“Africa Today Is Crucified”

In uttering “a loud cry” (Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46), Jesus on the cross actualized the cry of the poor and the wretched (Pss. 34:7, 69, 70, 72, 77). In his passion he took upon himself the oppression and the injustice borne by the Black Continent. In modern societies where the fact of being an African is a great challenge, tied as it is to a tragic and shameful history, we find here “a memory of the suffering” of the African. The slaughtered Lamb “recapitulates” the history of suffering in Africa, where the powers of death have been active for many centuries … In a sense, Jesus the Crucified is the African humiliated and oppressed for centuries. (Jean-Marc Ela, Cameroonian theologian quoted in Jesus of Africa, p.196)