Abstract
This essay addresses three important but related concerns in African Chris tianity: (1) the cross-cultural forces driving the momentum of Christian expansion in Africa; (2) how these cross-cultural forces affect interdenominational and interreligious conflicts; and (3) some concluding proposals on how an African religioculturai concept of “participation” can ground a Trinitarian theological praxis of intercultural friendship for overcoming differences among churches, people of different faiths, and the wider African society. Participation will be presented as a hermeneutic for reconceiving the basis for cross-cultural friendship and dwelling in common where differences and diversities are embraced not as deficits but as potential transformative J actors in the culturally pluralistic societies of today.
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Notes
See Pope John Paul II. The Church in Africa-, Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Publications, 2012).
Pope Benedict XVI, Africae Munus, Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Publications, 2011)
I have identified and broadened some of these shifts for doing relevant, contextual, and historically grounded African theologies. See Stan Chuilo. “Methods and Models of African Theology,” in Theological Rei-magina-tion: Conversa-tions on Church, Religion, and, Society in Africa, ed. A. Orobator (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Books, 2014). 122–24.
Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, The Price of Freedom Denied: Religions Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 84.
Paul G. Hiebert, R. Daniel Shaw, and Tite Tienou, A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices: Understanding Folk Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 31.
Clifford Geeriz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 89.
Anthony Pagden and Joseph Lafnau in Carl F. Starkoff, “Theology and Aboriginal Religion: Continuing ‘The Wider Ecumenism,”’ in Theological Studies 68, no. 2 (June 2007): 287–319.
Cf. George F. McLean, Herrn-eneutics Faith and, Relations between Cultures (Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2003), 87.
Cf. Harri Englund, “Introduction,” in Christianity and Public Culture in Africa, ed. Ilarri Hnglund (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011), 11.
Dana Robert. “Cross-Cultural Friendship in the Creation of Twentieth-Century World Christianity,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 35, no. 2 (April 2011): 100–101.
Quoted in Klaus Koschorke, Frieder Ludwig, and Mariano Delgado, eds., A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa in and Latin America; 1450–1990 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 153–54.
Benczct Bujo, “Vincent Mulago: An Enthusiast of African Theology,1’ in African Theology: The Contribution of the Pioneers, ed. Benezet Bujo and Juvenal Ilunga Muya (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Publications, 2003), 18.
Vincent Mulago, “Traditional African Religion and Christianity,1” m African Traditional Religions in Contemporary Society, ed. Jacob K Olupona (New York: Paragon House, 1990), 120.
Liz Carmichaei, Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 6.
See Christopher L. Heuertz and Christine D. Pohl, Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 19
David B. Burrell, Friendship and Ways to Truth (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2000). 37–51.
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Ilo, S.C. (2016). Crosscurrents in African Christianity. In: Latinovic, V., Mannion, G., Phan, P.C. (eds) Pathways for Interreligious Dialogue in the Twenty-First Century. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137507303_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137507303_14
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