Understanding of African Christianity: African Identity and the Triune God

The identity crisis of the African (Christian) can be addressed by understanding the human self as image of the self of the triune God. In doing this, this paper has traced the history of the issue of the African identity crisis, indicating that the identity crisis of our time can be traced to Africa s encounter with non-African religions and culture such as Christianity and modernism . This paper has also shown that the composite nature of the African self mirrors, although very dimly, the self of the triune God. Just as the African self is composite, so too is the triune self of God. Since the triune self of God does not suffer from schizophrenia or loss of identity by going out of the self and taking in that which does not belong to the self, so too can the African (Christian) go out of her self in her socio-religious and cultural context, and creatively take in even that which is not traditionally African without losing her identity and without suffering from schizophrenia.