AbstractThe central claim of this dissertation is this: christological images like healer, liberator and king, which are popular in grassroots Christian communities in sub-Saharan Africa, have socially transformative dimension and potential. The potential, however, is not yet constructively explored nor fully actualised in the African Christian landscape and theological circle. It is then argued that distilling the potential consists in retrieving three closely interwoven christological notions: relationship, agency and praxis. To spell out this argument, the work draws on insights from Jon Sobrino's Christology. Sobrino's historical Christology, with its model of Christ's existence as "incarnate divinity," allows him to lay out certain themes for disclosing how belief in Jesus Christ - as a single reality regardless of whatever image he is proclaimed in - could provide resources for Christian engagement towards bringing about a more just social order. Three of the themes which are relevant for the line of inquiry in the study are: (1) Jesus' relationship with the Father and other people, (2) Jesus' service of the Kingdom of God, and (3) Jesus' call to discipleship and hope for a transformed reality on the basis of his resurrection. These themes offer the systematic-theological structure for working out the christological trajectories for social transformation in Africa. The trajectories, or what could be designated as the historical correlates of the aforementioned themes are: (a) enhanced relationship of Christians with Christ and with other fellow human beings, (b) empowered human agency of Christians as an outflow of this relationship, and (c) embodied practices of solidarity, both within and beyond ecclesial communities, as the form of Christian discipleship. It is from this line of reasoning, the dissertation concludes, that we can understand how belief in Jesus Christ presents resources for Christian commitment to social change, or simply put, how Christ is the image of social transformation.

AbstractThe article sets out to demonstrate African reconstructive Christology as the seventhChristological trend in African Christianity. Considering that African theology is kerygmatically universal, but theologically provincial, the study shows that Christology in our contemporary Africa can be best understood by retracing it from the early Christologicalcontroversies through to the present times. Certainly, African Christology in the 21st century is dominated by calls for contextualisation, indigenisation, rebirth, inculturation,renewal, rejuvenation, renaissance and reconstruction. To this end, the article endeavours todemonstrate that Christ, the ideal reconstructionist, the one who broke the cultural codes of his time in order to reconstruct the society, is the relevant model to our contemporary world.The article draws its theoretical framework from the works of Jesse Mugambi, Kä Mana,and Wachege, amongst other proponents of reconstructive motif in African theology. In its methodology, the article first attempts to identify some early Christological developments through to the contemporary trends. It subsequently attempts a survey of the six Christologicaltrends of the 20th century; that is a Christological trend that commits itself to interpreting and adapting Christology to modern mentality and situation; Christologies geared exclusively to thehistorical Jesus; Christology that tends to uphold the Trinitarian theology; Christologies based on the proclaimed Christ and the historical Jesus; Asian Christologies of inculturation and liberation;and African Christologies of inculturation and liberation. Afterwards, it analyses Christological trends of the 21st century where a seventh dimension, African reconstructive Christology, has become the norm. In so doing, the article builds on the premise that the primary task of African Christology today is restoration.

AbstractThis paper draws upon the theologies of Jon Sobrino and Engelbert Mveng to construct a social ethics of participation for those who have been marginalized by corrupt political and economic institutions, focusing on the agency of women in Sub-Sahara Africa. In light of the philosophy of political participation in developing countries, I examine Sobrino's insights that the victims of the evil of this world have to live as risen beings, I consider the African Theologian Engelbert Mveng's concept of anthropological pauperization, and argue that it makes a difference to consider historical events that influence the contexts in which we view the victims. I also argue that both Sobrino and Mveng provide foundations for political participation of the victims, but there is a need to reinforce the agency of the victims, and their own ability to come down from the cross and live as risen beings. Such agency suggests the need for reinforcing the political participation of the victims. Finally, I supplement Mveng's thoughts with the cultural features of the African philosophy of Ubuntu — related to African Humanism — to show that Ubuntu, as well as Mveng, reinforce Sobrino's claims.

AbstractThe African Jesus of Tinyiko Maluleke and the Christ of deep incarnation represent two radically different christological trajectories. While the deep incarnation theologians extend Jesus’s body into social and cosmic bodies, Maluleke locates Jesus’s body in the bodies of his fellow Africans. Each of these christological moves is interpreted as a manifestation, albeit in a different sense, of God’s radical embodiment through Jesus in our world. African appropriations of Jesus stand out as a warning that even christologizing centered upon the category of “flesh” is at risk of remaining purely visionary unless it is done by and/or with those in whose own bodies Jesus is being crucified.

AbstractThe serious challenges posed by poverty in Africa call for a new approach. A Christological approach to these issues inspires hope. A Christology from above, or ‘high’ Christology, has much to offer regarding God’s looking after humanity. Christ as the one for others humbled himself to give a life of fullness to the poorest and most ill, thereby bringing hope both for this life and for eternity. The approach followed should not lead to the exclusion of people, but rather to an endeavour to meet the challenge of brokenness. In societies where there is no hope left, the Christ of the wounded leads the way to new healing. Christ, verily God and verily human brings us before him in our totality, to be involved in all the needs of the community. The church should be the hands, feet and eyes of Christ for the needy.

AbstractIn the South African discourse on the political relevance of Jesus Christ, a vast array of conceptions of Jesus emerged over the years of the struggle, the liberation, the quest for spirituality and the theology of reconstruction. This discourse has taken place within the framework of the two broad historical movements of a “high” and a “low” Christology. In a recent thought provoking and informative article Mouton & Smit investigated four of the dominant discourses on Jesus in contemporary South Africa. They surveyed the discussions of Jesus in the popular news and newspaper debates, academic circles and scholarship, the worship and spirituality of congregations and believers, and public opinion about social and political life. After reviewing a huge corpus of South African literature on concepts of Jesus they ask the question whether Jesus was lost in translation in the South Africa of recent times. This article is an attempt to take the argument further. First of all, the investigation will provide another outline of the Christologies in the recent South African discourse within the broad framework of a “high” and a “low” Christology. The concepts under consideration are the spiritual Jesus, the political Jesus and the historical Jesus. Then a case will be made for the transforming Jesus of the Kingdom of God as a corrective on the Christologies of Apartheid, the liberation struggle and the modern-day post-modern projections of the historical Jesus.