How to Respect the Religious Quasi-Other? Methodological Considerations on Studying the Kimbanguist Doctrine of Incarnation

Peer reviewe

Trickster-God Ghambageu and Sonjo Resistance to Christian Mission

no abstrac

The Grandpa’s Cup: A Tanzanian healing ritual as a temporary interreligious platform

This article examines the elements of ritual practice that contribute to the interreligious appeal of a specific healing practice, with the goal of identifying elements of interreligiosity more generally. The Reverend Ambilikile Mwasapila, aka Babu wa Loliondo, was for a brief space of time the most popular healer in Tanzania, attracting vast crowds to his remote village of Samunge. His healing became interreligiously acceptable because of its remarkable blend of openness and rootedness. While, as a retired Lutheran pastor, Babu was clearly a Christian, he welcomed everyone to partake of the medicine he offered with no preconditions. Furthermore, the herb that was the main ingredient in his treatment was well-known in traditional medicine but at the same time allegedly a divine revelation, making it widely acceptable to many. The ministry itself was also open-ended in the sense that even though Babu obviously performed the healing within the framework of religious ritual, whether to frame or interpret it as such was left to the patient

Faith in African Lived Christianity – Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives : Introduction

Peer reviewe

Nya vindar i missionsteologin. En analys av tre missionsdokument

Genom Lausanne-rörelsens Cape Town Commitment (CTC), Kyrkornas Världsråds Together Towards Life (TTL) och påve Franciskus Evangelii Gaudium (EG) har tre stora kyrkliga grupper uppdaterad sina respektive missionsteologier. Dessa dokument vittnar om en viss gemensam grund särskilt gällande det sätt som de reagerar på den globala kontexten. Till exempel så är de alla mer eller mindre kritiska mot den globala kapitalismens konsekvenser. Medan CTC och EG tar ställning för de fattiga så öppnar TTL upp ett relativt nytt och fräscht perspektiv genom att positionera sig i det globala syd vad gäller teologi och etik

Navigating ethnicity, nationalism and Pan-Africanism – Kimbanguists, identity and colonial borders

The Kimbanguists, whose church is based on the healing and proclamation ministry of Simon Kimbangu in 1921 in the Belgian Congo, challenge colonially defined borders and identities in multiple ways. Anticolonialism is in the DNA of Kimbanguism, yet in a manner that contests the colonially inherited dichotomy between religion and politics. Kimbanguists draw from holistic Kongo traditions, where the spiritual and material/political are inherently interwoven. Kimbangu’s home village, Nkamba, is the centre of the world for them, and Kongo culture and the ancient kingdom form the backdrop of the Kimbanguist view of the new eschatological order to come. The reunification of the kingdom from the two Congo states and Angola will mark the inauguration of the new era. This will not, however, mean a splintering of the Democratic Republic of Congo but rather a removal of the colonial borders. That hints towards a Pan-African vision of a united Africa and even a universally united Black race that will play a central role in the eschatological salvation historical drama. The Kimbanguist vision also contains global dimensions, and their view of borders and identities is like Nkamba-centred ripples in water. This vision wipes away colonial borders and relativises ethnic, national and racial identities whilst strongly subscribing to a salvation historical narrative that places Africa and Africans in the centre

Onko missiologialla paikkaa kolonialismin jälkeisessä maailmassa?

Peer reviewe

Smoking during pregnancy in Finland : Trends in the MATEX cohort

First Published October 17, 201