God Is Not a Christian: Desmond Tutu and the Unfinished Work of Religious Hospitality
Abstract
Tutu rightly affirms that God exceeds every religion, but a decolonised theology must also restore the African spiritual traditions erased by conquest.
Theology, African religions and decolonisation · Full reading edition
God exceeds every denomination
Desmond Tutu observes that religion usually depends on birthplace: a person born in Lahore would probably be Muslim, in Kolkata Hindu, in Tokyo Shinto and in Rome Catholic. No tradition can therefore confine the absolute to itself.
There is no Christian, Jewish or Muslim God, Tutu insists, but one God transcending all denominations. His theology promotes humility, fraternity and divine hospitality.
From Spinoza to Rousseau
Tutu’s inclusive vision recalls Spinoza’s immanent God, present in all beings and beyond confession. Yet where Spinoza dissolves religious boundaries into an ethics of reason, Tutu seeks reconciliation among religions.
A difficulty remains: religion cannot be separated from political order. Rousseau understood that natural religion changes when civil society and the state organise collective belief.
The African blind spot
Tutu discusses the great global religions but largely overlooks African cosmologies, ancestral cults and oral theologies founded upon memory, rhythm, speech, the dead and the land.
In Africa, Christianity and Islam did not simply arise from geography. Colonial conquest, missionary schools, military force and cultural contempt disrupted existing religions and established those of the victorious powers.
The faith of the conquered and the faith of the victors
Treating an imposed religion as a natural biographical fact risks converting a historical accident into an essence. Genuine religious tolerance must acknowledge the violence through which a faith was received.
Before reconciling global religions, theology must restore conquered peoples to the memory of their own traditions. Every religion carries politics, and inclusion remains incomplete when the vanquished are absent from the dialogue.
Towards a rooted and hospitable theology
Tutu is right that God preceded Christianity. The divine was also invoked in African rites of passage, ancestor veneration, Vodun sanctuaries, Akan sacred forests, Dogon narratives, Mijikenda prayers and the water spirits of the Kongo kingdom.
A decolonised theology should widen divine hospitality and restore erased human memory. It would allow Africans to encounter what other religions reveal about God without forgetting who they were: open yet rooted, hospitable yet sovereign.
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