Christian Base Communities in Burkina Faso: Between Church and Politics

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magloire Somé ◽  
Cecily Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Pastoral Work ◽  
The Church ◽  
Upper Volta

AbstractDuring the last decade, Christian Base Communities (Communautés chrétiennes de base, CCBs), which first emerged in Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) in 1970, have played an important part in the strategy for pastoral work and evangelisation of the Catholic Church's hierarchy in that country. The article examines the origins and development of the CCBs, their relationship with Burkina Faso's political, educational and social structures, the contribution they could make to a renewed and distinctively African Church. It concludes that, largely because of a lack of autonomy, they have not yet achieved their aims either within the Church or in the promotion of democracy, though these remain real possibilities.

scholarly journals Changing the Pattern: Reclaiming History, Constructing Herstory in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Ana Sentov
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
The Social ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Church

This paper will examine how Grace Marks, the female protagonist/narrator of Alias Grace (1996), reclaims her history, which is comprised of many different, often contradictory stories of her life and the crime for which she is imprisoned. These stories reflect the dominant discourse of a conservative male-dominated society, in which Grace is an outsider, due to her gender, class, age, and immigrant status. The law, the medical profession, the church, and the media all see Grace as a disruptive element: a woman who committed or assisted in a murder, a lunatic and/or a member of the working class who dared disturb the social order. Grace is revealed not as a passive victim, an object to be acted upon, but as an agent capable of reclaiming history and constructing herstory, challenging and defying the expectations of dominant social structures. The paper will show that Alias Grace, as a novel giving voice to the marginalized and the silenced, stands as a compelling work that examines and provides insights into the position of women and its changes over the course of history, provoking a discourse that remains relevant today

Public Catholicism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Matovina
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Civic Responsibility ◽  
Pastoral Work ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ordinary Means

This chapter explore how the growing Hispanic presence makes the ramifications of moral and social issues more imminent in numerous parishes. In this context, Catholic teachings such as those on justice and civic responsibility are more salient when embodied in local organizing initiatives that enable grassroots people to address community concerns and participate in the decision-making processes affecting them and their families. Arguably, the most significant contribution Latino Catholics make to public Catholicism is the various ways they reveal that the sometimes-harsh realities of everyday pastoral work are the ordinary means through which the church lives out its mission to transform lives, communities, and society.

scholarly journals Treća životna dob kao subjekt pastoralnoga djelovanja – mogućnosti i perspektive

Diacovensia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-504
Author(s):  
Stanislav Šota
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Pastoral Work ◽  
Third Age ◽  
Aged People ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Decline ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
The Church

Given that the population in Europe and Croatia is increasingly getting older, and the pastoral work of people in the third age is a relatively new term, the article firstly analyzes the question why people of this age group are partially put (left) aside by pastoralists and pastoral workers in pastoral discourse in Croatia. The nature and characteristics of the third age in life presented in the first part show that the third age pastoral care includes the pastoral work with the most mature middle-aged people struggling with many life difficulties and stresses: separation from their children, the need for making personal and lifestyle adjustments, especially after retirement, after children moving out or after the loss of a life partner, as well as experiencing fast and progressive weakening of biological, psychological and mental health dimensions, a drop in life energy, strength, and general decline in vital and all other functions. Old age as a gift and possibility is depicted through several biblical characters as an evangelizing and pastoral possibility, opportunity and call to a God filled and more meaningful life. The second part presents the third age in the world and in the mentality of the society and the Church. By looking at the contemporary life context, we can state that words like old age, dying and death have become foreign in everyday discourse and that is just one of the many reasons why the third age people are often left to the side, and forsaken by their own families, society, friends and relatives, and partially forgotten also by the Church. In the world of the dictatorship of relativism, materialism, secularization, anarchism, atheism, subjectivism, individualism, and the selfie-culture, it is extremely difficult and demanding to accomplish the pastoral of the third age people. The Church, especially in Croatia, doesn't have a sufficiently designed, thought out, planned out and programmed systematic pastoral care which would include third age people. The new concept of pastoral discourse regarding the pastoral of the third age should develop in two basic directions: the first direction should consider to what extent can the third age be a subject of pastoral activity, and the second direction, based on pastoral sociology and demographic trends, should strive to recognize the third age as an object of pastoral activity. Besides the object, the third age can also be the subject of pastoral activity at different levels, areas and dimensions, especially at the parish level, the deanery level in some ways, at the regional level and (arch)diocesan level, in areas of apostolate, parish pastoral councils, charitable activities, liturgy, families, religious associations and movements, and work with Christians that have distanced themselves.

Tertullian's Polemic Against Social Co-optation

1971 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis E. Groh
Keyword(s):  
Social Problem ◽  
Social System ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Technological System ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
The Church

One of the major strengths of a political and technological system is its ability to absorb into itself and to direct toward social purposes the aspirations and abilities of diverse groups and peoples. Empire, as opposed to despotism, traffics in the relentless proclivity of societal man to find contentment in the culture's values and personal advancement within the society's political, social, and economic structures. To paraphrase an old political maxim, a man who can be rewarded by the social system can be ruled by it. In this proclivity of societal man to make a place for himself in the social structures lay one of the major dangers to the church of Tertullian's day. Tertullian's attempt to lay the foundations for a divine community which could withstand the “pull” of society's “success” or “status” ethic on Christians is the focus of this article. It goes without saying that Tertullian's understanding of the essentially unique and separate character of the Christian community was also formulated against the heretics' theological “push,” but I would like to concentrate on the social problem in keeping with the theme of the meeting.

Agreeing on a Common Accountability: What Can the Anglican Communion Learn from Ernst Troeltsch?

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Frame
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Corporate Identity ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Mores ◽  
Theological Debate ◽  
Ernst Troeltsch ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTIn the light of recent theological controversies, the Anglican Communion urgently needs what Archbishop Rowan Williams has described as an ‘agreement over a common accountability’. Such an agreement must differentiate the things that define the essence of the Anglican Church from those that merely imparta distinctive cultural flavour. It will be built on a nuanced theological debate involving questions of self-definition that recognize the social, economic, political and cultural contexts enveloping the Communion's various national churches. In the same way that social structures and economic conditions bear directly upon the shape of religious organizations, it will become apparent that political pressures and cultural mores influence doctrinal commitments. The church-sect-mystic group typology developed by Ernst Troeltsch has the potential to help the Anglican Communion understand the origins of its theological diversity as part of a larger project that seeks to maintain corporate identity and to preserve organizational unity. His attempts to define the ‘essence of Christianity’ in the context of what might otherwise seem random, chaotic and possibly irreconcilable responses to Christ's teaching offers some interpretative insights that will assist Anglicans achieve a consensus on which ‘agreement over a common accountability’ might be based.

African Military Coups d'État and Underdevelopment: a Quantitative Historical Analysis

1984 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pat McGowan ◽  
Thomas H. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Political System ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
African Politics ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
System A ◽  
New Year’S Eve ◽  
Coups D'etat ◽  
Upper Volta

The August 1983 overthrow of Major Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo by Captain Thomas Sankara in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), the New Year's Eve abrupt termination in Nigeria of Black Africa's largest multi-party democracy, and the decision by the Guinean army in April 1984 to remove their party leaders after the death of President Sékou Touré, illustrate two of the most salient realities of contemporary African politics: (1) military coups d'état are the principal form of régime change, and (2) they can happen under any type of political system–a functioning democracy, a personalistic civilian dictatorship, or an already existing military junta.1

Performance of small reservoir irrigated schemes in the Upper Volta basin: Case studies in Burkina Faso and Ghana

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 50-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Christophe Poussin ◽  
Lorraine Renaudin ◽  
Desmond Adogoba ◽  
Abdramane Sanon ◽  
Fowe Tazen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Small Reservoir ◽  
Volta Basin ◽  
Upper Volta

scholarly journals Notes from the Road More Traveled: Doing Theology in a US Cultural Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
John J. Markey, OP
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
The Road ◽  
Theology Of Mission ◽  
The Church ◽  
American Academic

One of the most significant consequences of Vatican II has been the worldwide effort at inculturation and contextualization of the Christian tradition, particularly at the level of foundational theology and method.This process implies drawing on the unique patterns of thought, social structures, cultural narratives, and rituals to develop new theological and pastoral sensibilities.This process, termed “prophetic dialogue” by Steve Bevans and Roger Schroeder,[1] seems to be dramatically underway practically everywhere in the Roman Catholic world except, most notably, in the United States.While Hispanics/Latin@s, African Americans, Asian Americans, feminists, etc., have continuously served with an awareness of the need for contextualization, Euro-American academic and ecclesial theology has largely failed to analyze, articulate, and critique its own US cultural context and to engage it in a serious evangelical and theological dialogue. In this article, I propose to offer what I believe are four significant insights about to the task of inculturation/contextualization as it relates particularly to Euro-American theology in the church and academy in the coming decade.[1] Stephen B. Bevans And Roger P. Schroeder, Constant in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004, 385-95.See also Bevans and Schroeder, Prophetic Dialogue: Reflections on Christian Mission Today, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011.

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