Blackening the Bible in the Church of Christ in Zimbabwe: A Liberated and Liberating Interpretation of the Bible in Contemporary Restoration Churches

This study examines the encounter between African converts and European missionaries in Zimbabwe’s restoration churches from colonial times to the present. The white reading of the Bible by missionaries served the colonial project, while African converts introduced their own experiences of racism, colonialism, and imperialism into their interpretation of the Bible. The restoration churches developed a unique hermeneutical approach to the Bible, influenced by North American and New Zealand experiences of reading the Bible in light of black lives in their congregations. This led to a new reading of certain Old and New Testament stories that emphasized liberation from bondage and the establishment of a liberated kingdom, herein blackening. The ‘blackening of the Bible’ is a recovery of the hermeneutics of the black church in Zimbabwe to support the development of a liberated and liberating biblical hermeneutics for the African church. This perspective contributes to progressive hermeneutics in the postmodern and post-human global society and promotes an authentic African Christian theology. The article addresses the methodology needed for the reconstruction of a viable African Christian theology, responds to questions about Jesus’ identity in an African context, and contributes to the development of African biblical hermeneutics as a means of interpretation and understanding.