— Lennox Kalifungwa
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
In the African mind, words are often treated as polite suggestions—harmonies of sound fit for appeasing an audience.
For this reason, words written into law, inked onto contracts, and spoken as verbal commitments are frequently treated as non-binding.
In this theatre, words are not really meant to be believed or lived by. They are not expected to be crafted with precision so as to communicate certainty. The premium placed on words is low as books remain unread and unwritten, as avenues of instant gratification displace libraries, and as illiteracy incrementally becomes institutionalised.
Despite Africa’s growing obsession with education—believing it to be the saviour from peril—it persists in its failure to take words seriously.
Consider the often-slated phenomenon of “African time”. Some have sought to justify its undergirding philosophy and validity, despite the nuisance it persistently perpetrates. “African time” is not merely an idiosyncratic feature; it is symptomatic of a failure to keep one’s word. The fact that it has become a common staple reveals a culture that has normalised the vice of lying.
That this vice has become institutionalised is precisely the avenue through which many attempt to excuse it. And yet, in reckoning with time, we ought to recognise that it is a creational edifice that exists for the benefit of excellent stewardship—the cultivation of truth, goodness, and beauty in all things. To keep time is to keep one’s word. To waste time is to dilute the trustworthiness of a word.
Flattery has become the commodity that places and keeps people in the good graces of those they wish to appease. Those who wield this dark art need only pay the steep price of abandoning truth to attain its allure. Flatterers hate the appearance of being a disappointment more than they hate actually disappointing. They prefer to be thought well of, even at the expense of doing well. They idolise being liked over and above being of upright character.
Many African societies nurture a culture of appeasement, where respect is demanded but amounts to little more than flattery. It is common to hear that Africans—especially in comparison to the West—still nurture their children to respect their elders (and there may be traces of truth to this). Yet, upon closer inspection, “respect” often means little more than massaging the egos of insecure adults.
While respect ought to mean valuing the image of God in another and rendering honour due to them, Africans have replaced this ideal with the idolatry of social standing. Flattery is a form of deceit and a consequence of a culture that has cheapened the true value of words.
Some of the easiest words to read—STOP—have become some of the most common words to ignore. By failing to adhere to these words (and yes, I am especially describing the spectre of public transportation in the form of minibuses here), societies undermine the value of human life. Words were the source of life (Genesis 1); the defiance and redefinition of words were the source of death (Genesis 3:1–5).
This pattern continues in modern cultures. Societies that learn, understand, love, and live by good laws cultivate cultures of life and fruitfulness. Societies that spurn good laws and do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25) establish cultures of destruction and death.
And yet, in Africa, one reason words are undervalued may be that good words remain unknown. A culture rises and falls on the basis of the words that form its language. And so, while words exist and are constantly employed in various forms, words such as integrity, redemption, stewardship, discipline, responsibility, truth, justice, promise, fruitfulness and covenant remain absent from the vocabulary of many Africans. A culture rises or falls to the level of its lexicon—or the lack thereof.
Cultures that possess a restricted vocabulary are inevitably vulnerable to the perils of deception. God’s enemies revel in promoting illiteracy and a constrained lexicon. It is, therefore, strategic for Christians to disciple nations by imparting a rich and robust vocabulary. The codification of language—a hallmark of Christian cultural influence—has historically proven to be a formidable tool.
Wherever the Bible has deeply influenced a society, that society has experienced a profound surge in freedom and flourishing. This is because the words of the Bible are infused with ultimate truth, beauty, and goodness. Christians who use the Bible to cultivate their understanding of words are uniquely equipped to cultivate cultures that are honest and trustworthy.
In the year that King Uzziah died (around 740 BC), the prophet Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord, high and lifted up, enthroned in majesty and splendour, and gloriously serenaded in magnificent worship. In the presence of perfect holiness, Isaiah is undone and confesses: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
It is easy to skim past this confession and even to be perplexed by it. Of all the vices Isaiah might name, he dwells on the moral corruption of unclean lips. Why? Perhaps Isaiah understood the significance of words more than modern men often do.
There is a cosmic war taking place between good and evil—a war that is fundamentally a battle of words, truth against lies. Sin entered the world because man believed lies and consequently developed a natural proclivity to reject the truth. Yet in the Gospel of John, the ultimate Word (logos), through whom all things were spoken into existence, became flesh (John 1:14) and came to testify to the truth (John 18:37). His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return guarantee that truth inevitably prevails.
Those who follow the Word must therefore be people of truth in all things. Those who follow Christ must recognise their responsibility to learn, love, propagate, and live by words of truth—for through them life, freedom, and fruitfulness are multiplied.