Bible and Mission

  Theological Liberalism in the West was substantially an Enlightenment project.   It sought to broaden or generalise theological understanding by making it universal through the reason and religious experience in common with all human beings.   It was, therefore, construed as relevant across social groupings and at the intensely personal level.   Just how, then, could theological liberalism at all be a feature of African theology, with its concerns for relevance to African experiences and contexts?   Even more, what does it have to do with African Evangelicalism? Western theological liberalism found Christian theology too confining.   Theologians did not want their theological reflection to be confined by Scripture.   They found theology to be too confining in an environment that championed reason.   They reduced the Son of God to a good moral teacher.   They understood the essence of Christianity to be the threefold creed not of Trinitari...

  The concern of Public Theology is that theology remain in and be for the public rather than be isolationist and distinctively ecclesial.  It is concerned that theology focus on the public character of truth, not the esoteric nature of Biblical revelation.  It requires of theologians that they be more ‘statesmen-philosophers’ than Christian teachers. [1]   The opposite of Public Theology would be H. Richard Niebuhr’s first of five possible relationships of ‘Christ’ (i.e., the Church) and culture:  Christ Against Culture . [2] The relevance of this essay lies in the appeal of Public Theology in both the West and the Majority World.  In the West, Liberal Theology sought to universalise Christianity such that its message was not unique and esoteric.  The fundamentals of Liberal Theology were the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of mankind, and the infinite worth of the human soul.  Note the omission in this of any reference to Chr...

  Following his predecessors, Polybius (born c. 200 BC) saw government as cyclical.   Monarchy devolves into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into mob rule, with its violence and contempt for the law.   Several observations are interesting in light of the monumental changes in governance in the West, with developments over the past decade in the United States of America in particular. Regarding the sustainability of democracy, Polybius says: Similarly, it is not enough to constitute a democracy that the whole crowd of citizens should have the right to do whatever they wish or propose. But where reverence to the gods, succour of parents, respect to elders, obedience to laws, are traditional and habitual, in such communities, if the will of the majority prevail, we may speak of the form of government as a democracy ( Histories 6.4). Social change in the USA includes a turning away from belief in God and the waywardness of the mainline denominations fro...