Publications.
A Decade of Democracy in South Africa and the Vocation of the South African and Nigerian Theologian at the Beginning of a New Millennium
ABSTRACT: Liberation, it is often argued, is no longer the most helpful metaphor for the present situation in (South) Africa, which needs to capture the complex social and theological challenges ahead. There is a popular view that the new social and political changes brought with them new challenges and responsibilities for theologians in Africa, in general, but South Africa and Nigeria in particular…
An Ethos Of Hospitality As Public Morality In The Face Of The Disorderly Process In Nigeria Today
ABSTRACT: Nigeria, a highly populated country in West Africa, has for the past fi ve years been embroiled in turmoil. Agitation arising from displacement of a large number of people coupled with alienation in their own ancestral lands and homes, due to activities of the unpopular Islamic sect, Boko Haram (roughly translated in English as “Western education is an abomination”)…
Dialogue And An Advocate Of Dialogue – Dirkie Smit On Dialogue
ABSTRACT: The essay explores Smit’s thoughts on dialogue. In the first instance, the essay reflects on Smit’s conviction on the need for dialogue in all human endeavours. Secondly, it explores Smit’s (together with Leon Fouche) analysis of four dominant discussants on dialogue, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty and Jürgen Habermas…
From Multiculturality to Interculturality? Locating the Ongoing African Agency Discourse in the Debate
ABSTRACT: This essay argues and concludes that an interdependence of people and their cultures will better facilitate a move from multiculturality to interculturality in (South) Africa. The first part of the essay attempts a theological description of the concepts of multiculturality and interculturality. The second part discusses how interculturality can be distinguished from multiculturality…
Glocalisation in the Service of Resistant Discourses: towards ‘Reading’ with Volker Küster
ABSTRACT: ‘Talking back’ in a non-confrontational way, this essay engages the German theologian Volker Küster’s ‘reading’ of what it views as resistant discourses from the global South. In the first instance, the essay attempts to ‘read’, with Küster, global political and social transformations since 1990, specifically looking at possible ways they have shaped theological discourses in the global South…
Is God In Nigeria? Land Dislocation And The Challenge Of Confessing Belhar In Nigeria Today
ABSTRACT: Of the view that “in the land full of enmity, God is in a special way the God of the destitute and the wronged”, the essay explores the challenge of confessing the third article in the Confession of Belhar in Nigeria today. Nigeria has recorded a high number of displaced persons in the years between 1982 and 2016, who have been dispossessed of their lands and their hopes for better living standards…
“Participating in God’s Mission of Reconciliation” Nigerian Churches’ Response to Ethnic Conflicts
ABSTRACT: The paper appeals to the Faith and Order paper on “Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Search for the Unity of the Church” (ETHNAT) to evaluate whether or not and in what way, Nigerian churches are responding to ethnic challenges. After a brief statement of the Faith and Order paper’s invitation to participate in the ministry of reconciliation, the paper describes categories of churches in the Nigerian context…
The Role of the ‘Ordinary Reader’ in Gerald O West’s Hermeneutics
ABSTRACT: This essay explores the role of the “ordinary reader” in Gerald O West’s hermeneutics. Firstly, it offers a brief overview of the background context of liberation from which West developed his hermeneutics. Secondly, West’s hermeneutics of liberation in its South African context is explored. Thirdly, the role of the so-called “ordinary reader”, especially in the interpretive process, in West’s hermeneutics of liberation, is examined…
We the Poor Must Abandon our Wheelchairs and Begin to Walk Unaided
ABSTRACT: After mapping the current notions of African agency discourse, the article suggests a more dialogical approach to the discourse, the partnership notion of African agency discourse. This suggestion is based on the view that African leaders and academics are apparently not yet ready to walk unaided. Therefore, the article proposes a broadened African agency that involves other races. Specifically, it stresses the need for a discourse that goes beyond a black identity…