Co­ming Home to Face the Fu­ture

An Af­ri­ca­niza­ti­on of Chris­tia­ni­ty would not only help to root Chris­tia­ni­ty in Af­ri­ca, but be­ne­fit the world­wi­de Chris­ti­an fa­mi­ly. Also for Pro­tes­tants it would be a ne­ces­sa­ry fur­ther step in the Re­for­ma­ti­on, af­ter trans­la­ting the bi­ble and in­­­t­ro- du­cing the lo­cal lan­guage in the lit­ur­gy, now to com­ple­ment clas­si­cal pa­ra­digms and thought forms by con­tem­po­ra­ry ones, ta­ken from people´s pro­per cul­tu­re and the­r­e­fo­re un­der­stan­da­ble for Chris­ti­ans of to­day. Co­ming from this dou­ble af­fir­ma­ti­on of in­cul­tu­ra­ti­on, the aut­hor re­views cri­ti­cal­ly the use of the an­ces­tor pa­ra­digm for Chris­ti­an theo­lo­gy among Af­ri­can aut­hors and ex­plo­res its po­­ten- tial for the uni­ver­sal Chris­ti­an fa­mi­ly. Thus, he en­ters into a re­flec­tion of cen­tral is­sues of Chris­ti­an faith. Is the im­portance of Je­sus Christ ade­qua­te­ly de­scri­bed by the term ‘an­ces­tor’? What do we con­fess with the ‘Com­mu­ni­on of Saints’? Is the ‘Source of Life’ an apt Chris­ti­an per­cep­ti­on of God, ra­ther than just the for­gi­ver of sins?