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This book seeks to demonstrate the significance of Ancestor Christology in African Christianity for christological developments in World Christianity. Ancestor Christology has developed in the process of an African conversion story of appropriating the mystery of Christ (Eph 3:4) in the category of ancestors. Logos Christology in early Christian history developed as an intricate byproduct in the conversion process of turning Hellenistic ideas towards the direction of Christ (A. F. Walls). Hellenistic Christian writers and modern African Christian writers thus share some things in common and when their efforts are examined within the conversion process framework there are discernible modes of...
"Who do you say that I am" (Mark 8:29) is the question of Christology. By asking this question, Jesus invites his followers to interpret him from within their own contexts-history, experience, and social location. Therefore, all responses to Jesus's invitation are contextual. But for too long, many theologians particularly in the West have continued to see Christology as a universal endeavor that is devoid of any contextual influences. This understanding of Christology undermines Jesus's expectations from us to imagine and appropriate him from within our own contexts. In Re-imagining African Christologies, Victor I. Ezigbo presents a constructive exposition of the unique ways that many African theologians and lay Christians from various church denominations have interpreted and appropriated Jesus Christ in their own contexts. He also articulates the constructive contributions that these African Christologies can make to the development of Christological discourse in non-African Christian communities.
Christianity has an inherent capability to assume, as its novel mode of expression, the local idioms, customs, and thought forms of a new cultural frontier that it encounters. As a result, Christianity has become multicultural and multilingual. What is the role of theology in the imagination and articulation of Christianity’s inherent multiculturalism and multi-vernacularity? Victor Ezigbo examines this question by exploring the nature and practice of contextual theology. To accomplish this task, this book engages the main genres of contextual theology, explores echoes of contextual theological thinking in some of Jesus’s sayings, and discusses insights into contextual theology that can be discerned in the discourses on theology and caste relations (Dalit theology), theology and primal cultures (African theology), and theology and poverty (Latin American liberation theology).
For not integrating initially some of the good elements in Igbo culture, many Igbo Christians have double personality - Christian personality and traditional personality. They are Christians on Sundays but traditionalists on weekdays. To combat such an anomalous situation, in imitation of Christ's effort at completing what was lacking in the Jewish religion, author Edwin Udoye proposes radical inculturation. His book equally contains many serious theological reflections such that it recommends itself to both theologians and the scholars researching on the religions of the world. Udoye has therefore made a very significant contribution worthy of commendation to both theological and religious studies.
Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien. There is a plethora of Christological initiatives to creatively and firmly root Christianity in Africa without either Christianity compromising its prophetic vocation or the healthy cultural values of the people being destroyed. From the backdrop of the African religio-cultural scenario and the patrimony of the Church these Christological models seek to address the question, but you, who do you say that I am? (Mt16:15). It is a Christological question which underlines the need for a relevant theology which arises from and is accountable to the people. The African cult of the ancestors epitomizes the African quest for salvation (s...
Women in roles of religious leadership represent a relatively new phenomenon within Judaism and Christianity and to some extent, a break with traditional assumptions. The study gives insight into how women are defining themselves as religious leaders and women within the context of patriarchal religion. The research is based on 50 qualitative interviews with women rabbis, Anglican priests and other Christian ministers. Some of the issues discussed concerning role, ordination and tradition are unrelated to gender. Christian interviewees describe their journeys into the ministry or priesthood predominantly as experiences of vocation whereas rabbis choose the rabbinate out of an interest in Jewish studies and in the role itself. With regard to gender women across the religious divide are facing opposition and are dealing with similar religious questions of inclusive language or the impact of traditional female roles.
The first chapter of this book deals with the history of Christian mission activity in Western Kenya and points out the particularities of the missionaries as well as the mission churches. Within this context, the history of the African Independent Churches (AICs) is placed, which appear as a mergence of various traditions and motivations: the pursuit of independence from the colonial power and the mission churches connected with it, the preservation of traditional African religiousness and the absorption of Pentecostal piety with its heavy emphasis on the gifts of the spirit. In the following chapters the stance of AICs towards involvement in political debates is explored and discussed. Thi...
This book explores the first encounter in the mid-fifteenth century between Western Europe and the West African Coast, arguing that it did not produce hostility, but rather a climate of beneficial mutual exchange. It examines West African pre-colonial social history and asserts that around the year 1500 West Africa became a safe haven for those fleeing political or religious persecution in Europe. Among them were mercantile settlers, Tangomãos or Lançados, known to have arrived on the West African Coast after the Portuguese explorers in 1446. They exchanged commodities, culture, religious ideas and practices with West African people. These events raise searching questions on the nature of identity and space.
Revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Birmingham, 2005.
This book addresses the evolving structure of the three traditional women's organisations of the Methodist Church in post-apartheid South Africa, and the experiences of women in leadership roles within the church. These organisations are still more or less divided along racial lines. The aim of the fieldwork - carried out from 1995 to 1997 and in 2000 - was to find out if these racial boundaries would begin to dissolve and if women would find more empowerment in their congregations after the democratisation of the country. Further topics are the renaissance of African traditions and religious practices that came about with the end of apartheid. The methodology follows an ethnographic approach that relies heavily on interviews and participant observation, with the analysis bringing South African women's voices to bear on these issues, rather than providing an external and analytical analysis of the issues.