Contemporary sentiments both African and Western indicate the inadequacy of modern approaches to ethics and the failure of an individualistic ethics as a basis for public and private morality. Modern ethics is inadequate as a moral framework within which communities live their lives. As a result there is a need for a paradigm shift form this mainly individualistic and universalistic modern ways of doings ethics to a more communally oriented and contextual approach reminiscent of traditional African ethics. If we hope to have a more satisfactory moral framework than the current one we need to have a moral outlook that encompasses both the ethical code governing the individual i.e. personal ethics and the ethical code governing social groups and their conduct. And that framework will be something similar to the communal model that we see in traditional African communities such as the Basotho's. Such a moral framework made it possible for communities not only to be contextual in the way they approached personal conduct, but also communal. The current moral uncertainty accompanied by vicious moral individualism in places like Lesotho, seems to me to be the result of the introduction of an individualistic ethic to the Basotho way of life. Ethics as found among traditional Basotho communities was not just a matter of the individual alone, but also of the community within which the individual found his or her true identity. This co-responsibility and mutual inter-dependency for the moral life, something which modernism and the influence of liberal ideas is increasingly eroding from the contemporary life of Basotho, ensured that there was a moral centre through which people found their moral reference point. It ensured there was a moral thought and practice that was coherent enough to give both the individual and the community a moral base, an approved way of conduct with an implicit, but nevertheless clearly understandable rationale and justification. Such a communal approach to ethics made it possible for communities to have a recognizable moral character and it is only when communities are themselves moral that we can hope to have a moral society. So in order to help contemporary Basotho and indeed most Africans, from the pervasive self imposed moral bankruptcy and inconsistencies there is a need to revisit and rediscover that traditional ethos to see what lessons can be learned from it for the present. We need to look back to where we come from as Africans and only then are we going to be able to navigate our future correctly and authentically, and see what lessons of life and proper ways of conduct can we learn from our past, lessons which will be more in line with who we are as Africans in the context of contemporary modern way of living. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

The problem of relating African Christian culture to the message of the Bible has troubled theologians who reflect on African Christianity for a long time. Today, Africa is at a crossroad. It is tom between following what African culture says, on the one hand, and what the Bible says, on the other hand. The strong influence of Western culture (the channel through which Africa received the gospel) adds to this crisis. A solution to the crisis, which African Christians are facing when making moral decisions, can only be found in taking both the Bible as the Supreme Court of appeal and the African cultural values seriously. Forcing African Christians to choose between the Bible and African culture win just lead to more crises. To address this crisis, this study sets out with an introduction that defines the problem, plan, method of dealing with the problem, a review of related literature, the scope and the importance of the study. Chapter two looks at the relationship between Scripture and non-biblical sources in Western Protestant theology. The study finds that although the mainline Protestant theologians spoke about sola Scriptum, they did not mean by this slogan that Scripture should be the only source material for theology. They rather wanted to acknowledge the fact that Scriptme should be the most important source material for mornl decision making. In other words, they did not understand the sola Scriptum battle cry in an absolute and exclusivistic way. They allowed other sources to playa role. This slogan was, however, interpreted in an exclusivistic way by the leaders of the Radical Reformation. Some of the missionaries who brought the Word of God to Africa also tended to interpret and apply the sola Scriptum slogan in an absolute and exclusivistic way. The third chapter looks at the Bible and African culture as sources in African Christian ethical decision making. The study finds that the African theologians reacted against the exclusivistic tendencies of the missionaries in a number of ways. Some, who were on the radical side, put African culture above Scripture. The majority of the African theologians, on the other hand, while accepting the primacy of Scriptures as an important source, stressed the fact that African culture should be taken as important source material for moral decision making in Africa. The problems of polygamy and AIDS are discussed in this chapter to show the crises that arise when African culture is not taken seriously. In the fourth chapter the study looks at the use of African culture in Christian ethical decision making. It argues that there are a number of salient elements of African culture, which should be taken into account when making moral decisions in African Christian ethics. We conclude that any neglect of the African cultural input will lead to less authentic moral decisions. The last chapter summarises and concludes what has been discussed, explicates the findings of the study and gives guidelines on what should be the way forward for African Christian ethical decision making. It concludes that ethical decision making in an African context can only be authentic if, among other things, African cultural values are taken seriously. Factors like reason, natural law, context and tradition or culture, should be allowed to play a role in African Christian ethical decision making. We need to use the whole of God’s reality when making moral decisions. The study ends by identifying certain unresolved issues, which may need further study. / Thesis (DD (Systematic Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / unrestricted

This study engages in an ethical examination of contemporary socio-ecological and economic issues which takes seriously the plight of Africa, African communities, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. It studies the impact of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights regimes on the protection, use, access to, and conservation of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge in Africa. The study also examines the ways in which northern multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their agents prospect and convert African resources (biological commons and indigenous knowledge) into their intellectual property as well as private property. It argues that the transfer of African biological commons and indigenous knowledge is exacerbated by economic globalisation and the neo-colonial mentality of conquest concealed under the guise of commerce. The study demonstrates through concrete case studies the tactics used by northern multinational corporations to claim these resources as their intellectual property rights and private property. It observes that the privatisation of biological commons and indigenous knowledge only brings about nominal or no benefits to African communities who have nurtured and continue to nurture them. It also observes that this privatisation results in fewer benefits for biodiversity as they lead to the promotion of monoculture, i.e. commercialisation of all things. To address the injustice and exploitative implications of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights, the study recommends the adoption and implementation of the African model law, the establishment of defensive intellectual property rights mechanisms, and the strategy of resistance and advocacy. It suggests that these measures ought to be grounded on the African normative principle of botho and the Christian ethical principle of justice. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / D.Th.(Theological Ethics)

This study builds on Jesse Mugambi's post-Cold War proposal for a paradigm shift, from liberation to reconstruction. Mugambi's line of reasoning is based upon his understanding of the post-Cold War period in Africa, and the need for a shift from the "dominant" paradigm of liberation, in articulating African theology, to reconstruction. The Cold War had divided Africa (and the rest of the world) into two ideological blocks, namely, the East Bloc nations (i.e., Warsaw Pact) vs. the nations in the West (NATO). With the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the end of western colonial rule in Africa, and the demise of apartheid, Mugambi prods that, there is a need to shift the theological emphasis from the Exodus motif to that of a Reconstructive motif. While the former motif was biblically modelled on Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt and the Journey to the Promised Land, the latter is biblically modelled on Nehemiah who led the Jews in the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem following their return from Exile after seventy years of Babylonian captivity. Thus Mugambi sets the stage for the debate in this study, by his proposal that the post-Cold War Africa should now shift its paradigm in theo-social discourses. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This study engages in an ethical examination of contemporary socio-ecological and economic issues which takes seriously the plight of Africa, African communities, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. It studies the impact of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights regimes on the protection, use, access to, and conservation of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge in Africa. The study also examines the ways in which northern multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their agents prospect and convert African resources (biological commons and indigenous knowledge) into their intellectual property as well as private property. It argues that the transfer of African biological commons and indigenous knowledge is exacerbated by economic globalisation and the neo-colonial mentality of conquest concealed under the guise of commerce. The study demonstrates through concrete case studies the tactics used by northern multinational corporations to claim these resources as their intellectual property rights and private property. It observes that the privatisation of biological commons and indigenous knowledge only brings about nominal or no benefits to African communities who have nurtured and continue to nurture them. It also observes that this privatisation results in fewer benefits for biodiversity as they lead to the promotion of monoculture, i.e. commercialisation of all things. To address the injustice and exploitative implications of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights, the study recommends the adoption and implementation of the African model law, the establishment of defensive intellectual property rights mechanisms, and the strategy of resistance and advocacy. It suggests that these measures ought to be grounded on the African normative principle of botho and the Christian ethical principle of justice. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / D.Th.(Theological Ethics)