Bob's Dissertation Journey

Research Proposal Accepted

On Tuesday, July 14th, the Research Committee of the Department of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at Stellenbosch University in South Africa met to review my research proposal for a doctoral program. Dr. Retief Muller, my research advisor, was part of that meeting. Dr. Muller wrote me following the meeting later that day to inform me that things "went rather well." He said that members of the committee were "overall complimentary" of my proposal. They accepted my proposal with encouragement to make a few changes and improvements, including changing the title. I feel blessed to have reached this stage in my dissertation journey! Below is the title and the "abstract" (short introduction) which I would like to share with you.

Title

Reconciling Worlds: A Critical Examination of the Social Interface of the Lifeworld of the Nilotic Peoples of Upper Nile, South Sudan, with the Lifeworld of White Euro-American Christianity

Abstract

The Chollo people[1] of South Sudan describe God as like the wind or the air. God is ever present. God’s ongoing providential care finds expression in all of life. As an African mother would carry her child on her back, nurturing and cherishing that child, the Kiga people of Uganda describe God as Biheko, meaning “He carries everyone on his back” (Mbiti 1989).

While missionaries from Europe and North America made extraordinary sacrifices and accomplishments in Africa over the last two centuries, one African Christian scholar posits that “Missionaries came to Africa with the wrong diagnostics.”[2] Despite Black Africans being “notoriously religious,”[3] White Euro-American missionaries failed to meaningfully connect the rich cultural and religious history of African peoples with the Christian faith. Problematic was the idea that White European and North American “civilization” was inextricably linked with the Gospel; to become a Christian implied conformity to White Euro-American cultural values. As missionaries sought to “replicate” themselves in African converts, missionaries did not grasp the deep religious insights of African peoples (Bediako 1999: 234; Mbiti 1989: 56). Thus, this White Euro-American ethnocentrism led to a misguided theology of mission, a theology of mission which failed to perceive how God has manifested God’s Self in unique and specific ways to African peoples. As most White Euro-American missionaries failed to understand the universality of God’s presence among the peoples of the world, ethnocentrism is a significant factor in the story of Christianity in Africa (Bediako 1999: 236).

Seeking a path forward, Kwame Bediako and scores of concerned voices herald their conviction that for Christianity to be deeply rooted and intrinsic to African peoples, we must name this tragic legacy of mission and then meaningfully engage with the thought processes, religious histories, lived experience, and contemporary challenges of African peoples. We must foster deep and meaningful dialogue between African Religion and experience with the Christian faith. This research will assume a posture of listening and learning as we sit at the feet of South Sudanese sisters and brothers. Adopting a creation-centered theology,[4] this project seeks to understand how the Nilotic peoples of Upper Nile, South Sudan, connect their traditional religion and lived experience with the Gospel message and the Christian tradition. This research will utilize the Sociological-Anthropological Approach championed by Justin S. Ukpong, combining a sociological understanding of culture with anthropological factors, honoring the unity of African thought, that all of life is bound up together. Moreover, this research project will follow the trail set by Justin Ukpong, Emmanuel Katongole, and others concerned with the personal, the communal, and the social ramifications of life in God in Jesus Christ, particularly in terms of personal and communal identity formation and reconciliation with “the other.”

[1] Chollo is the true name of the tribe otherwise called “Shilluk,” a corrupted Arabic designation meaning “scars”
[2] Quotation from lunch conversation with Dr. Elisée Musemakweli, Vice Chancellor of the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS) in Huye, Rwanda, in February 2019.
[3] A well-known quote from theologian John S. Mbiti (Mbiti 1989: 1)
[4] A creation-centered theology sees the world as sacramental, a place where God reveals God’s Self, assuming continuity between human experience and existence with the divine. This orientation stands in contradistinction to a “redemption-centered theology” which assumes culture and human experience need either complete transformation or total replacement…that the world is not a vehicle for the presence of God but that reality and creation distorts God’s reality and is in complete rebellion against it (Bevans 2002).