Dagara Response and Practice and Thought (Background Baawobr 2007 Opening a Narrative Programme; 2009 Divine Covenant and Human Response)

Respondent: Edward B. Tengan

Chapter by Alexis Tengan

Chapter by Paschal Kyoore: Dagara Tales and the Quest for Identity

Church Institutions, the Christian Vocation and African Tradition on Personalism (Case Studies)

In the writing of this booklet, my main preoccupation has been to let these retired catechists tell their own story. In anthropological jargon, this is the emic approach in which the writer allows the people to express their ideas, beliefs, feelings and aspirations through him. E. Tengan 2015)

Chapter on Catechists: Edward B. Tengan: Personalism of the early catechist as depicted from their stories

Respondent: Isidore Lobnibe

Chapter on Religious Vocations: Immaculate Apuri: Religious Roots: Reflections on the Spirituality of the SMI

 Respondent:?

Chapter by Leonard D. Baer, Ashesi University: Dagara Thoughts on Human Life (nyuvur) in relation to good behaviour in business and work

Respondent: ?

Chapter by KABIR, Charles Bruno: The Church as Conscience and Voice of Society

Respondent: Thomas Anamoh

Chapter by Gregory B. Dongkore: Pastoral Ministry in material development and the spirituality of priesthood

Dates: To be Announced later

Alexis B. Tengan

22/11/2019