Counter-Narrative and Ambivalent Discourse Toward Christianity in African Postcolonial Literature

Book excerpt: The book Counter-narrative and Ambivalent Discourse towards Christianity in African Postcolonial Literature explores the encounters and conflicts between Christianity and African traditional culture represented in three African postcolonial literature: Achebe's Arrow of God, Thiong'o's The River Between, and p'Bitek's Song of Lawino. Using postcolonial perspective, this book reveals a counter-narrative discourse against the arrival of Christianity in the three African postcolonial literary works and highlights the ambivalent nature of this resistance, as the authors cannot escape the trap of conformity to Chtistianity and Western hegemony. Christianity, as a missionary and culturally-destructive religion in postcolonial Africa, is considered complex religion that can have both positive and negative effects on traditional African societies. While it can be a ideological tool of colonialism that destabilizes the fabric of local life, it also provides solutions to some local problems. This new religious belief disrupts the social structure and cultural traditional in the context of African postcolonial society.