Wrogemann Intercultural Theology, Volume One

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8308-7309-8
Verlag: IVP Academic
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 457 Seiten

Reihe: Missiological Engagements

Christianity is not only a global but also an intercultural phenomenon. The diversity of world Christianity is evident not merely outside our borders but even within our own neighborhoods.M Over the past half century theologians and missiologists have addressed this reality by developing local and contextual theologies and by exploring issues like contextualization, inculturation, and translation. In recent years these various trajectories have coalesced into a new field called intercultural theology. Bringing together missiology, religious studies, social science research, and Christian theology, the field of intercultural theology is a fresh attempt to rethink the discipline of theology in light of the diversity and pluriformity of Christianity today. Henning Wrogemann, one of the leading missiologists and scholars of religion in Europe, has written the most comprehensive textbook on the subject of Christianity and culture today. In three volumes his Intercultural Theology provides an exhaustive account of the history, theory, and practice of Christian mission. Volume one introduces the concepts of culture and context, volume two surveys theologies of mission both past and present, and volume three explores theologies of religion and interreligious relationships. In this first volume on intercultural hermeneutics, Wrogemann introduces the term 'intercultural theology' and investigates what it means to understand another cultural context. In addition to surveying different hermeneutical theories and concepts of culture, he assesses how intercultural understanding has taken place throughout the history of Christian mission. Wrogemann also provides an extensive discussion of contextual theologies with a special focus on African theologies. Intercultural Theology is an indispensable resource for all people-especially students, pastors, and scholars-that explores the defining issues of Christian identity and practice in the context of an increasingly intercultural and interreligious world. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.

Henning Wrogemann (DTheol, DHabil, Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg) is a world-renowned missiologist and scholar of religion. He holds the chair for mission studies, comparative religion, and ecumenics at the Protestant University Wuppertal/Bethel in Germany, where he also heads the Institute for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies. He is the chairman of the German Society of Missiology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wrogemann, Henning

Leseproben

1

The Gospel of Life in the Midst of Cultures

An African Case Study

The research area of intercultural theology comprises worldwide Christianity, i.e., that religious configuration that is currently represented by more than two billion followers in all parts of the globe and that has found its expression in a plethora of regional and local varieties of Christianity. Intercultural theology/mission studies focuses its attention on those processes of exchange in which new forms of Christianity arise in a given place, on the one hand, and in which Christian churches, congregations, and movements exert an influence on the cultures, contexts, and societies in that place, on the other. In addition, it investigates how these various Christianities—in the form of churches, congregations, networks, and individual people—enter into a relationship with one another, be it on a local, regional, or transnational level. A striking example from the area of intercultural encounters will preface the subsequent explanations by way of illustration. This example will serve as the basis for an introduction to important, determining issues for the subject of intercultural theology/mission studies.

HOW PASTOR MASTAI DRIVES OUT EVIL SPIRITS IN HIS CONGREGATION IN DAR ES SALAAM

The Kimara Lutheran Parish is located in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dar es Salaam is a large port city near the island of Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean, a city of currently about four million residents. The Kimara Lutheran Parish is located near the city next to a major arterial highway. It comprises a modern edifice, containing both the church building on the second floor and various congregation rooms on the first. The façade is white, the roof a radiant light blue. From the spacious parking lot, we enter the lower part of the building, proceeding through a hallway into an anteroom. Around thirty persons are gathered here, mostly women, generally young and middle aged, and also a few men and a few elderly people. We pass through the waiting room and enter the pastor’s office. Reverend Willy Samuel Mastai is a young man in his early thirties, perhaps, of the athletic type, wearing plain clothing, shirt not tucked in. The room conically tapers toward the pastor’s desk owing to the form of the building. While the more spacious part is tiled, the tapering part is carpeted. A few chairs line the otherwise bleak walls; the many barred windows are open. It is sunny outside. Palm fronds sway in the breeze. The desk is rather cluttered; behind it stands a shabby cupboard with a few files, on top of it a few trophy cups.

All day long people have been calling on the pastor, looking for advice and help. We—a colleague from Germany, a local pastor of the Lutheran church, and myself—are briefly greeted as guests, followed by a likewise brief introduction to what is about to happen. Then Reverend Mastai again turns to his tasks: pastoral care, prayers for healing, and exorcisms. The next person seeking help is allowed to enter. Some of the people outside have been waiting for four hours already, as the pastor briefly explains. The middle-aged woman is smartly dressed; rings and earrings reveal that she probably belongs to the middle class. She takes off her shoes and positions herself in front of the pastor with a touch of bashfulness. A short conversation in Kiswahili follows. We three visitors are invited to stand in a circle and lay hands on the woman, on her shoulders. The pastor says an audible prayer for healing, perhaps two minutes long; a brief exchange of words takes place, and the woman leaves. A young man comes in; after a brief explanation, a prayer for blessing is spoken over him, and he leaves. It seems he did not want anything more than a blessing. In the meantime, the pastor’s phone, which he had deposited on his desk, keeps ringing every few minutes. The pastor is in great demand. A middle-aged woman enters; the pastor sits down on his chair, the woman next to him. A somewhat more extensive exchange takes place, and then the pastor dismisses the woman. While she leaves he explains that it concerns relationship problems, it would take a while, and a special session would be necessary.

Then an older woman comes in, poorly dressed, thickset, and corpulent. The pastor already knows the woman. He estimates that this is the fourth time she has come. It seems that she suffers from the indwelling of evil spirits. The woman positions herself in front of the pastor. He instructs her in a few words to look him in the eyes, while he himself stares at her with a very grave expression. Half a minute. One minute. One and a half minutes. The woman repeatedly evades his gaze; she looks at the floor or past him. Abruptly, Reverend Mastai then lifts up his hand and places it on the woman’s forehead and the upper part of her face. The exorcism begins, for only if she had matched his gaze would it have been an unmistakable sign that the spirit had left the woman already. The state of possession is not yet over; the evil spirit is still present within her. Therefore the pastor begins to say the prayer of exorcism.

He prays out loud; his voice sometimes grows louder and then softer again. Again and again the demand is repeated for the evil spirit to depart in Jesus’ name: “In the name of Jesus, the mighty Savior”—the same words are repeated eight times, ten times, fifteen times. The woman’s body is seized with convulsions; she hugs herself, contorts herself, with her eyes closed or occasionally rolling about. She falls backwards; we bystanders catch her, only just managing to prevent her from hitting the floor. Choking noises ensue; sometimes she emits a loud scream; the woman is again seized with convulsions as if trying to spit something out. She is foaming at the mouth, trembling and contorted. Then she comes to again, takes four steps sideways, bent over, to where a little plastic bowl with sand is ready; she spits. Presumably, this kind of spitting out takes place frequently. The cellphone on the desk rings and rings. No one pays any attention to it. Again and again the pastor casts a searching look at the woman, continually saying new prayers of exorcism over her, accompanied by the murmuring of his colleague, who is also a pastor but who maintains a low profile except for the murmured prayer. After a few minutes, the exorcism is over. The pastor asks the woman whether she feels any better; she nods casually, does not say much—and leaves. All of a sudden, everyday normality resumes—or at least, that is how I experience it as an observer.

More persons are led in and treated in a similar fashion.1 For the most part, these are women. Besides the prayers of exorcism, which sometimes transition into a loud, intermittent series of commands, little physical contact occurs; when it does, then it does so especially in the area of the forehead and head and in the form of laying hands on the upper abdomen of the female patients or by pressing on this area with the hand. The female patients repeatedly sink backwards or fall all the way to the floor. After a number of such treatments, Pastor Mastai takes a break. When asked why women in particular make use of these treatments, he answers that this is probably due to the women being under stress in this country’s social system, which remains a patriarchal one. He establishes a connection to the activity of the spirits by pointing out that these strains impose suffering on the women and that this suffering in turn makes them vulnerable and therefore receptive for the activity of evil spirits. After these impressions, we now leave Reverend Mastai and his congregation in Dar es Salaam and ask some pertinent questions.

AN OBSERVER ASKS CRITICAL QUESTIONS FROM A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

Let us imagine a European person observing these events. It may be assumed that the scenario that was just depicted would initially cause some disconcertment for her. There was the trembling by someone who was “possessed,” the screaming, the choking, the spitting—she might think it was slimy and rather disgusting. Dealing with demons is not an everyday occurrence in Western society, but rather something relegated to the domain of horror movies, a marginalized topic barely good enough for the often bloodthirsty spine-chillers of the cinema. But even in these movies, the subject of demons is usually depicted as restricted to a few persons, while here in Dar es Salaam it is obviously something that concerns many people. This raises the question of the doctrine of demons and society: Is this not a matter of having relapsed into the ritual language of the old tribal religions? Is this not a case of a conventional, traditional, and almost “medieval” devotional practice? Or is this not somehow also a modern phenomenon—after all, it occurs not in the country but in a city with more than a million inhabitants? And if the latter is the case, then in what sense is it modern? With regard to the people involved, our observer could go on to ask: Does this constitute an irrational or a rational manner of action? In short, from a European perspective one might well ask: Is this ordinary or extraordinary? Backward or modern? Irrational or rational?

Now our observer hails from the realm of a Christian environment. In addition, as a church elder, hers is a decidedly ecclesiastical perspective. She asks herself: Is this practice actually still Christian? Or is this a case of an illegitimate commingling of religions (which would need to be labeled with the corresponding technical term, syncretism)? Does this not constitute a reemergence of the religious practice of the old tribal religions, which had been overcome by...