Sacred Digitization: AI, Ancestral Aesthetics, and the Reclamation of Ghanaian Christian Identity

This presentation examines the Ghana episode of the docuseries The Art of Theology, which traces how Ghanaian Christianity reclaimed indigenous aesthetics through Adinkra symbols, Kente cloth, and Symbolic Theology. The episode itself raises methodological questions for the digital humanities. To visualize historical moments where no archival footage exists, AI-generated imagery is incorporated , prompting consideration of whether AI has a legitimate place in scholarly storytelling or risks distorting ancestral memory. Additionally, the series lives on YouTube, a platform that challenges conventional academic distribution by making theological inquiry publicly accessible. The presentation argues that AI, deployed transparently, can function as digital iconography, a tool for imagining what written archives cannot hold, and that digital platforms expand rather than diminish scholarly reach. Together, these dimensions model new forms of public humanities practice and invite critical conversation about authority, memory, and the future of religious knowledge in an algorithmically mediated age.