Contextual Theology

When Pope John Paul VI spoke to a Pan-African gathering of African Catholic Bishops in 1969, he affirmed their cultural roots with his memorable statement “You may, and you must, have an African Christianity.”  He shared with them how expressions of the Christian faith are manifold and should be suited to the tongue, style and culture of those who profess the faith.  Moreover, a richness that is genuinely African would add itself to the faith (Shorter, 1977). 

Next month, one of the classes I will teach is called Contextual Theology.  In “Classical Theology” we find two major tenets, scripture and tradition.  From these two tenets we often assume a universalistic notion of theology, sequestered almost exclusively to the domain of academia and dominated by eminent and quotable theologians both past and present.  In this classicist notion, ideas about Jesus and the Godhead are understood as static, less concerned with how peoples of host cultures receive and ingest their newfound faith according to their own worldview, their own culture, and their own philosophical system of meanings. 

Contextual Theology, or “local theologies,” on the other hand, adds a third tenet to the equation:  experience.  Contextual theologians argue persuasively, and I would add accurately, that static notions of universal theological understanding transcending ages and cultures does not adequately reflect reality.  While God indeed transcends ages and cultures, how we perceive God varies. Proponents of contextual theology are not arguing for an “anything goes” understanding of God, or an understanding which is highly subjective, rather they contend that this stool we call theology needs three legs, not two, those legs being scripture, tradition, and experience, experience birthed from specific cultural, communal and personal milieus.  After all, was it not Moses, the Hebrew child of promise, who experienced God speaking to him uniquely and personally from a burning bush, a bush which was not consumed?  Did not Jesus, Son of the Living God, hear a voice from Heaven saying, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased”?  When the Apostle Paul (formerly Saul) was struck down by a blinding light on his way to Damascus did he and his companions not hear a voice say to him “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 

In later centuries Francis of Assis heard a voice telling him, “Francis, repair my church.”  The Belhar Confession, drafted by South African Christians and recently adopted by the Presbyterian Church (USA), brought to light the oppressive policy of Apartheid towards Blacks, Coloreds (mixed race) and Indians in South Africa.  Karl Barth and others of the Confessing Church wrote The Theological Declaration of Barmen in response to Hitler and the German Christians who had lifted allegiance to the Third Reich over allegiance to God Almighty.  The whole notion of Liberation Theology, birthed in Latin America, was the Church’s response to nation states’ abuse and oppression of the poor.  This list of examples could go on and on, pointing to the central tenant of Contextual Theology – our experience of reality and our experience of God stand on par with both scripture and Church tradition.

This is the primary text I will be using
for this course

This course, Contextual Theology, interests me greatly, and I hope that my passion for this subject will be caught by my students. One of the challenges here in Africa is that over the last one hundred and fifty years missionaries came from the West, namely Europe and North America, doing boatloads of good, but they also brought with them a Christianity shaped by their alien culture which largely answered questions Christians from the West had been asking – questions related primarily to individual salvation and morality.  

While those questions are valid and appropriate, and answers are both needed and provided by the Christian faith, African peoples and cultures, being more collective in nature, had a host of other questions that, in most cases, remained unanswered.  For instance, they would have asked, “How do we now think about our ancestors with whom we continue to fellowship?”  “With this new faith, what role will our elders continue to have in giving shape to our community?”  “What do I do with my other wives now that I am being told to chase them away so that I can participate in communion and church leadership?  Is it not understood that they will be left to beg or become prostitutes?”  “What about witchcraft?  Is it really superstition as I am now being told, or are there indeed powers at work that I need to be aware of?”

In this course, Contextual Theology, we will study together a host of examples that will help us see the necessity of experience as we seek to understand how we understand God. Moreover, quoting from the course description which I have been given, “A goal is to let the Word of God speak in a specific way into the African, particularly the [South] Sudanese context.” 

Lord, I humbly and passionately pray that the Gospel of peace can be experienced in the deepest recesses, in the core person and communities of our dear sisters and brothers here in South Sudan.