Abstract
Many African Christian thinkers and writers are responding to the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity by treating Christ under the traditional African ancestral category. However, it is our contention that the designation of the ancestral category to Christ has a tendency of diminishing the actuality of Christ as God incarnate and encouraging syncretism in African Christianity. Given this, this paper proposes and formulates an Adamic incarnational Christological model as an alternative response to the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity. In employing the anhypostastic and enhypostastic principles, we demonstrate that Jesus Christ is not a foreigner to African Christians, since the human nature he assumed in the incarnation is a general human nature which embraces all humankind. In establishing the Adam-Christ relationship in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, we advance Adam as a biblical-theological category in enhancing the relevance of Christ to Africans. It is from this perspective that our Adamic incarnational Christological model proposes that in the incarnation, God in Christ fully identified with all mankind as the New Adam, acting from the ontological depth of his divine-human existence to save African Christians from sin and all its consequences, including death and opposing spiritual forces. Thus, our own model underscores the relevance of Christ to African Christians by emphasizing Christs complete solidarity with all humanity as the New Adam.
Highlights
There is a problem of foreignness of Christ in African Christianity
This is why Schreiner (1998:282) argues that “Adam and Christ are the two most influential individuals in human history, and believers can take confidence because they belong to one who has overturned all that Adam introduced into the world.”. Those engaging in African contextual discourses where Christ is viewed as a foreigner at both academic and popular level should understand that even though there are continuities between Adam and Christ on the basis of the corporate solidarity of humankind in their vicarious humanity; the Godman, Jesus Christ transcends Adam in all respects as the one who ‘un-does’ Adam’s sin and all its consequences for all human kind who believe in his saving person and work. This Adamic incarnational Christological framework integrates the doctrines of God and Christology, enabling all African Christians to see the relevance of Christ without compromising the actuality of Christ as God incarnate, as well as encouraging syncretism in African Christianity
In breaking away from the trend of treating Christ under the category of ancestor, we have advanced an Adamic incarnartional Christological framework which responds to the problem of the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity
Summary
There is a problem of foreignness of Christ in African Christianity. This results in perceived ‘inadequacy’ of Christ in protecting African Christians from traditional religious spiritual threats such as witchcraft and angry ancestral spirits. In order for African Christians to understand that in the incarnation, there is a once and for all solidarity between “Christ and all mankind”, the vicarious humanity of Christ as the true representative of all humankind is determined by the two inseparable Greek Patristic theological concepts, namely anhypostatic and enhypostatic union (Torrance 2008:230 & 2009:lxxii-lxxiii) These are the two qualifications that need to be made about the relation of the humanity of Christ to his divine person. Jesus Christ is not foreign to African Christians because through faith in him, they appropriate the divine promises given to the patriarchs of Israel and Israel as a nation
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