An Evangelical Contextual Missiological Approach to Mission Praxis in Africa: An Indigenous South African Perspective (1950 -2005).

Abstract

SUMMARY: The gospel of Jesus has been widely and joyfully received by many indigenous South Africans. Yet there is without doubt a huge need for most indigenous South Africans to hear the gospel and apply it in a mannercongruenttotheircontext-specific issues. To this very day, many scholars are still seeking to apply the objective Word of God within their subjective cross-cultural mission contexts. Hence it is the subject of this thesis to discover the theological journey travelled by many concerned African theologians and clergy men who strived to contextualized the eternal gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in their dynamic contexts. For example, theologies such as the Black Liberation Theology, African Indigenous Theology, and Contextual Theology emerged out of concern from the indigenous South African Christians who longed for a God who directly speaks to them at their point of need without the trimmings of Western cultural and contextual paraphernalia. But these theological attempts to contextualize the gospel have been marked by many difficulties,complexities and dangers. Therefore, this thesis seeks to systematically make sense of the question of contextualization of the gospel as it relates to the indigenous South Africans (i.e. from 1950 to 2005). The view taken by this thesis is that it is both necessary and possible to contextualize the gospel among the indigenous South Africans (or any indigenous groups of people around the world) without betraying the eternal Word of Truth. Thus, this is an attempt to formulate a sound, Biblically based, evangelical contextual mission praxis in Africa from an indigenous South African’s view.

SUMMARY: The gospel of Jesus has been widely and joyfully received by many indigenous South Africans. Yet there is without doubt a huge need for most indigenous South Africans to hear the gospel and apply it in a mannercongruenttotheircontext-specific issues. To this very day, many scholars are still seeking to apply the objective Word of God within their subjective cross-cultural mission contexts. Hence it is the subject of this thesis to discover the theological journey travelled by many concerned African theologians and clergy men who strived to contextualized the eternal gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in their dynamic contexts. For example, theologies such as the Black Liberation Theology, African Indigenous Theology, and Contextual Theology emerged out of concern from the indigenous South African Christians who longed for a God who directly speaks to them at their point of need without the trimmings of Western cultural and contextual paraphernalia. But these theological attempts to contextualize the gospel have been marked by many difficulties,complexities and dangers. Therefore, this thesis seeks to systematically make sense of the question of contextualization of the gospel as it relates to the indigenous South Africans (i.e. from 1950 to 2005). The view taken by this thesis is that it is both necessary and possible to contextualize the gospel among the indigenous South Africans (or any indigenous groups of people around the world) without betraying the eternal Word of Truth. Thus, this is an attempt to formulate a sound, Biblically based, evangelical contextual mission praxis in Africa from an indigenous South African’s view.