Christ’s Seer Office in the South Sudanese Context

Garang Kuol Gabriel

doi:10.35544/jjeoshs.v4i1.38

Abstract

Christ's Seer Office (CSO) has a hotchpotch of controversies encompassing it. Among these polemical trajectories that obtains in these controversies is the African’s prophetic office. This is certainly due to the close parallelism that CSO matches the prophetic office of Christ. In the South Sudanese context, some African communities view Christ as a magician, medicine practitioner, or a traditional healer. This misconception should not be taken lightly. It needs a deeper introspection from the African Christian theologians, as the concerned communities may abandon the church and revert to their ancestral shrines for worship. The Nuer in South Sudan has embraced prophet Ngundeng as their Christ just because of some similarities that exist between Christ’s Seer Office and Ngundeng. This article fully reconnoitered the two prophetic offices by comparing them by using the principle of Nexus mysteriorum and Analogia entis to enhance the Nuer understanding of Christ. In its findings, this article reveals Christ as a prophet; the whom all the Old Testament prophets prefigured in their speeches and actions. Moreover, the study concluded that Jesus is Nuer’s Ngundeng par excellence.

Highlights

The basic cognitive process in prophets and prophesies is a common trend in Christianity and the African Indigenous Religion
Despite the similarities that exist between the two mysteries (Jesus and Ngundeng), Jesus proved Himself as the universal Ngundeng through his eternal existence, divinity, sacrificial death and
27 Jesus came to fulfill the prophetic office. He declared in Mathew 5: 17 that do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them

Summary

Introduction

He is described as the Word of God in the flesh who called on people to turn from their sin and return to the Father.” “Christ is a prophet who came to fulfil the prophecies of the former prophets who came before Him Just like Jeremiah or Elijah, the mission of Jesus as a prophet was to proclaim the message from the covenant and living it out through his actions and speeches” (Gabriel, 1956: 263). All these miracles provided dramatic and clear evidence that Jesus is the Son of God. Ngundeng on the other hand, healed several people from various diseases at around 1888-1889.

Results

Conclusion