sacral rule and the Christian Church: An ... - ResearchSpace

traditional leaders of the Bobo in Burkina Faso who have a genume sense of the
lordship of Christ and his place in their spiritual and cultural experience far away from
the church image ofChrist.
Allison Howell, like Sanon, presents conversion as an ongoing process. Unlike
the Bishop, Howell is not a native of the community which she studied in her
rnissiological investigation. She considered Kasena society as a whole from children to
the elderly people. She started in the sequence of the chapters with the existing
Christian group and penetrated the traditional society. Howell expressed in her book 25
the view that the Kasena spiritual experience is more the people's business than that of
the clergy, who tend to control any expression ofthe new convert's faith. The Christian
basic group on which Howell focused her activity is an illustration that conversion has
occurred among those who are peripheral to traditional positions of power. This study
shows that rulers in the traditional Kasena society have not largely gone through the
experience of conversion. The custodians of pre-Christian Kasena government have not
been reached directly by the Gospel. They read the Gospel and see Christ in the lives of
their Christian subjects. How has the people's ability to reciprocally transfer spiritual
and cultural values from the church to African tradition affected Christianity and sacral
rule? How far have African kings transformed from within, their spiritual heritage by
providing a place for Christ?
According to Sanon and Howell, the conversion of individuals and communities
constitutes a daily interaction between the Gospel and culture. Their research applies
25 Howell, Allison, The religious itinerary ofa Ghanaian people: The Kasena and the Christian Gospel,
Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1997.
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