As I was reading the book on Africa, one of the points that the author kept stating was the imaginary power of the written word over the spoken word. For all official and documented reasons, the written word holds the power. But not always! He states:
Traditions confined to written words can easily become something to be learned instead of lived: a statement, constitution, or code of conduct, rather than a way of life. (112)
Furthermore he adds:
In earlier days in Africa when agreements were made between colonial settlers and the nonwriting local inhabitants, these were written down as treaties signed by the Europeans, to which the African chief signified agreement by making a cross, or touching the pen, as a sort of sacrament, the written word carrying more weight than the spoken word. But there was and still can be a major difference between "a piece of paper" and what is "written on a person's heart." "Accepting" something does not necessarily mean "experiencing" something, just as "believing" a theology does not mean "living" a theology. (111)
Oral tradition and oral theology carry a deeper and wider experience from one person to another than written words can describe or convey, and it is the meaning, the experience of a culture that has to be mediated, not a form of words. Oral tradition, whether of custom, law or theology, carries with it the living experience of those who express it. (111)
Expressing vision and values in words, putting faith, hope, and love into sentences, can be restrictive. (111)
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