Whom Do Men Say that I Look Like

Representing Christ and ChristianPersonaein Ghana

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2162817
AutoresRoger Gocking (0000-0002-4259-4383, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen22
Número4
Páginas293-326
Fecha de publicación2009-07-21
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaVisual Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0894-9468 • E-ISSN: 1545-5920
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08949460903004961
OpenAlexW2091075208
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas20

From the earliest attempts to spread Christianity in Ghana, European missionaries used religious art as an important tool for spreading ideas about the Christian faith. This was particularly so for the Catholics and Anglicans who have long-established traditions of religious iconography. Initially this art was highly Eurocentric in that Christ and Christian personae were represented as Caucasians. In the 1960s the need for what was described as inculturation, “the ongoing and critical dialogue between faith and culture,” challenged this tradition, and there were a number of attempts to make religious art, especially in Catholic churches in Ghana, more Afrocentric. This article looks at how this switch from a Eurocentric religious art to an Afrocentric inspiration developed, and at the reaction on the part of Ghanaian Christians to what Afrocentric clergymen in the United States have described as an attempt to “dehonkify Christ.”

Art history · Christian faith · Christianity · Faith · Iconography · Religious community · Sociology · Theology · Christian Theology and Mission · History · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious studies · Religious Studies