In my undergraduate studies on Theatre Arts, I learned of ‘experiential learning’ - a concept which centers experience at the center of learning. Though it did not make sense as events were occurring from childhood to adolescence, in retrospect it now makes sense to say that my faith has been shaped experientially. This learning intersects with my experiences with The God of the Oppressed.

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The God of the Oppressed is what/who shaped my faith. I see this experience of oppression as manifold – it is not just from political forces but also from challenging life events. It is marked by questions such as why do human beings experience pain? Why is death a part of life? Where was God in all these losses?  These are questions I had to struggle with growing up, and to this day they remain in the proximity of my faith formation process. I concede that these questions are difficult to answer, but they have always led me to question my own conception of God vis-a-via experiences and doctrines by a few churches I grew up in.

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In the first twelve years of my life, I attended an African Independent Church and Pentecostal church. Later I joined the United Methodist Church, wherein I was baptized, confirmed, and trained as a local preacher. All these denominations profoundly influenced my faith formation. The AIC provided a frame to understand the intersection of my African identity and Christianity, the Pentecostal church, to a degree, challenged the AIC ethos, and so did the UMC. However, now with the theological education I have gained and my own reflections, my faith is equally influenced by these three denominations. They each hold value as they helped me address what it means to be African and Christian, and offered a space to question spirituality, and the Holy Spirit.  At the same time, they all hold a belief implicitly or explicitly of ‘doing no harm to other’ – and this rests at the centre of my faith.

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Within all these denominations I also witnessed clergy and congregants speaking from a marginalised position. While wrestling with my own losses and questions on God, I began to see a liberative approach to understanding God. The people were claiming liberation from different forces – political and spiritual – and thus adopting the same framework I can claim that:

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I believe in God of the Oppressed – A God who is not silence(d), a God who sides with the poor and marginalised. A God who attends to the needs of the ones wondering. I believe in a God who shows up in extended family members, as much as in strangers as forms of God’s mysterious provisions. I also believe in a God of the Oppressed who functions beyond our human conceptions and imaginations.