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Towards an African Inculturation Biblical Pneumatology: A Response to the Rise of Neo-Pentecostalism in Tanzanian Christianity
Get PDFIn this dissertation, 1 seek to lay the groundwork for developing an African inculturation of biblical pneumatology relevant to the Tanzanian context. The Neo- Pentecostal phenomenon is a strong reality in Tanzania today. Neo-Pentecostal churches and groups are mushrooming, emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit and drawing on the heritage of African spirituality and worldview. Many mainline Protestants, including Lutherans, participate and worship in these churches and groups, yet they maintain their formal membership in their mother churches. This could be due, in part, to the fact that Lutheran theology and teaching in Tanzania has tended to pay little attention to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, much of what Neo-Pentecostals offer with regard to pneumatology is a mere fraction of what could be included in a comprehensive biblical understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, I intend in this dissertation to lay the groundwork for developing an African inculturation of biblical pneumatology. In doing so, I will draw not only on contemporary biblical scholarship and theological reflection on the Holy Spirit, but also on an understanding of African spirituality and the cultural contexts in which it emerges. My primary sources for developing this argument include the work of Ogbu Kalu, Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, and other scholars who have studied the African history of Christianity; Jurgen Moltmann and his biblically rooted eschatological pneumatology; and recent biblical scholarship on the Holy Spirit. Like John Mbiti, I am convinced that “the Bible should be primary source of African Christian Theology.”
To Possess is Human?: Not in the Economy of Salvation!
Get PDFA meaningful conversation about faith and economics requires the participants to know the fundamentals of each discipline. Here, Professor Marga offers an introduction to basic principles in the Christian “economy of salvation.
What Every Christian Should Know About Paul\u27s Letters
Get PDFPaul was first and foremost a pastor, addressing particular issues facing people in churches he loved and tended. To read his letters properly is to understand Paul in the context of that world and of his Jewish faith—a faith not replaced but transformed by his experience of Jesus Christ
Preaching the Seventh Commandment: You are not to steal
Get PDFIn his catechisms, Martin Luther spoke directly about the economic life of his time. Christian preachers are invited to do the same. Only when the commandments are preached in full force—in both their positive and negative admonitions—can we know what forgiveness really means
A Local Christian Community\u27s Missional Imagination: Accessing, Cultivating, and Assessing Missional Discernment in Civil Society
Get PDFThis dissertation explores a particular local Christian community\u27s socially-embodied theology as their missional imagination in civil society from within a research question on how to access, cultivate, and assess such missional imagination. The research question is addressed through a phenomenological approach to such particular local Christian community\u27s process of discernment.
In following the trajectory of this particular local Christian community\u27s process of discernment, the research journey became embedded in the playful imagination of this local Christian community\u27s engagement with their discernment question, and how their critical reflectiveness from within this playful imagination opened up the possibilities of God\u27s preferred and promised future in, among, and through them. The entire process presented this dissertation with this particular local Christian community\u27s socially-embodied theology as the theo-cultural contours of their missional imagination in civil society, described by this local Christian community as the threads of relationships-diversity-openness, mystery-Eucharist-spiritual practices, and continuity-discontinuity-abundance.
This dissertation integrates into the research journey from within this particular local Christian community\u27s process of discernment a variety of conversation partners from theology, philosophy, cultural anthropology, and organizational theory. These conversation partners illuminate both the process of discernment and production of theology of this particular local Christian community. The integration of the local Christian community\u27s process of discernment (and their production of theology in the process) with the voices of these conversation partners provides this dissertation with a hermeneutic of mimesis on how to access, a hermeneutic of Bildung on how to cultivate, and a hermeneutic ofpoiesis on how to assess this particular local Christian community\u27s socially-embodied theology as their missional imagination in civil society.
These hermeneutics are accompanied by a missional theology that takes on the shape of a trinitarian theology rooted in the biblical imago Dei (with respect to the hermeneutic of mimesis as interpretation of accessing missional imagination), a pneumatology (with respect to the hermeneutic of Bildung as interpretation of cultivating missional imagination), and an eschatology (with respect to the hermeneutic of poiesis as interpretation of assessing missional imagination)