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The Department of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria (Dutch Reformed Church) 19382008
Verbum et Ecclesia, 2009
This article deals with the history of the Department of New Testament Studies at the University of Pretoria from 1938 to 2008. The focus falls on the permanent staff members and their contributions during this period. The article begins with a discussion of the life and career of Prof. E.P. Groenewald. It then proceeds to the more difficult time of cultural boycotts, with Profs A.B. du Toit and F. Botha as members of the Department at that time. Then the careers of Profs J.G. van der Watt and S.J. Joubert are discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the contribution made by Prof. G.J. Steyn.
"STRANGERS' MEAT IS THE GREATEST TREAT": AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY IN EUROPE
2019
This essay critically evaluates the emergence of African Christianity-from the contextualisation of the religion on the continent of Africa to its diasporisation. The essay argues that the distinctive features of African Christianity should be reckoned as gifts to be received and explored in Europe (and the rest of the West) as opposed to a strange religion to be treated with skepticism.
Missionalia, 2020
Celebrating 500 hundred years of reformation around the world, there is a need to re-engage the missionary character of the reformation and its significant impact on African Christianity as African Christianity currently appears to house the reformational ideals of the Christian faith. The present study examines the historic impact of the ideals of the reformation within African Christianity. In particular, the paper describes the significant movement of African Christianity from the margins of the reformation, to the centre of global Christianity, and the attending cultural politics, which invigorate this important missionary enterprise. Similarly, the paper underscores the missionary quest of the reformers to contextualise Christianity within their different cultural domains, and the importance of this missiological endeavour for modern African Christianity. Consequently, the study reiterates the emerging patterns in the praxis of African Christianity, which resonate with the specific trends and trajectories of reformation and its indebtedness to this important religious heritage.
African Catholicism and Intellectual History in Africa: Issues and Disputes
Handbook of African Catholicism, 2022
In this chapter, I offer a brief historical description of Africa’s encounter with medieval Catholic Christianity. A history of Catholicism’s encounter with Africa is not just about the past but is also about the future of African Catholicism. But why is this study important? The church we inherited is, after all, a faith experience. Does not subjecting this experience to a historical review constitute a challenge to the fundamentals of our faith? How, then, should we write about our faith in a way that achieves all of the following: (1) escaping the trap of writing about Africa as a residual memory of European historical experience; (2) not undermining the reception of the faith or the experience of conversion; and (3) maintaining the apostolic spirit of the faith we have received without the ideological baggage of racist Christianity ... The chapter is divided into three major sections. The first section uses the example of Ethiopia the Kingdom of the Kongo for a historical illustration and contextual evidence. Moving beyond the Kongo, the second section addresses the church’s relationship with sub-Saharan Africa within the secular structures created by the Enlightenment. Historicizing the Enlightenment opens spaces toward an understanding of whether the church was in fact complicit with or merely indifferent to the institutional structures of slavery and colonialism. Historicization also allows us to draw lessons from the past, revealing in the third section what the contemporary African church can learn from its experiences.
In this article, the researcher will address remembering reformation in the context of the African-reformed church. The researcher will highlight a brief reflection on the freedom of reading God's Word. Furthermore, the researcher discusses the Reformation's impact on the De-Africanising of Africans through Christianising and Colonialisation. Dismembering means going back to bases to be African and Reform, not the other way round. Being African and reformed will assist African people in interpreting God's Word in the African way.
Journal of African Christian Biography: v. 1, no. 3-4
2016
Bolaji Idowu, the former prelate and patriarch of the Methodist Church Nigeria, in his magnum opus, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, 1 described Africans as, in essence, "incurably religious." In that work, Professor Idowu called attention to the fact that, for Africans, religion is synonymous with life itself, because they believe that virtually every event within their environment has religious or spiritual overtones. John Mbiti, another outstanding doyen in the study of religions in Africa, began his introduction to the classic African Religions and Philosophy with the words: "Africans are notoriously religious." 2 Indeed, while the western world increasingly regards its context as secular and scientific, the people of Africa have always considered their environment to be otherworldly and spiritual. This conviction is illustrated in the growth of religions such as Christianity throughout Africa. Expressions of African religiosity have spread throughout Europe and the Americas. African-led churches are becoming increasingly conspicuous and are growing at a tremendous rate while European mainstream churches are in decline. For these reasons, scholars of world Christianity maintain that now, more than ever before, Christianity, which was formerly considered the religion of the Global North-of Europe and North America-has become the religion of the Global South-that of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Africa in Early Church History The history of the Early Church bears witness to the fact that Christianity is not foreign to the African continent. Indeed, Christianity arrived in North Africa in the early centuries. By the middle of the third century, the Roman provinces of North Africa had become a flourishing mission territory with a relatively high concentration of dioceses and bishops. Undoubtedly, it was a dynamic, vigorous, and productive church. 3 The later decline and ultimate disappearance of North African Christianity can be traced to its relative