What is it about?
The practise of invoking God who is just and loving to punish one’s personal and systemic enemy in the face of systemic impunity is a pervasive phenomenon in Africa. Using African cultural hermeneutics, this article argues that such a practice of asking God to curse one’s real or perceived enemies is an wholesome Christian prayer.
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Why is it important?
This article has reclaimed the significance of imprecation in prayer, which is often dismissed by many Western scholars as unbiblical and uncritical, for the African context. As a biblical Christian prayer, this article has for the first time, demonstrated that imprecation is not only compatible with Christ’s injunction to love our enemies, but also the last nonviolent resort to seek retributive justice by the oppressed African Christians in God’s Supreme Court of justice in this world.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as it gave me the rarest privilege to rethink and recast the biblical significance of imprecation in Africa. I hope those who think the practice of the oppressed people asking God to destroy their enemies as a result of the monumental failure of secular institutions to bring them to justice will find this article thought-provoking.
Dr Ibrahim Bitrus
Bronnum Lutheran Seminary
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: God Who Curses is Cursed, Journal of Law Religion and State, March 2018, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/22124810-00601002.
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