HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND, EXCERPT.....

"Why have these dynamics not been better understood ? The historical answer is that Euro-American intellectuals have transmitted these ideas to Africa, where they have been camouflaged as if to assume that these prejudices were genuinely African. "Here is the crucial test question: Compare these two lists: (1) Rousseau, Nietzsche , Marx, Freud, and (2) Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine. Now ask which list is more African. Now ask which list has more deeply affected the past generation of African intelligentsia and of scholarship in and about Africa, and even of much African theology. A review of references in their books will show that the African list is quoted with far less frequency by a huge factor than the European list. It is thus evident how far African interpreters have gone in accommodating to European thinkers with minimal empathy for African sensibilities, metaphors and premises." P.71, HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND by Thomas C. Oden (2007)