Remembering Inus Daneel

By dri August 6th, 2024 in Announcements, People

I met Inus Daneel in 1998 when I took his class on African Traditional Religion at Boston University. I had just spent two years living in West Africa and was trying to make sense of the significance of that experience for my own future. We quickly connected over our love of Africa and by the time I finished my second class with him on African Christianity we had forged a close bond, fortified by his wonderfully hospitable presence and by long talks in his office in the African Studies Center.

In class and out, I came to see him as more than a professor seeking to help us students understand and grow professionally. He made himself available as a companion and guide through the landscapes of the spirit we walked, ever ready to help us meet the different challenges we faced in life.

I thought for a time I too might become an Africa scholar and even spent ten days in Masvingo exploring some research possibilities with him. But I eventually sensed my path lay in a different direction. Yet he remained a good friend and mentor after that and always an inspiration for the depth of his Christian witness, for his adventurous, observant, and joyful spirit, and for his lifelong closeness to the Shona people of Zimbabwe, including at great personal sacrifice during the civil war there in the 1970s.  

I treasured meals with him in the BU student union and was honored by his presence at important moments during my remaining graduate school years in Boston—at my doctoral exams during which he argued for my passing with distinction, after my dissertation defense when he offered a congratulatory toast before family and friends, and in sending me significant and unanticipated counsel after my wife Susanna and I decided to marry.

Somewhere along the way I realized that he had become a father figure to me—that he fit that role in my life—and when I last saw him in 2023 he said something close to that, saying that he thought of me as a younger brother. However best to describe the connection, after twenty-five years it was something we both recognized, though with him as the elder I know I am far more indebted.

Amid the different encounters we had over the years, he taught me some very important things: courage in time of trial, fighting for a worthy cause, standing on principle, humility before the divine mystery, attentiveness to the Spirit’s presence, and perhaps most of all, trust in God’s providence. Life to him, I know, was a sacred sojourn, miraculous and intensely interesting. It is obviously marred by terrible tragedy and evil, but because it is ultimately supported by God’s love and goodness, we can have faith in creation and in each other, walk across walls and barricades, and look out for the new things that God is doing this day.

Since Inus passed, I have been remembering many of the stories he told me—of growing up at Morgenster Mission, of his theological training in South Africa and in the Netherlands, of living among the Shona and enduring the war, and of promoting ecumenism, theological education, and earthcare. These stories were always captivating, yet they were also sometimes sad because he endured some difficult years and often lived close to those with heavy burdens to bear.

I have also been remembering other scenes—of praying with him before meals, watching him befriend Shona strangers by comparing ancestral lineages, him writing out for me an English translation of a Dutch Reform Church service in Afrikaans, hearing him address a village congregation on reconciliation within a ring of stones under a tree, and most recently, marathon talks with him at his and Dana’s home in Somerville.

Reflecting on all this, I cannot measure the gift of having walked these paths with him since that first class day in 1998 or of having witnessed the testament to God’s love, abundant creativity, and surpassing faithfulness that was his life. Farewell, Inus! May the Lord meet you on your way and bring you home!

By William (Bill) Gregory