Theology in a Hot Climate

Extract

Theologies have always differed from age to age and from region to region. Since theology is the intellectual articulation of man’s response to the Word of God, and both response and articulation are conditioned by the historical and cultural circumstances within which they take place, this differentiation is as right as it is inevitable. In the age of the great Christological controversies Alexandria and Antioch had each a special contribution to make: Alexandria a deep apprehension of the underlying unity of God the Word through all states, activities and experiences, Antioch an equally necessary emphasis on the real and full humanity of Jesus. Eastern and Western Christianity have differed in their starting point for an approach to the mystery of God since the days of Tertullian, the West starting from the unity of the Godhead and the East from the Three-foldness. Provided that the unity of the faith is preserved, such variations in theological tradition are an enrichment for the Church.

In a time when the question of the African personality is a sharp and even agonizing problem for the majority of politically, socially and culturally conscious Africans, it is natural that the question of a peculiarly African theology should arise. African self-awareness seems to take on a special, and philosophical, turn among those who have been educated through the medium of French, and it is notable that it has been the Congolese bishops who have called most clearly and ringingly for an indigenous African theology.