Professor of Old Testament Studies
Shalom University of Bunia
(Bunia, DR Congo)
Bungishabaku Katho has a PhD in Biblical studies from the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu Natal) in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He currently serves as professor of Old Testament studies at Shalom University of Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where he also serves as director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Theology. Additionally, he is a senior researcher at CRMD Bunia, the Centre de Recherche Multidisciplinaire pour le Développement de Bunia (Bunia's Multidiscipliinary Research Center for Development).
Dr. Katho has written and presented extensively on the Old Testament's Book of Jeremiah, including Reading Jeremiah in Africa: Biblical Essays in Sociopolitical Imagination (Langham Partnership, 2021) and a commentary in French in the series, Commentaires Bibliques Contemporains series (Langham Partnership, 2017). He also recently contributed to The Oxford Handbook of Jeremiah (Oxford University Press, 2021) with a chapter entitled "Jeremiah Interpretation in Subaltern Context." In addition to these academic endeavors, Dr. Katho is also the founder and executive director of the Jeremiah Center for Faith and Society, a nonprofit working to building a just and peaceful society in DRC. It pursues this vision by gathering leaders to articulate and promote a shared vision for hope which is spreading to the wider community through networking, research, and publications.
Conference Presentation—"Idolatry, Dysfunctional Communities, and Failed States in the Book of Jeremiah: Interpreting Idolatry in Jeremiah from an African Perspective"
Jeremiah 2:5 opens with an important rhetorical question: “What evil did your fathers find in me, that they walked away from me?” The word here translated “evil” or “fault” is evel. As a verb, it means to act wrongly or unjustly. It is evil in an ethical, moral sense, and its antonym is tsadik (good behavior, righteousness, covenantal kindness, or justice). The question implies that some moral failure in Yahweh might have forced the people of Israel to depart from him. In the immediate context of verses 1–3, which describe the relationship between Yahweh and Israel as similar to that of husband-wife, and in the context of the whole Old Testament, this passage recalls Deuteronomy 24:1, which speaks of a man divorcing his wife.
To “walk away” (from God) comes from the verb rachaq, which means “to be or become distant, be removed or remove oneself, withdraw, make distant, walk away, go far away.” Here, it means going after Yahweh’s rivals or after other gods (idols) in order to serve them. This is contrasted with walking after Yahweh in verse 2 of this same chapter, a metaphor of the biblical marriage relationship, where it is said that Israel followed Yahweh in the desert during the time of love. The heart of Judah’s problem is thus expressed in one single verb: rachaq.
In this paper, I argue that this walking away from Yahweh has significant spiritual, political, and socioeconomic consequences for the community and the nation. In other words, once a community or a nation abandons the source of true power and life, and seeks its autonomy away from Yahweh, it becomes dysfunctional, and if nothing is done to effectively address this dysfunction, it can lead to the death of the nation as was the case of Israel and Judah.
I also seek to describe how Jeremiah understands idolatry in Judah as a nation and the relationship between idolatry and poverty (Jer 5), idolatry and the dysfunctional relationship in the community (Jer 9), idolatry and the abuse of political power (Jer 22;24, etc.), and finally idolatry and exile (Jer 29:20, etc.). In addition, I attempt to read the history of Judah in the light of contemporary African realities, arguing that idolatry might be the root causes of the dysfunctional governance in Africa.