This study investigates how Mbiti and Oduyoye articulate their understanding of God in connection with the African traditional religio-cultural heritage to make the concept of God to become relevant to African Christians and to help African Christians feel at home in the Christian faith. Chapter 1 briefly describes the background of the study, the problem statement, the purpose of the study, the research hypothesis, methodology, delimitation, and structure of the study. Chapter 2 provides a historical sketch of origins and development of African theology and diverse types of African theology. This chapter maintains that African theology emerged not only as a theological reaction to the dominant Western interpretation of the gospel in Africa, but also as a theological attempt to secure the African cultural identity by reaffirming the African past. Chapter 3 describes the basic beliefs in African traditional religions, several African ethnic groups’ concepts of God, and the African theologians’ Christianization of the African God by employing Christian theological terms. This chapter concludes that it is not possible to presume a homogenous or one unified concept of God in Africa. One and the same God whom all Africans have worshipped is not real. In chapter 4, Mbiti’s understanding of God is scrutinized in relation to his methodology, the African concept of time, his understanding of revelation and of salvation. Mbiti has maintained African monotheism and ATR(s) as a praeparatio evangelica and has arrived at his conclusion that the God revealed in the Bible is the same as the God worshipped in ATR(s). This chapter criticizes Mbiti’s way of Christian theological interpretation of anthropological data of the African concepts of God. Chapter 5 presents Oduyoye’s understanding of God, her methodology, the status of African women in ATR(s) and the African church, her appreciation of salvation, of the Bible, and of the locus of experience. In Oduyoye’s theology, women’s experience becomes a crucial factor for doing theology, and salvation is understood as liberation from all oppressive conditions. Her understanding of God is closely connected with the theme of liberation. Chapter 6 examines the similarities and differences between the two theologians’ understanding of God, critically compares their way of understanding the interplay of the gospel and African culture, and categorizes the two theologians’ ways with their models of contextualization: Mbiti’s gospel-culture oriented model of contextualization and Oduyoye’s gospel-liberation oriented model of contextualization. By a comparative-dialogical study of the two theologians’ models of contextualization, this chapter attempts to make a dialogue possible between the two, and suggests the interculturation model of contextualization in which each theology keeps its own theological characteristic and has an open mind to learn from the other through mutual understanding. It aims to overcome the absolutism of contextualization, syncretism, cultural relativism, and provincialism, to keep a balance between locality and catholicity, and to affirm cultural identity and Christian identity. On the basis of the interculturation model of contextualization, this chapter proposes some criteria for African Evangelical theology in order to do a biblically faithful and practically relevant theology in Africa. This study also suggests some guidelines to articulate the understanding of God so that it has theological relevance and legitimacy to African Christians as well as to Christians worldwide. Chapter 7, as the final chapter, gives a general summary and concluding suggestions for further research related to the subject of African theology. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2013 / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted

Christlich orientierte Künstler sahen sich in der DDR angesichts eines staatlich propagierten Atheismus vor einen konfliktreichen Balanceakt gestellt. Bekennende Christen und Mitglieder einer Kirchengemeinde galten bereits durch ihre weltanschauliche Haltung wie natürlich zur Opposition. Trotz Repressalien und Zugeständnissen zum Staat blieben die Kirchen jedoch weiterhin eigenständige gesellschaftliche Akteure. Sie stellten mithin eine relativ geschützte Nische im System dar. Wie wirkte sich dieses Spannungsverhältnis auf das musikalische Schaffen von Komponisten mit christlicher Identität aus? Inwieweit war es diesen Komponisten im Rahmen avantgardistischer Musik möglich sich weltanschaulich positionierend bemerkbar zu machen, ohne Aufführungs-, Druckverbote und gravierende berufliche Benachteiligungen auf sich zu ziehen? Lässt sich ein bekenntnishafter Ausdruck heutzutage überhaupt noch als „absolutes“, musikalisches Bezugssystem nachweisen? Oder gründete sich das Verständnis dieser Musik vielmehr ausschließlich auf einem damaligen Konsens zwischen Komponist und Publikum? Diesen Fragen möchte die folgende Darstellung auf den Grund gehen. In ihrem Mittelpunkt steht das Schaffen des Komponisten Manfred Weiss (*1935), der seit 1959 als Lehrer für Tonsatz und Gehörbildung, später als Dozent und Professor für Komposition und Tonsatz an der Hochschule für Musik „Carl Maria von Weber“ in Dresden wirkte. Nach der Wende gestaltete er die Neuausrichtung dieser Institution als Prorektor entscheidend mit. Weiss komponierte bis zum Mauerfall vorwiegend Instrumentalwerke. Als bekennender Christ und Mitglied der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine wollte er nicht für die Schublade komponieren. Ihm war es ein Anliegen Musik für große Säle zu schreiben, um möglichst viele Menschen mit seiner Musik zu erreichen. Ziel der Betrachtung ist es, anhand drei seiner Werke exemplarisch das daraus resultierende Spannungsfeld nachzuzeichnen. Bei den in dieser Arbeit thematisierten Stücken handelt es sich um die Musik für zwölf Blechbläser und Pauken, die Sinfonische Fantasie und das Konzert für Orgel, Streichorchester und Schlagzeug, welche zwischen 1972 und 1976 komponiert worden sind: in einer politischen Phase also, die selbst ein Spannungsfeld aus Liberalisierungstendenzen und Restaurationsbestrebungen darstellt. Die drei Werke sind unmittelbar bezogen aufeinander entstanden. Darüber hinaus ist vor allem das Orgelkonzert ein Schlüsselwerk des Komponisten, für welches er 1977 den Hanns-Eisler-Preis des Rundfunks der DDR und den Martin-Andersen-Nexö-Kunstpreis der Stadt Dresden erhielt.

この研究は、三人の日本自由メスジスト教団指導者たち（柿原正次、河邊貞吉、土山鐵次）の宣教活動を辿り、一国家の市民であることと宗教共同体の一員であることとの接点を探求する。彼らはそれぞれ、日本人キリスト者が同胞へのキリスト教伝道者となり得ること、さらには同胞のみならずアメリカ人や中国人への伝道者にもなり得ることを証明しようとし、キリスト教を「西洋の」宗教ではなく、「日本の」宗教であると同時に国境を越えた宗教であると再定義を試みた。 / Tracing the missionary activities of three Japanese Free Methodist leaders–Kakihara Masaji, Kawabe Teikichi, and Tsuchiyama Tetsuji–in three developing phases, this study explores these Japanese Free Methodists' attempts to make Christianity simultaneously "Japanese" and transnational, challenging assumptions that Christianity and Christian missionaries were "Western." It demonstrates how they skillfully navigated competing national and religious borders and how they shared their spiritual power with American and Chinese Christians. By pointing out the uncertain ground of national, cultural, and religious identity, this study suggests Christianity's possibilities and limitations as a way of bringing people together across boundaries of politics and nation. / 博士(アメリカ研究) / Doctor of Philosophy in American Studies / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Bibliography: leaves 255-295 / The study of the Church of Christ’s ‘Identity- and Mission-Continuity’ in the Zimbabwean context explores how the Christian faith should be interpreted and contextualised in Africa. The Church of Christ in Zimbabe (COCZ) is a Christian movement claiming to be representative of the ethos of the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ on the day of Pentcost. The thesis raises critical questions of Christian identity and transformation in missionary founded churches like the COCZ in an attempt to contribute towards a locally based study of the Church. Consciousness to being a Church founded by Jesus Christ has implications for Christian unity (oneness) and ecumenism in the COCZ, and its wider Christian networks1. Use of its theological tenets, which are indeed congruent with its projected identity, to explore its history when it came to Zimbabwe in relationship to its founding charism helped because of scarcity of literature on the history of Christian denominations in Zimbabwe. This thesis has followed four objectives that are related to the four stages of experiences by the Church Jesus Christ founded, namely, the (1) early Church, (2) reformation evangelism, (3) missionary enterprise and, (4) contemporary (African) expressions of the faith. This study has investigated the origin and reasons for the formation of the Church in the midst of others; and why its missionaries chose Zimbabwe where there were other denominations. Local experiences of the Church after the departure of white missionaries motivated this study with questions on how the process of inculturating the gospel in the COCZ raised, especially the tension between continuity and discontinuity, linking and delinking, similarity and dissimilarity as well as diversity and diference. Creative synthesis on what Jesus intended; what missionaries brought; and what the God of history is doing in the contemporary life and efforts of the Church were implied and/or explicated. Using a two-pronged approach to the study, the thesis has, first, unearthed (primary) documents like minutes from church board meetings by Europeans (with misionary thinking that developed from these origins), to contextual (secondary) documents (on how local theologians in the context have engaged the different Christian doctrines in the Zimbabwean context). Secondly, an empirical method was used to interview and distribute questionnaires to a number of individuals, inclusive of those who were in the COCZ leadership and ordinary members. Data collection tools were semi-structured, giving respondents freedom to express themselves and/or their views on what the COCZ was doing and what they believe must be done. Data from interviews and questionnaires were correlated with views expressed in the written sources. The data was interpreted heuristically, in order to give light to new knowledge that was being formed in the process. As an interpretive tool, hermeneutics (the phenomenological approach using Atlas.ti 8 (SPSS, Nvivo 8) - for verbatim transcription) was made key in looking into the context, culture and religion of the COCZ. The thesis attempted to create a dialogue by relating identity, communal ontology and epistemology to the empirical study findings, literature and the methodology. Ecology and gender were some of the indispensable aspects of theology, crucial for human survival, harmony and peace that were discussed because they were neglected in the COCZ. The thesis also revisted differences and similitudes found in the gospel in relationship to the intended and unintended 1 Unity and oneness expressed in John 17 [“Et Unum Sint” – That they may be one], emphasise the sociality of the Godhood through the doctrine of perichoresis, which is unity of the Godhead in the economy (our) of salvation. xiii cultural contributions of the Ndebele and Shona so far, with the purpose of repositioning the COCZ within its own transformative framework. This helps the Church with a strategy of how to model its theology in an African context and how to learn from its past with the view to transform itself for the 21st century Zimbabwe. The study is not exhaustive on the nature, history and mission of the COCZ, and many avenues like hermeneutics, church polity, public theology, conflict studies and church doctrine can be carried out using the COCZ as a case study. In all, the study has laid a foundation for the contextualization, evangelization, inculturation and incarnation of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the COCZ in a postmodernist society. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Phil. (Systematic Theology)