Celebrating Cultures

Teaching again this last semester, February to May 2023, after taking a semester off for personal leave, has been a great joy. I am grateful to learn with such wonderful students, the new Senior Class of Nile Theological College (NTC). I was blessed to teach Introduction to African Traditional Religion (ATR), a course I have wanted to teach since 2019 when I sat in on this class with students at NTC.

As I taught this course, I encouraged students at the beginning of each class session “to take a kind, sympathetic, loving look back at our peoples, our ancestors, our forefathers and foremothers.” With love and curiosity, we sought to better appreciate how they lived, how they understood themselves, how they understood their world, how they understood their God. In our final lecture we assessed “the meeting place” between ATR and Christianity, noting similarities and differences.

Please enjoy the pictures and descriptions which follow, most of which capture our final group presentations, offering glimpses into the histories of the peoples of the Greater Upper Nile, Bar el Ghazal, and Equatoria regions in South Sudan. As the eminent scholar and church historian Lamin Sanneh of The Gambia has winsomely written, the ‘One’ Gospel of Jesus Christ is mediated through the many “refractions” of culture (Sanneh 1993: 136ff). May we know and value these cultures and thus find those glorious ‘refractions', pointing us to the 'One' Gospel of healing and ultimate hope!

Two Nuer student join a Murle student singing a song honoring Sultan Ismael, a well-known figure in Murle lore who was gracious and forgiving to those who wronged him and generous to all peoples, also the "helper of women"

Students imitate Chollo people who have come to see and honor the king. They kneel in respect

Sarah Jacob gives a rich description of the Pojulu and the different places they came from (Congo, Ethiopia, South Africa); the majority of Pojulu people now live in Central Equatoria State, South Sudan

Dinka students from Bar el Ghazal Region present a drama of a diviner whose help is sought to find two lost goats

Nen shares the rich and proud history of the Anyuwaa people, who were divided by the British administration across the borders of Sudan and Ethiopia, an event which significantly weakened their kingdom. He also described for us the large scale violence that broke out against Anyuwaa people starting in 1991 in Ethiopia, spanning into the 1990s and 2000s

Changkouth shares about the Nuer prophet Ngundeng, and also about the centrality of the ritual of initiation (markings) for Nuer boys, the rite performed to become a man

Students demonstrate the significant ritual of Gumparedi of the Maadi people, which must be performed after divorce and before remarriage

Students enact the central role of the rainmaker for the Bari people of Central Equatoria, South Sudan

Together with Senior Class (final day)