The spiritual world, Christ, ancestors, angels, and demons in Hlungwani’s art and theology

Abstract

Jackson Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem is shaped by his unique African Christian theology teachings. They are expressed through his wooden sculptures in an “independent African Church which would echo the wish to Africanize Christianity and represent a new cultural and spiritual phenomenon through his art” (Rankin, 1998: 46; Steyn, 2019: 184). It is through this vision and his artworks that Hlungwani prophesied the coming of an Apocalypse, which would result in man’s salvation, and signify an ultimate victory over evil. This article concerns the New Jerusalem (the ‘imagined’ and the ‘built’) and reveals Hlungwani’s Christian and traditional ideas around the spiritual world, Christ, the ancestors, angels, and demons. Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem should therefore be understood in the context of a unique African Christian theology created from the perspective of an African cultural context. The two altars for the New Jerusalem site and a number of wooden artworks are selected for their connection with both the artist’s vision and the supernatural world, angels, ancestors, and earthly warriors. The selected sculptures are the Crucifix IV, the sculpture God and Christ, and the panel Cain and Abel. They are discussed and analyzed as I believe that they reflect profound visual metaphors derived from spiritual visions, the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel, and of the Apocalypse of Saint John from the final book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation.