Abstract
The noise is very loud around what could be a relevant decolonized education in Africa, South Africa in particular. We saw protested matches at tertiary institutions crying out loud against what is called a colonized education and curriculum. There was a need for a decolonized education based on a relevant curriculum as a solution to the problem at hand. Theological education is not immune to this problem because it is also a product of the apartheid and colonial project. The answer to the question as to what is a relevant theological education today, that is decolonized based on a ‘peoples’ curriculum still stands unanswered. This article seeks to present a contribution of the ignored or rather despised voice on this debate, the African Initiated Churches (AICs). It proposes a solution from the AICs perspective where they speak by themselves, hence the title of this articles; “We want to speak for ourselves…!” I will approach this project by investigating who the AICs are, their ecclesiology and ecumenical mission praxis, their position on social justice as a means of understanding the strength behind their anti-colonial drive. At the end, a relevant theological education curriculum will be proposed.
Highlights
In one of his writings on theological education from African Initiated Churches (AICs) perspective, Masuku (1996:392) argued; The AICs represent a forgotten voice in most of the theological debates including those that affect them directly like the subject on theological education
He drove this point through a case study of the ecumenical cooperation in missiological education between the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Gesellschaft fur Bildung und Forschung in Europa (GBFE) that originated from Russian-born ethnic Germans in Germany
In order to better understand the AICs’ position, the author joins Kealotswe (2013:437), who when writing about the relevant theological education for the AICs in Botswana, stressed the need for understanding who they are as a prerequisite
Summary
In one of his writings on theological education from African Initiated Churches (AICs) perspective, Masuku (1996:392) argued; The AICs represent a forgotten voice in most of the theological debates including those that affect them directly like the subject on theological education. In line with this article title, the author’s primary interlocutors would be the AICs and his secondary interlocutors will be the ‘accredited’ AICs’ ‘spokespersons,’ that means, scholars outside the AICs’ camp who researched on them The latter will be drawn from both etic and emic camps of approach in the author’s quest for a relevant, decolonised and transformative theological education in Southern Africa. Decolonisation calls for theological education in Africa to grow from the seed not be transformed as a transplant of a theological seminary, transplanted from the global north, but the natural growth of an African social, political systems and epistemologies. The author argues, by letting the AICs to speak for themselves, that one should not use the Western theology, theological education in this regard, which is deemed to be the cause for all the trouble because of its colonised colorings, as a yard stick or model for theological education, for all contexts including Africa and Southern Africa in particular (Kealotswe, 2013:439)
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