Supreme Being

About: Supreme Being is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 192 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1615 citations.

The Sotho Notion of the Supreme Being and the Impact of the Christian Proclamation 1)

Abstract: The emerging reappraisal of their religious heritage by African Christians shows that we have entered a new phase in the interaction between African traditional religions and the Christian faith. The inevitable uncertainty created by this search for truth seems to call for a careful definition of concepts. The \"Supreme Being\" is one of the most crucial in this regard. This paper is an attempt to sort things out for the realm of a specific cultural context, viz. that of the Sotho/Tswana cluster which inhabit a large semicircular area stretching from the Northern, Central and Western Transvaal, Botwana, the Northern Cape, the Orange Free State to Lesotho. These peoples are related to each other to such a degree that a certain amount of generalization seems to be justified within the limits of such a paper. We start with a short summary of the religious context in which the concept of the Supreme Being (Mod1nlo ) has to be seen. Unfortunately there is no room here for substantiation of the hypotheses put forward. This we limit to the discussion of the Supreme Being itself in the central part. The last section, on the impact of the Christian proclamation on the concept of Modinto, again has had to be very condensed and generalized. African experience of reality is indivisible. Everything is integrated into a comprehensive whole and as such dependent on everything else. If we are to discover the existential significance of the Supreme Being in the Sotho religion we have to see it in the context of this whole. For the sake of comprehension we will discuss a few of its relevant dimensions.

The theological function of the doctrine of the divine attributes and the divine glory, with special reference to Karl Barth and his reading of the Protestant Orthodox

Abstract: Theological discourse on the doctrine of the attributes of God has lacked a clear sense of its purpose within the doctrine of God. It has far too often led one into an realm in which an incipient naturalism is present concerning who God is and what God is like: the attributes resemble those of a supreme being rather than the triune God of the gospel. If the doctrine is to perform the salutary theological work for which it is capable, it would be to its advantage to describe, as does Barth, God's attributes in terms of a series of short-hand descriptions which agree with God's enacted identity in the history of Israel as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In doing so, Barth offers a tremendously creative re-inhabitation of the doctrine. It is creative precisely because Barth avoids many of the shortcomings of the historical shape of the doctrine, as exemplified for him in Protestant Orthodoxy's tendency toward semi-nominalism, by attending anew to the declarative and communicative character of the glory of the Lord, a glory which is inclusive of a multiplicity of perfections. The result is a rearticulation of the doctrine of the divine attributes that is truly concrete, inasmuch as it eschews not only a false apophaticism, which would deflect attention away from the resplendent contours of God's saving self-display in the economy of salvation, but also attests the extent of God's propensity to ever give of himself as he is and to evoke a form of creaturely life commensurate with his self-giving.

Missionary colonial mentality and the expansion of Christianity in Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1800 to 19001

Abstract: Historical evidence shows that Batswana possessed rich cultural and religious traditions that contributed to the rapid spread of Christianity in Bechuanaland Protectorate (the present Botswana). The Western missionaries chose to reject or marginalize these traditions, which were based on the concept of the Supreme Being from time immemorial. The underlying patterns of these cultural and religious traditions and systems of the Batswana provided a firm foundation upon which Christianity was conceived, understood and received. However, some missionaries gave the impression that no such religious traditions and heritage existed prior to their arrival on the African continent. This paper argues that the Batswana, had an absolute belief in a Supreme Being, they referred to as Modimo and also points out that the cultural context, which the missionaries rejected, provided important conditions that led to the rapid growth of Christianity among the Batswana. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that through misconceptions that saw education, commerce and trade as integral to their work, the missionaries tried to impose their Western cultural values on the Batswana. They thus adopted a western superiority complex, which the Batswana challenged and rejected as unacceptable and undermining their integrity. It must be pointed that through their pre-conceived ideas and desire to see Christianity dominating the Batswana, they supported and facilitated foreign rule. Keywords : missionaries, religious traditions, Christianity, Modimo, colonial mentality

Hidden presences in the spirituality of the amaXhosa of the Eastern Cape and the impact of Christianity on them

Abstract: This thesis is an attempt to reopen the debate on the whole question of inculturation in Southern Africa especially in light of the fact that we are now in a multi-lingual and multi-religious state It is an attempt to rehighlight the plight of the spirituality of the amaXhosa people over the last century when missionary and imperial onslaught relegated it to the doldrums This plunged the amaXhosa in a crisis that has left them directionless, to put it mildly This is said because the total onslaught destroyed their self-respect and their identity and begs the question as to whether their acceptability to God was contingent on renouncing their culture especially the hidden presences - Qamata, the living-dead and the notion of evil spirits It is precisely because of these misconceptions regarding African culture and spirituality that the thesis has a strong expository and apologetic bias primarily aimed to address, and put into proper perspective, the significance of the Supreme Being, the living-dead and the evil spirits in African culture The issues are discussed within the broader socio-historical context The thesis is basically comparative in that it uses Celtic spirituality and the approach of the early Celtic church to the question of inculturation as its point of departure and as a foil against which the preposterous actions of the church in Africa should be seen This comparative element is also reflected in the unmistakable `dichotomy’ of Western religion and African spirituality, or better still, lack of spirituality, that was so fervently maintained by the missionaries and the colonialists alike It is for this reason that I concur with Chidester (1996:xiv) that `the study of religion must find itself, once again, on the frontier’ The study is informed by this approach right through It should be stressed, from the outset, that the idea is not comparison in order to satisfy our curiosity, nor is it comparison in order to try to authenticate and vindicate the beleaguered African culture The central idea of the study is to expose the absurdity of the policies of the past century in this regard The myth of the pure blooded Christianity is confronted, if not exploded Several examples of both inculturation and continuities between Christianity and other faiths such as the Jewish founding faith are given The subtheme of cultural domination subtly spans the whole study culminating in Chapter Four where the blacks begin to appropriate some of the Christian symbols and the whites also begin to assimilate African concepts such as ubuntu