“And no one pours new wine into an old wineskin” : discourse in religion and sustainable development for Sub–Sahara Africa

Abstract

On 25 September 2015 a high–level forum of the United Nations met in New York to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which provided a framework for member states to fulfil the goals set out. The agenda contained an action plan for people, planet, and prosperity with seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. All countries and stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnerships, would implement this plan, to which the delegates declared and committed themselves. The plan concurred with the African Union Commission’s Agenda 2063 – “Africa that we want”. Sequential to these developments, some religious organisations joined the discourse and advocated for the place of religion in sustainable development. This article employs deconstruction qualitative research methodology to explore the religious pathways in the SDGs as determined by historical colonial choices in Sub–Saharan Africa. The modern discourse of religion and sustainable development cannot be assumed to be value free. The Jewish proverb that “new wine is not poured into an old wineskin” is used as a historical lens to debunk the underlying legacy of colonialism that continues to hide the coloniality epistemic of dominance and power underlying the language of sustainable development that tends to endorse universality and ignore historical praxis of colonialism.