Immanuel, our God is with us. Somehow Christianity has struggled with this very basic Christian belief.
There has not been a theological struggle. The struggle has been the application among a people
different from those influenced by the Graeco-Roman thinking of the West. In so doing it became easy
for the Western missionary to impose his/her own understanding of God upon others and hence they
were able to impose doctrines that would outline such thinking. This thesis argues that this application
of Christian teaching did not coincide with the belief that God comes to all humanity. A group that was
isolated by this kind of practice are the nomads of the world. Nomads have not rejected Christianity
per se, however, they have questioned the need to change to something they are not in order to be
Christian. Thus this thesis proposes that Christians enter a nomadic environment with the goal of allowing
God to be one with nomads by using their communication styles and lifestyle. This requires a
deep study of the people before embarking on such a journey. It also requires that the mission practitioner
learn to become a learner and respect the people. In the end the mission practitioner will not dictate
what and how the new believer ought to understand God.
To achieve the stated goal this thesis suggests an incarnational approach that would connect the nomads
to God through a demonstration of Godâs presence in the life of the missionary. Such an approach
will address the heart issues of the people and demonstrate a coming of God to humanity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-11112011-114627 |
| Date | 11 November 2011 |
| Creators | Petersen, Gideon Phillip |
| Contributors | Prof P Verster |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-11112011-114627/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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