The quest for appropriate God-images within an African paradigm for pastoral ministry

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This proposal focuses on the quest for appropriate God-images which can beused to represent God in a given pastoral situation within an African context. Itidentifies the challenge that confronts the African people as they try to find whatcan be accepted within the African culture to express their experience of God.The study argues that pastoral care and cross-cultural communication are facedwith a twofold problem: the problem of accommodation (continuity) and rejection(discontinuity). It has been observed that the problem of accommodation andrejection is an integral feature of a theological problem of continuity anddiscontinuity in cross-cultural communication. The problem of accommodationand rejection has been described in this study as: the challenge African peopleconfront in trying to express their experience of God in a given pastoralsituation, while at the same time being aware of what is not acceptable andappropriate to the content of the Christian faith.The basic working assumption undertaken by this research, states thatappropriate God-images are those which represent God and create anexperience of meaning and significance in any kind of circumstance faced byHis people. We will presuppose further that appropriate God-images are thosewhich are not going to conflict with a theological interpretation of the Godhumanencounter in a given pastoral care situation. In order to clarify thesebasic assumptions, the study has undertaken to work with a Hermeneuticalmodel. A hermeneutical model will help us to identify the underlying factors ofan African cosmology and anthropology which, according to this study,influences the way African people formulate their God-images. It will be arguedfurther that unless we understand what influences the way African peopleformulate God-images, we will not comprehend the depth of the problem ofaccommodation and rejection in an African context. The research proposal wishes to emphasize that the African quest forappropriate God-images is a pastoral problem. Pastoral ministry has achallenge of providing a pastoral diagnosis of God-images which people can identify with. Pastoral ministry should make use of metaphors and symbolscommon to African people in order to facilitate their quest for appropriate Godimages.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University