African Theology as Liberating Wisdom

Mari-Anna Pöntinen, Ph.D. (2011), University of Eastern Finland, is head of mission and development studies in the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission. She has edited several books and articles on contextual theology, postcolonial mission, and African theology and thought.

African Theology as Liberating Wisdom by Mari –Anna Pöntinen is an excellent book written by a well-seasoned systematic theologian and pastor. This book contributes in a significant and unique way to the development of contextual theology in Africa. The author blends together her rich African experience in Botswana as a missionary and her deep theological knowledge accumulated over many years of study to write about the relationship between the Christian message and culture in Africa. The book is well researched, excellently written, innovative, thought provoking and critical in its approach. I highly recommend this book to the general readership particularly to students doing theology and religious studies in university departments and theological colleges. This book is an excellent introduction to those who may wish to carry out in-depth study on African Christian Theology today.James N. Amanze, Professor Theology & Religious Studies, University of BotswanaThis book is an exciting study that based on extensive field work in Botswana which involved observation, interviews, and extensive critical dialogue with the people in Botswana. Grounded in African philosophical thought and a systematic analysis approach, this rich ethnographic work is an intertextual theological analysis whose starting point is local wisdom and what it unveils is indeed a celebration of life and harmony through a theology of liberating wisdom. The research base is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana, but this is also an engaging ecumenical conversation that should be read and used in classes by all interested in philosophy and theology in the African context today.Elias Kifon Bongmba, Harry and Hazel Chavanne Chair in Christian Theology, Rice UniversityMit African Theologies as Liberating Wisdom hat Pöntinen eine Studie vorgelegt, die einen sowohl breiten als auch inhaltlich tief gehenden Zugang zu Theologie und Praxis der Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana ermöglicht. [...] Gleichzeitig vermittelt Pöntinen einen umfassenden Einblick in epistemologische und hermeneutische Debatten in African Theologies und gibt Einblick in Diskurse der letzten 50 Jahre. Damit ist es Pöntinen gelungen, theologische Spezifika und Entwicklungen einer singuären Kirche exemplarisch einzutragen in den breiteren Diskurs.Andra Fröchtling, Theologische Literaturzeitung 140:3, 2015

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... ixABBREVIATIONS ... xiii1. INTRODUCTION ... 1 1.1.Challenges of African theology and the context of the ELCB ... 11.2.Aim of the study, its methods and previous research ... 151.3.Sources and structure of the study ... 252.AFRICAN THEOLOGY AND THE HERITAGE OF WISDOM ... 352.1.African theology ... 352.1.1.Characterising ‘African’ theology ... 352.1.2.From Africanising theology into African theology ... 472.2.African oral wisdom as philosophical and religious inquiry ... 643.EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGICAL THINKING IN THE ELCB ... 873.1.Theology as liberating wisdom ... 873.1.1.Interplay of faith and understanding ... 873.1.2.Relationship to contextual theories ... 1053.2.Principle of contextual theology and the Lutheran spirit ... 1254.CULTURE PHILOSOPHICAL EMPHASES OF THEOLOGICAL THINKING IN THE ELCB ... 1534.1. Holistic perception of life and the ontology of spiritual monism ... 1534.2.The Tswana humanity principle ... 1764.2.1.Communal human existence ... 1764.2.2.Botho as an ethical principle ... 1985.RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS AND THEOLOGY OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE ELCB ... 2195.1.Theology of relationship and African spirituality ... 2195.2.Modimo, the Source of Life and the Father and Mother of the universe ... 2385.3.The Life principle in the context of Tswana thought ... 2625.3.1.Celebration of Life ... 2625.3.2.Harmony as a state of mind and being ... 2785.4.Participation in Life through Christ ... 2875.4.1.Christ, the Saviour, the Liberator and the great Ngaka of the sinners ... 2875.4.2.Possessed by Christ ... 3025.4.3.Christ as the Mediator and the role of badimo as saints ... 3105.5.Separation from the traditional explanatory theory ... 3245.6.Community of God and the prophetic mission of the Church ... 3376. CONCLUSIONS... 363APPENDIX: Interviewees ... 385BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 389Sources ... 389Unpublished sources ... 389Published sources ... 390Interviews ... 391Literature ... 391INDEX ... 415