THE ORAL CHRIST OF SHEMBE: BELIEVING IN JESUS IN ORAL AND LITERATE SOCIETIES

Abstract

Our immediate challenge in South Africa is to balance the need for a redistribution of wealth with a regeneration of the economy; to stimulate democratic creativity and conflict while still preserving law and order. This is especially difficult because int his country we speak to one another from different ages – as is also the case of the UN.Even with forced segregation gone and the question of exploitation gradually being addressed, there still remains a deep cultural division. This is a division not so much between black and white/African and European, but between traditional and modern society, between pre- or semi-literate and literate society.In building ecumenical bridges between different sections of our population, and awareness of the socio-cultural conventions underlying our varying theologies, and especially christologies, is indispensable. It is in this regards that I will attempt to make a contribution.