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An incarnational Christology set in the context of narratives of Shona women in present day Zimbabwe

Implicit in the concepts Incarnation, narrative, Christology, Shona women of Zimbabwe today is
the God who acts in human history and in the contemporaneity and particularity of our being.
The Incarnation as the embodiment of God in the world entails seizing the kairos opportunity to
expand the view and to bear the burdens of responsibility. A theanthropocosmic Christology that
captures the Shona holistic world-view is explored. The acme for a relational Christology is the
imago Dei/Christi and the baptismal indicative and imperative. God is revealed in various
manifestations of creation. Human identity and dignity is the flipside of God's attributes.
Theanthropocosmic Christology as pluralistic, differential and radical brings about a dialectic
between the whole and its parts, the uniqueness of the individual, communal ontology and
epistemology, the local and the universal, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, Christology and
soteriology. God mediates in the contingency of particularity. Emphasis is on life-affirmation
rather than sex determination of Jesus as indicated by theologies of liberation and inculturation.
At the interface gender, ethnicity, class and creed, God transcends human limitedness and
artificial boundaries in creating catholic space and advocating all-embracing apostolic action.
Difference is appreciated for the richness it brings both to the individual and the community.
Hegemonic structures and borderless texts are view with suspicion as totalising grand~narratives
and exclusivist by using generic language. The kairos in dialogue with the Incarnation is seizing
the moment to expand the view and to share the burdens, joys and responsibility in a community
of equal discipleship.
In a hermeneutic of engagement and suspicion, prophetic witness is the hallmark of Christian
discipleship and of a Christology that culminates in liberative praxis. The Christology that
emerges from Shona women highlights a passionate appropriation that involves the head, gut,
womb and heart and underlies the circle symbolism. The circle is the acme of Shona hospitality
and togetherness in creative dialogue with the Trinitarian koinonia. The Shona Christological
designation Muponesi (Deliverer-Midwife) in dialogue with the Paschal Mystery motif captures
the God-human-cosmos relationship that gives a Christology caught up in the rhythms,
dynamism and drama of life. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/598
Date30 June 2002
CreatorsChimhanda, Francisca Hildegardis
ContributorsVan Niekerk, Rassie
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format1 online resource (vii, 299 leaves)

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