{"id":13284,"date":"2017-06-08T19:44:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T02:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13284"},"modified":"2017-06-08T19:44:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T02:44:57","slug":"tradition-versus-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/tradition-versus-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Tradition Versus Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introd\"\"<\/a>uction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why does this people group, denomination, socio-economic quota, or ethnicity get a pass?\u00a0 Can being from a certain continent give you a \u201cgreen card\u201d, \u201cGet Out of Jail Free-card\u201d, or \u201cI can do what I\u00a0want because I am __________ – card (You fill in the blank<\/em>)\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 After my rant, I reflected on my own biases and how I had perceived others through a \u201clens\u201d that I wanted to call theology but was a Christian tradition.<\/p>\n

Have African believers been given an unfair indictment? \u00a0Do they hav\u00a0\u00a0As Thomas Oden said in his work, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind:\u00a0 Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, <\/em>\u201cSome Westerners will turn away from even hearing Africa\u2019s ancient Christian heritage because of seated prejudices about the assumed unimportance of Africa to world history.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Mix this \u201cseated prejudice\u201d with perceived (and real) challenges, polygamy being one of them, within the continent of Africa and you have a theological conundrum.<\/p>\n

Matthew Michael in his book, Christian Theology and African Traditions, <\/em>reiterates the same challenge\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian theology has a long history of association with the African continent. This association goes back to the second century in the planting of the church at Egypt, and subsequently in the founding of churches at Numidia, Nubia, and Abyssinia in third to fourth centuries respectively. The names Numidia, Nubia and Abyssinia may be unknown to some readers because these great African kingdoms, apart from Ethiopia, have now disappeared from the pages of world history and have been replaced by the Arab nations of Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

The African story is one of heritage, divided ethnicity, masses of people, corruption, and mistrust, yet it holds the key to the modern church.\u00a0 Matthew Michael resounds the words of Andrew F. Walls when he, \u201c\u2026described African Christianity as \u2018the representative Christianity of the twenty-first century\u2019 because \u2018what happens within the African churches in the next generation will determine the whole shape of church history for centuries to come . . .\u2019 and \u2018what sort of theology is more characteristic of Christianity in the twenty-first century may well depend on what has happened in the minds of African Christians.\u2019\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Matthew Michael, in his work Christian Theology and African Traditions, <\/em>takes on a difficult discussion of the major tenets of the faith from the Scriptures to eschatology to the Godhead to the sacraments within Christianity and how it is contextualized\"\"<\/a> in an African setting. Michael defines theology early in the book and then weaves theology and African tradition and the nuances that proceed from them. \u00a0Michael challenges when theology and tradition clash.\u00a0 One major challenge is the allowance of polygamy and allowing the individual\/s to partake in communion.<\/p>\n

Michael asks, \u201cShould this flagrant sin in the African context include polygamy? The problem of polygamy is intricately related with issues of African values, Western cultures and the Bible. To this end, Yusufu Turaki revealed that \u2018Polygamy is the most difficult theological issue to deal with in Africa because of the apparent uncompromising and irreconcilable views of African culture and religion and Western Christianity.\u2019\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 We can make quick judgment calls as Westerners and forget the implications when tradition and theology clash.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I know my own weakness when it comes to tradition and how I view the world.\u00a0 I was raised in a home where there was no television, alcohol of any kind, and playing cards.\u00a0 You throw a deck of cards on the table that has steins of beer on it and my childhood tradition can emerge.\u00a0 Since childhood, I have looked through balanced of eyes of theology and married them with my tradition.\u00a0 African traditions can be much the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael states:<\/p>\n

Consequently, tradition goes deeper than culture and also shows the challenging nature of the entire encounter between Christianity and the African continent since it is an encounter between two inherited traditions. The African traditions make claims that its traditions are necessary towards the construction of its identity. Thus we could ask the pertinent question whether one can jettison African traditions and still remain an African, or to put this another way, by taking on the Christian traditions are Africans not taking on a foreign identity since it is assumed that traditions of a particular people are key to the formation of the identity of such people?[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

For me, as well as Africans, I am no longer a citizen of this world.\u00a0 I do not want to propel traditions that tie my identity to this Earth.\u00a0 I want to live with a theology and traditions that intertwine and look my Heavenly Father and bear His identity.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Thomas C. Oden. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind:\u00a0 Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, <\/em>(Downers Grove, IL:\u00a0 IVP Books, 2007), 35.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Matthew Michael, Christian Theology and African Traditions, <\/em>(Eugene, OR:\u00a0 Resource Publications, 2013), 3.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 1.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 16.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 224.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction Why does this people group, denomination, socio-economic quota, or ethnicity get a pass?\u00a0 Can being from a certain continent give you a \u201cgreen card\u201d, \u201cGet Out of Jail Free-card\u201d, or \u201cI can do what I\u00a0want because I am __________ – card (You fill in the blank)\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 After my rant, I reflected on my own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[991,128,996],"class_list":["post-13284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-michael","tag-theology","tag-tradition","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13288,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions\/13288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}