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The latter-day art boom was fostered by Roman Catholic missionaries. Among them were Brother Marc-Stanislas Wallenda from Belgium, who founded Kinshasa's Academy of Fine Arts in 1943, and Father Kevin Carroll of Ireland, who in the same era came to work among Nigerian craftsmen. Most white missionary bishops back then, Carroll recalls, "thought we were wasting time." Political independence and the increase of black clergy accelerated the process that European Christians call adaptation or inculturation, meaning the incorporation of local culture into Christianity. Today Nigeria has Africa's largest corps of artists and artisans, and Zaire probably boasts the most important assemblage of sheer talent.
Inculturation often means nothing more controversial than transplanting the classic Bible stories into black-African settings. A white policeman accompanies Jesus to Calvary. The crucified Christ wears a crown of cactus thorns. The three Wise Men bear gifts of kola nuts and chickens. More saucily, South African linocut artist John Muafangejo shows Satan urinating in fear before an angel. Sometimes even modest experiments produce scandal. Cheap reproductions hang beneath the Stations of the Cross carved by Kanutu Chenge for a Catholic church near Lubumbashi, Zaire. They are there to appease a congregation shocked to see Pilate dressed as an African chieftain and women with tribal headbands witnessing the Crucifixion.
Serious theological problems can arise when Africanization uses symbols and myths from the pre-Christian faiths. Fearing syncretism in a continent where communion with the spirits and ancestors remains a powerful belief, most Protestants are exceedingly cautious about all the visual arts. Zaire's indigenous Kimbanguist Church strictly forbids decoration except on preachers' and singers' robes. But many Anglicans, once hesitant, are enthusiasts for the new church art. Methodist theologian Dkalimbo Kajoba encourages art so long as it is for "decoration," not "adoration."
Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Roman Catholicism has shown the most readiness to embrace Africanization. One of the boldest steps came in 1967, when the newly built St. Paul's Church in Lagos opened its doors to reveal frankly pagan symbols and statues. A black Nigerian priest protested at the time, "You are taking us back from whence we came -- paganism." But prominent Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya notes that the Yorubas "worship God through the spirit Orisha, who will pray to God for them and obtain the blessings they desire -- not so very different from parishioners kneeling before a statue of the Virgin." The decorations remained.
Abayomi Barber, a Nigerian who makes the sign of the cross over each painting he creates, sees profound value in tribal cultures. "The birth of a child, coming of age, marriage, death and the spirits of our ancestors -- all these needed to be illustrated and represented as supernatural manifestations. This is the basis of our art. We are still interlinked with nature." More radically, Cameroon's Father Mveng wants to fling the church doors wide open to fetishes and magic charms. In Africa's interreligious melange, Muslims are creating images for Christian churches that are not allowed in mosques. Animists are decorating Christian churches. Father Carroll's school produced, as well as Christian art, pillars for temples serving ancestral faiths.