Theological Framework Research Articles

Who Is My Neighbour?

Abstract Xenophobic attitudes towards migrants and refugees reflect a sentiment which rejects strangers as the Other. In response to Pope Francis’ appeal to educate conscience and using the normative and pragmatic tasks of Osmer’s framework of Practical Theology as a basis, this paper aims to outline the construct of human dignity as found in three dominant moral views in Africa, viz., Christianity, Islam and Ubuntu. Furthermore it investigates the use of the metacognitive strategy of critical reflection to effect a recognition of a shared core humanity and explores the translation of conscious awareness to praxis as envisaged by Paulo Freire in conscientisation.

The Loss of a Clan: Abandoning Ethos of the East African Revival by the Contemporary Kenyan Christian

This study investigated two practises of the East African Revival (EAR) movement; the public testimony of one’s salvation and the public confession of all known sins. The study further sought to know the attitude of the contemporary Christian on the same. The study was qualitative in strategy with a phenomenological design. Criterion based purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The tools for gathering data were In-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and Document Review. Thematic Coding Analysis was used to analyse the data. The EDNA model for practical theology was applied as the theological framework. Findings show that the EAR members held the public testimony and public confession of sin as foundational to their doctrine and practice. The two practices helped them to create a unique identity and cohesiveness, after separating from their familial clans at conversion, hence forming a new spiritual clan of their own. The contemporary Christian on the other hand finds these two tenets of the EAR,
 intrusive and unacceptable. With no alternative ways of building cohesiveness and a unique identity, the younger believers are left without a clan hence becoming spiritual orphans. Traditional Anglicanism, with its focus on sacraments and liturgy, and African Traditional Religions are among the formations fighting to adopt these spiritual orphans. The study recommends that the church and society revisit these practices and apply them appropriately in the fight against corruption and tribalism, among other ills in Kenyan society.

Worship, Apophaticism, and Non-Propositional Knowledge

This paper addresses the alleged tension between the kind of strong apophaticism endorsed by Maimonides and his view of worshiping God. After considering some extant resolutions to this problem, I offer a proposal that utilizes the role of silence and imitative activity in Maimonides. While this solution may not have been one that Maimonides would have offered, I argue that Maimonides had conceptual resources for offering a promising solution within his theological framework.

A New Hermeneutical Approach to the Qur’an with Special Reference to the Narrative of Prophet Yaḥyā (John the Baptist) in the Qur’an and the Bible

Prophet Yaḥyā (John the Baptist) is considered to be a bridge between Islam and Christianity. Both traditions emphasize that he is a ‘rightly-guided’ figure and among the company of ‘the righteous’ such as Abraham and Moses. The story of Yaḥyā is included in two chapters (Q. 3: 39 and Q. 19: 12–14) in the Qur’an. Canonical Gospels also provide various aspects of John the Baptist. Muslim commentators have used biblical and other sources in their interpretation of the Qur’an, elaborating some aspects of his life within the Qur’anic theological framework. Whereas various similarities may be seen in narratives of Islamic sources and the biblical sources regarding Prophet Yaḥyā, some differences are present. Therefore, this article seeks to provide an analysis on the story of Prophet Yaḥyā through Qur’anic narratives. It also investigates the classical exegetical approach to such a comparative reading (isrā’īliyyāt, biblical materials) and a modern tendency of direct citations from the Bible. Relying on the framework of comparative theology, considered as “welcoming wisdom wherever it exists” and “faith seeking understanding” in light of truth seen deeply in other religious tradition, such mutual close readings and interactions across religious traditions could be a good model for the Muslim world, instead of a fully rejectionist fundamentalist discourse against other traditions. Such a pluralist approach emphasizes a global raising of awareness and mutual understanding.

Inter-Religious Dialogue: Detrimental to Aqidah or Medium of Da’wah?

The implementation of inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia is still less encouraging, although it has been implemented for a few decades. This reality is apparently associated with scepticism towards inter-religious dialogue itself. Inter-religious dialogue is often misunderstood as a platform to promote religious pluralism which is detrimental to aqidah. However, a case study conducted on three Islamic organizations namely Islamic Propagation Society International (IPSI), Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia (IKIM) and Islamic Information Services (IIS) conveyed that these organizations had implemented inter-religious dialogue as part of their da’wah efforts. This study aims at exploring the implementation of inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia, assessing the role of inter-religious dialogue in da’wah as stated in the Quran and, examining Islamic organizations involve in inter-religious dialogue and da’wah. This study offers a novelty in the realm of inter-religious dialogue where it combines socio-psychological and theological framework in gauging inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia. The findings from this study yields practical implication for the dialogue practitioners and organizations to enrich their own dialogue models based on the types and designs of dialogue identified in this research. The findings also proves that dialogue is harmless to aqidah, in fact it is a medium to spread da’wah.

Posthuman Priests: Exploring the ‘New Visibility of Religion’ in Robotic Re(-)presentations of Religious Rituals

In 2017, visitors to a church in Wittenberg were given the opportunity to receive blessings from a robot. The so-called ‘robot priest’, named ‘BlessU-2’, poses a lot of questions and possibilities. One of these is about the ways that robots might mediate and represent religious teachings, beliefs, and experiences, which is the focus of this paper. Taking Hoelzl and Ward’s ‘new visibility of religion’ hypothesis, the paper asks about what kind of visibility BlessU-2—and similar robots in religious contexts—represents: is it whimsical; novel; authentic; secular? By locating the robot in historical and theological frameworks, the nuances of what it represents and how it might be seen to mediate religiosity in some way are revealed and discussed.

Black Theologies of Liberation

This article introduces this thematic issue of The Ecumenical Review, which originates from a colloquium hosted at the University of the Western Cape on Black theologies. Our aim is to propose a set of theological frames through which to consider the 11 articles presented here, as well as the study of Black theology in general. We propose that Black theologies of liberation can be understood within three theological frameworks: a theology of resistance that encompasses both the social and epistemic, a theology of existence that focuses on Black consciousness and identity, and a theology of solidarity that fully embraces African feminist and queer theological perspectives. What the contributors to this issue on Black theology succeed in doing is ushering in new ways of thinking about the subject. Not only do they open new frontiers for theorizing and conceptualizing the gospel in light of Black experiences, but they also challenge the exclusionary nature of the old frontiers, calling to attention how even liberation discourses can sometimes reinscribe hegemony.

Joseph Fielding Smith's Evolving Views on Race: The Odyssey of a Mormon Apostle-President

Joseph Fielding Smith's Evolving Views on Race: The Odyssey of a Mormon Apostle-President

What Would ‘Indianness’ of New Testament Theology Mean? Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Anthony De Mello, ‘Via Negativa’ and beyond the Accepted Routes in Catholic Theology

This article focuses on one specific theological controversy, which pertains to the kataphatic—apophatic debates as a framework for New Testament theology. In the year 1998, theologians from Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a refutation of teaching of Anthony De Mello, SJ. The analysis of the Congregation’s refutation and the consequent debate led to the following hypothesis: Although the teaching of De Mello can be understood as following the apophatic line of thought in Christology and other important topics of New Testament theology, it is also bringing several distinctly Indian ideas and emphasis into the debate. Whereas apophatic theology is concerned with the problem of intellectual knowledge about God, the Indian view is concerned with the question of practical role of language in human attempts to experience the Divine. In both approaches, debates about the role of human thought, as expressed in language, are crucial, but for different reasons and with different aims.

Rethinking Development in Africa: Agenda 2063 and John Wesley’s Socio-Political Theology

Africa remains underdeveloped despite many years of conceptualising, formulating and implementing different development policies and programs. Africa’s developmental challenges have attracted attention from various stakeholders and many factors have been identified as contributing to the problem. The African Union, at its Golden Jubilee celebration in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in 2013, adopted a new development plan aimed at making Africa a key player in global affairs by 2063. Africa’s new development Agenda has been engaged at various conferences and seminars. However, not much theological engagements with the document have been witnessed so far. The purpose of the paper is to explore how a contextual application of selected aspects of John Wesley’s socio-political theology might catalyze the achievement of two of the seven aspirations set out in Agenda 2063. The main thesis of this paper is that human political activities are deeply rooted in God’s political nature and hence must be exercised within God’s sovereign rule. The paper concludes that the development of Africa must not only focus on socio-economic progress but also on moral/spiritual development. The paper contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussions on Agenda 2063 and provides Christians, political leaders in Africa and other stakeholders with theological framework for achieving a holistic and sustainable development in Africa.

Is the Public Domain Just?: Biblical Stewardship and Legal Protection For Traditional Knowledge Assets

The present debate over the legal treatment of traditional knowledge (TK) and genetic resources tends to rationalize the precarious conditions in which Indigenous peoples and local communities live. The debate is organized around the question whether TK should be treated as part of the public domain or whether property rights should apply. Both sides presuppose either a robust utilitarianism or else a narrow conception of historical redress for past injustices. This Article argues that both property and the public domain depend on the disruption of places, people, and cultures that may stand in the way of the material conditions industrialized societies use as a proxy for human welfare. The TK debate tends to avoid fundamental moral and justice-related aspects of TK protection, including the centrality of TK to Indigenous peoples’ cultural identities and ways (and quality) of life, as well as their long-term socioeconomic development. The Article proposes a theological framework of “biblical stewardship” rooted in imago Dei—the foundational concept informing Jewish and Christian understandings of human nature and social interaction—to address the socio-moral dimensions that are constitutive of TK systems and the institutional context in which they unfold. The biblical stewardship framework focuses on the cooperative and kinship arrangements that enable and sustain productive capacity for TK. It centers the need for Indigenous peoples and local communities to be able to develop and protect their knowledge assets as a precondition for those communities’ thriving, both in the present and the future. Moreover, biblical stewardship supplies a basis for accountability by Indigenous peoples and local communities for how their TK is managed, shared, and utilized within a broader framework of progress and the public good—including obligations that foreclose access and benefit-sharing agreements that may undermine conditions for flourishing of plant, animal, or human life.

Intercultural Theology Competence for an Intercultural Faith Education

The article begins with clarifying what an Intercultural Faith Education would mean in a global culture that seems to be growing more pronounced in its pluralistic nature. Taking for granted the evident fact that Intercultural theology is the bedrock for a faith education in an intercultural context, it seeks to enumerate certain specific Intercultural theology competences that can render the process of intercultural faith education possible, significant and feasible. From a catechetical or faith education point of view, it analyses the three perspectives of faith that intercultural theology should promote, namely, the dialogic personalisation of faith, the prophetic challenging of faith and the cohesive exchange of faith—corresponding to personal and interpersonal dimensions, communitarian and social dimensions and expressive and missionary dimensions of faith, respectively. Each of these three perspectives declinate themselves into at least three specific competences, amounting to nine practical competences in all: comparative understanding, critical interpretation, cultural collaboration, the recognition of power equations, the ratification of identity formation, the recommendation of theological bonum, equality of expression in faith, an eagerness to learn and empathy in engagement. Interpreting each of these competences and their distinctive contributions, the article configures the foundational framework of intercultural theology for intercultural faith education in terms of these competences.

RESPONSE TO DUMSDAY'S “PALAMISM AND DISPOSITIONALISM”

AbstractRecently, I proposed a theory of ontology for the God–world relation that draws inspiration from: Deacon's emergent dynamics where absence plays a role in causal work; dispositionalism as the most suitable philosophical tradition for accommodating absence as a mode of being; and Palamism as the most suitable theological framework for articulating the absence of God as presence. Dumsday's “Palamism and Dispositionalism” in the present issue of Zygon is a cogent breakdown of that thesis, exposing philosophical and theological worries that touch on pan‐dispositionalism, bundle theory, Platonism, divine essence, created–uncreated distinction, God–world synergy, and more. This response article engages with the landscape of ideas that Dumsday surveys in an attempt to clarify and extend the proposed thesis that nature's powers are God's energies.

Re-imaginations of women’s theology for female bodies: A panacea for a future with hope among teen girls selling sex at Epworth Booster, Harare

The perpetual decline of Zimbabwe’s socio-economic situation can be found in the country legalising prostitution, which it used to regard as an act of criminality. This legalisation promoted the trade from being an offense to a lifestyle and from being an act of immorality to a profession. Prostitutes were also advanced from being social outcasts to commercial sex workers. Although the law appeared to financially empower prostitutes, its negative impact is seen in the level it dehumanises teen girls as they turn themselves into sex objects. Cases of school dropouts among teen girls and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are some of the evidences of the negative impact of prostitution, caused by their belief that ‘unprotected sex pays more’. The location of the study was Epworth Booster in Harare, Zimbabwe. Using an African feminist theology framework, this article aims to analyse how women’s theology can be used as a panacea to restore dignity and hunhu-ism to the teen girls whose bodies have been exposed to abuse by their purported fathers. The article uses both unstructured and focus group interviews to collect data from three health personnel and 10 teen girls, respectively. The article grapples with the fact that the legalisation of prostitution in Zimbabwe seriously affected both the social and religious life of teen girls as they risk their lives in order to earn a living, and African feminist theology should be applied to defend these vulnerable girls.Contribution: In the context of socio-economic depletion and laws that suppress women in the name of empowering them, rereading and application of women’s theology should protect women and offer them a future with hope.

Thomas Aquinas on Gratitude to God

Discussions of gratitude to God characteristically presuppose some philosophical or theological framework. This philosophical and theological exploration of gratitude to God examines the topic in light of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Unlike some treatments of Aquinas’ account of gratitude, I draw extensively on Aquinas’ commentaries on Scripture as well as lesser known works, such as his sermons, to illuminate these topics rather than exclusively relying on the Summa theologiae. In the first part of this article, I focus on how Aquinas understands the virtue of gratitude to God. In the second part, I examine his account of ingratitude to God. And in the third part, I consider the difference Jesus makes in Aquinas’ understanding of these issues, including contesting the claim that “Jesus was an ingrate”.

Da Blood of Shesus: From Womanist and Lyrical Theologies to an Africana Liberation Theology of the Blood

The theme of suffering is intimately tied to the possibilities of the blood as redemptive in theology. Potentially considered a universal pathway to salvation and racial transcendence for people of African descent, “Da Blood of Shesus” asks: Is there redeeming power in the blood for people of African descent? Turning to Womanist and lyrical theologians to postulate an African theological framework which explores redemptive suffering not glorified as inevitable and intricate to the historical Black experience and the church. Lyrical theologians affirm Jesus’ redemptive power of the blood in Hip Hop portraying the ways in which the cross reveals the attributes of God. Womanist theologians challenge the “classical” interpretation of redemptive suffering, illuminating the ways it contributes to Black oppression and wretchedness. Arguably, Womanist and lyrical theologians conjointly point towards liberatory and alternatives to examine redemptive suffering for people of African descent by offering sites to scrutinize and nuance the blood as an indispensable pathway to redemption. An African theological perspective decenters the logics of anti-Blackness proposing suffering is inevitable to Black life and the historical Black experience.

The Concept of Religious Tolerance in Reconstruction and Reinterpretation of Al-Kafirun by Mun'im Sirry (Critical Discourse Analysis of Teun A. Van Dijk)

This research aims to explain the concept of religious tolerance of Mun'im Sirry from the reconstruction and reinterpretation of Sura al-Kafirun. This is library research using qualitative method and descriptive-explanatory research design. The analysis employed in this research is Critical Discourse Analysis by Teun A. Van Dijk. The authors use Critical Discourse Analysis to reveal the various strategic interests behind the writing of Sirry‘s commentary and the struggles of social and understanding of groups. The result of this research explains that the concept of religious tolerance offered by Sirry does not only stop in sociological framework, but, more than that, it also extends tolerance in a theological framework. In Sirry's perspective, Muslims need not only to respect, appreciate, acknowledge differences in belief with followers of other religions and live in harmony (sociological field), they also need to acknowledge the recognition of the possible salvation of other religious followers in the hereafter (theological field). Furthermore, the discourse cannot be separated from the power of the West as the controller of science and the ideologies that influence the discourse are rationalism, empiricism, or neo-mu‘tazilism.

Delimiting Religion

Delimiting Religion

Belief through the Darkness: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ as a Theological Framework for Educational Ministry Amid Depression

The negative cognitive effects of depression often distort one’s beliefs about self, God, and the world. Approaches to educational ministry that primarily seek to correct erroneous beliefs are not only ineffective but reflect a flawed view of sanctification, which puts the onus on depression sufferers. Developing a clear theological vision for educational ministry in light of depression is critical to avoid such misguided approaches. Grounding the teaching ministry of the church in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, the author calls Christian educators toward a worshipful mode of educational ministry that bears witness to the perfectly believing mind of Christ.

‘The Eliminated Gods’: The Christian Reconfiguration of Jukun Theism

This article looks at an aspect of the cosmology of the Jukun of north-central Nigeria, specifically their theism, and how it has changed through their encounter with Christian monotheism. Many contemporary Jukun people assume that their indigenous cosmology has always been anchored on a Supreme Being akin to the Christian God. In this study I show that this currently held belief is largely due to the theological framework which Christian missionaries sought to make the Jukun worldview fit into. And even prior to the first Christian contact, Jukun indigenous cosmology had been in contact with Islam. I give a very brief history of the Jukun and of the Christian missionary efforts among them starting in 1906 and, starting from my own questions growing up as a Jukun, look at how indigenous concepts and categories for deities were adapted over the course of time as the majority of Jukun became Christian.