Justification by Faith in African and Western context


Book Description

In his Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Nuntiandi", Pope Paul VI explores the connections between the practises of evangelization and the social, economic and political advancement of human affairs. The author, Jude Okocha, agrees with Paul VI that the church should not ignore the importance of the problems in the society in which we live, namely those concerning justice, liberation, development and peace in the world. Okocha points out that in evangelizing one takes very seriously the social context of the evangelized, since, after all, this is the whole issue of inculturation or contextualization of theology. This way, the content of theology - God - remains the same. Only the manner of expression differs. One can approve the contextualization of theology, but that does not imply compromising the deposit of faith.




New Testament Miracle Stories in Ghanaian Mother-Tongues


Book Description

This book examines the translations of selected miracle stories from the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint (LXX) and the Greek New Testament into selected Ghanaian mother-tongues, considering possible shifts of meaning that occur in translating. 1Kings 18:25–38, Mark 9:14–29 and Luke 7:11–17 are used as case studies. The author draws out semiotic-hermeneutical nuances of these texts as they are understood in the Ghanaian context and addresses questions in the field of Biblical studies concerning the relevance of intercultural hermeneutics for current trends in Ghanaian Christianity. Particularly important is the high premium placed on ‘miracles’ in present-day Ghanaian spirituality, making a careful analysis of these stories particularly relevant for the Ghanaian audience. The study also explores several factors that influence the translation process and have a bearing on the reception and use of the text. It follows the growing calls for a shift in African Biblical hermeneutics from the theological heritage of Europe and America to the emerging theological trajectories of Africa. This post-colonial shift re-examines the translated text, moving from what the text might have meant to what the text might mean in Africa.




Pauline Hermeneutics


Book Description

Paul's letters are of crucial importance for Christian theology and church life. The way in which the apostle Paul critically reflected on the meaning of the gospel message in light of Scripture, the traditions, ethics and Christian faith and hope, has had a significant and lasting impact on the Lutheran tradition. In this publication, the fourth and final in a series of LWF publications on biblical hermeneutics, renowned international scholars from the fields of biblical studies and systematic theology reevaluate to what extent twenty-first-century Lutherans can rediscover the Pauline paradigm of the "power of the Gospel" and hereby overcome ambiguous perceptions of the so-called "Lutheran reading(s)" of Paul. [Paulinische Hermeneutik. Die "Kraft des Evangeliums" erforschen] Die Briefe des Paulus haben eine grundlegende Bedeutung für die christliche Theologie. Besonders die lutherischen Kirchen sind dauerhaft davon geprägt, wie Paulus als Apostel die Bedeutung des "Evangeliums" im Lichte der Auslegung von Schrift und Tradition sowie der Konzeption frühchristlicher Ethik und der Explikation von Hoffnung und Glaube herausgearbeitet und interpretiert hat. Die vorliegende Anthologie schließt einer Folge von vier LWB Publikationen zur biblischen Hermeneutik ab. International renommierte Bibelwissenschaftler und Systematische Theologen diskutieren, in welcher Weise lutherische Theologie im 21. Jahrhundert das paulinische Konzept von der "Kraft des Evangeliums" so wiederentdecken kann, dass ambivalente Vorstellungen von der sog. "Lutherischen Paulusperspektive" neu überdacht und überwunden werden können.




WHITE MAN'S BURDEN


Book Description

This book re-presents the poetry of Rudyard Kipling in the form of bold slogans, the better for us to reappraise the meaning and import of his words and his art. Each line or phrase is thrust at the reader in a manner that may be inspirational or controversial... it is for the modern consumer of this recontextualization to decide. They are words to provoke: to action. To inspire. To recite. To revile. To reconcile or reconsider the legacy and benefits of colonialism. Compiled and presented by sloganist Dick Robinson, three poems are included, complete and uncut: 'White Man's Burden', 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy' and 'If'.




African Traditional Religion in the Modern World, 2d ed.


Book Description

African traditional religion encompasses a variety of non-dogmatic, spiritual practices followed by millions around the world. Some scholars argue it is related to the Nubian religion of Egypt's Dynastic Period. In an expanded second edition, this book examines the nature of African traditional religion and describes common attributes of various cultural belief systems, with an emphasis on West Africa. Principal elements studied include sacrifice, salvation and culture, modes of revelation, divination, and African resilience in the face of invasion and colonization. The religious experiences of black people throughout the Americas are also covered. The author finds the cosmology, symbolism and rituals of the Yoruba culture to be the fundamental bases of African traditional religion, and draws similarities between the oral and written literature of West Africans and that of New World practitioners. The influence of Islam and Christianity is also discussed. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.




Inculturation and Postcolonial Discourse in African Theology


Book Description

What is inculturation? How is it practiced and what is its relationship to colonial and postcolonial discourses? In what ways, if any, does inculturation represent the decolonization of Christianity in Africa? This book explores these questions and argues that inculturation is a species of postcolonial discourse by placing it in the larger context of what has now come to be known as Africanism and by showing how the latter - and through it inculturation itself - fully participates in the history of postcolonial struggles for indigenous self-definition in Africa. The thirteen contributors to this volume represent a group of young scholars from the southern, eastern, and western regions of Africa. They come from different disciplines: theology, philosophy, and biblical studies. Although they take different approaches to the question of inculturation, the fact that they engage it at all is illustrative of the methodological significance of inculturation in African theology.




African Perspectives on Culture and World Christianity


Book Description

Unlike the global North, “the ferment of Christianity” in the global South, among the majority of world people, has been astronomical. Despite the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity to the global South, intra-ecclesial tensions globally remain those of the relationship of culture to religion. The questions posed revolve around to what extent Western Christianity should be adapted to local cultures. Should we talk of Christianity in non-Western contexts or of majority world Christianity? Is it appropriate to describe the shift as the emergence of global Christianity or world Christianity? Should Christianity in the global South mimic Christianity in the global North, or can it be different in the light of the diversity of these cultures? Can Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and North Americans – the entire global community – speak of God in the same way? This book is devoted to examining varieties of the intercultural process in world Christianity. It understands culture broadly as a common meaning upon which communities’ social order is organized. Culture in this sense is the whole life of people. It is the integrator of the filial bond holding people together and the various institutional structures – economic, technological, political and legal – that guarantee peace and survival in societies, states, and nations, both locally and internationally. As this book shows, the centrality of culture for world Christianity equally showcases the important position the scale of values occupies in world Christianity.




The Blackwell Companion to Paul


Book Description

The Blackwell Companion to Paul presents a distinctive dual focus approach that encompasses both the historical Paul and the history of Paul's influence. In doing so, expert contributors successfully address the interests of students of early Christianity and those of Christian theology. Offers a complete overview of the life, writings and legacy of one of the key figures of Christianity The essays compass the major themes of Paul's life and work, as well as his impact through the centuries on theology, Church teaching, social beliefs, art, literature, and contemporary intellectual thought Edited by one of the leading figures in the field of Pauline Studies The contributors include a range of world-renowned academics




Imagining Religion


Book Description

With this influential book of essays, Jonathan Z. Smith has pointed the academic study of religion in a new theoretical direction, one neither theological nor willfully ideological. Making use of examples as apparently diverse and exotic as the Maori cults in nineteenth-century New Zealand and the events of Jonestown, Smith shows that religion must be construed as conventional, anthropological, historical, and as an exercise of imagination. In his analyses, religion emerges as the product of historically and geographically situated human ingenuity, cognition, and curiosity—simply put, as the result of human labor, one of the decisive but wholly ordinary ways human beings create the worlds in which they live and make sense of them. "These seven essays . . . display the critical intelligence, creativity, and sheer common sense that make Smith one of the most methodologically sophisticated and suggestive historians of religion writing today. . . . Smith scrutinizes the fundamental problems of taxonomy and comparison in religious studies, suggestively redescribes such basic categories as canon and ritual, and shows how frequently studied myths may more likely reflect situational incongruities than vaunted mimetic congruities. His final essay, on Jonestown, demonstrates the interpretive power of the historian of religion to render intelligible that in our own day which seems most bizarre."—Richard S. Sarason, Religious Studies Review




Christian Reflection in Africa


Book Description

This reference collection presents academic reviews of more than twelve-hundred contemporary Africa-related publications relevant for informed Christian reflection in and about Africa. The collection is based on the review journal BookNotes for Africa, a specialist resource dedicated to bringing to notice such publications, and furnishing them with a one-paragraph description and evaluation. Now assembled here for the first time is the entire collection of reviews through the first thirty issues of the journal’s history. The core intention, both of the journal and of this compilation, is to encourage and to facilitate informed Christian reflection and engagement in Africa, through a thoughtful encounter with the published intellectual life of the continent. Reviews have been provided by a team of more than one hundred contributors drawn from throughout Africa and overseas. The books and other media selected for review represent a broad cross-section of interests and issues, of personalities and interpretations, including the secular as well as the religious. The collection will be of special interest to academic scholars, theological educators, libraries, ministry leaders, and specialist researchers in Africa and throughout the world, but will also engage any reader looking for a convenient resource relating to modern Africa and Christian presence there.