scholarly journals Njega wa Gioko and the European missionaries in the colonial Kenya: A theo-historical recollection and reflection

2022 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius M. Gathogo
Keyword(s):  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Indigenous Religion ◽  
African Religion ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Surrounding Areas ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Evangelical Theology ◽  
The Church ◽  
Local Leaders

Njega wa Gioko (1865–1948) was one of the pioneer Chiefs in Kirinyaga county of Kenya. The other pioneer Chief in Kirinyaga county was Gutu wa Kibetu (1860–1927) who reigned in the Eastern part of Kirinyaga county. Gioko reigned in the western part of Kirinyaga county (Ndia) that extended to some geographical parts of the present-day Nyeri county and the present-day Embu county. Njega also became the first paramount Chief of Embu district, which refers to the present-day Embu and Kirinyaga counties. As colonial hegemony and the protestant missionary enterprises, and its resultant evangelical theology, began to shape up in the present-day Kirinyaga county and the surrounding areas between 1904 and 1906, it found Gioko and Kibetu as the Athamaki (the most revered leaders). The evangelical European missionaries (Church Missionary Society [CMS]) who were comfortable with the colonial expansion, as it provided western governance structures that favoured their enterprises, employed Calvinistic theology in their dealings with the colonial government, and they dealt with the local leaders (Athamaki), who were eventually ‘promoted’ to the post of Chiefs in 1908 by the new rulers. Nevertheless, the missionary’s emphasis on unrealised eschatology (future concerns) differed sharply with those of Athamaki who were the custodians of African indigenous religion and its resultant emphasis on realised eschatology (present concerns). As an agent of African religion, how did Gioko relate with the early 20th-century evangelical European missionaries and their Calvinistic tendencies that favoured the Church–State relationship as the way of God? The data for this research article are gathered through oral interviews, archival sources and extensive review of the relevant literature.Contribution: This article contributes to the journal’s vision and scope with its focus on the early protestant theologies of the European Missionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries, and their resultant clashes with the theologies of African indigenous religion. As a multidisciplinary article that builds on a theo-historical design, the article contributes to the ongoing discourses on gospel and culture.

scholarly journals The Alliance to “Civilize” the East Indies Government and Catholic Missionaries in Manggarai-Flores

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Ricardo Vargas Posada ◽  
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta ◽  
Dicky Sofjan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
East Indies ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The Church ◽  
Local Leaders

The present paper deals with the reestablishment of Catholic missionary activity in the Dutch East Indies during the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth. It pays particular attention to the arrival of missionaries in western Flores in the twentieth century, when conversion to Catholicism saw a spectacular growth in the Manggarai region. It delves into the complex interaction of government officials, missionaries and local leaders and how particular social practices and economic modes of production were advanced. It aims to understand how the particular set of civilizing discourses that the missionaries upheld at the time dovetailed with the objectives of the Dutch colonial government. It relies on Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the contents of the article The Scientific Role of the Missionary, by Monseigneur Alexander Le Roy, superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which appeared in prominent publications of the main Catholic congregation working in Flores during the twentieth century, the Society of the Divine Word (SVD). However, it demonstrates that the ideologues of Catholic missiology of the time, such as Monseigneur Le Roy, went beyond the civilizing discourses on development. Furthermore, it argues that many of the progressive stances that characterize the church in Flores today can be traced back to the ideas espoused by their missionary forefathers.  

Practising piety in a (post-) pandemic time: A spatial reading of piety in Psalm 66 from the perspectives of memory and bodily imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lodewyk Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Body Imagery ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Exodus Narrative ◽  
The Church

Situated in the larger collection of Psalms 51–72, also known as the second Davidic Psalter, the smaller group of Psalms 65–68 is found. This smaller collection of psalms can be classified mostly as psalms of praise and thanksgiving. The relation and compositional work in this cluster of psalms become apparent on many points in the pious expressions between groups and persons at prayer, especially in the universal praise of God, and in the imagery referring to the exodus, the Jerusalem cult and blessing. Such piety becomes most discernible in the imagery and expressions in Psalm 66. The psalm’s two main sections may be described as praise, with verses 1–12 being praise by the group or the ‘we’, and verses 13–20 being praise by the individual or the ‘I’. Personal or individual piety and private piety are expressed by the desire of the ‘we’ and the ‘I’, and the experienced immediacy to God by transposing the past into the present through the memory of the exodus narrative, the Jerusalem cultic imagery and the use of body imagery. In this research article, an understanding of piety in Psalm 66 in terms of the memory of past events and body imagery is discussed from a perspective of space and appropriated for a time of (post-) pandemic where normal or traditional ecclesiological formal practices cannot take place.Contribution: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on knowledge from the Psalms in the Old Testament, social anthropology, literary spatial theories and practical theological perspectives on the church in order to contribute to the relevance and practice of theology today, during a time of turmoil and a global pandemic.

scholarly journals History as inspiration: Tracing Franco-Chinese architectural elements in Hanoi old houses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vu Thi Hanh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The Social ◽  
Networks Analysis ◽  
Insight Into

History is written in textbooks but is indubitably remembered through cultural artifacts and architecture. This is particularly the case when one thinks of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, where its thousands of years of ancient history can be found in the old citadels, and more than half a century of French colonialism can be glimpsed in the Old Quarter houses. Many of these structures have survived the brutality of wars and now feed into the nostalgia of French aesthetic. Yet, in what way can we come to gain greater insight into a cultural space where there is an interconnection between religion, house designs, and forms of feeling? One can find an answer to this question in a newly-published scientific research article titled “Cultural evolution in Vietnam's early 20th century: A Bayesian networks analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese house designs” in the Social Sciences and Humanities Open journal of Elsevier.

scholarly journals The Church Club of New York Library

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Jacqueline H. Rider
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church ◽  
Changing Society

Organized in 1887 by religious, financial, and social leaders in Manhattan, the Church Club of New York holds a library of some 1,500 volumes. It documents the religious roots and theological framework of New York’s financial elite, the birth of the Episcopal Church, and mainline American Protestantism’s reaction to the Social Gospel movement in the early 20th century. This essay discusses how titles illustrate the challenges these gentlemen confronted to their roles and their church’s identity in a rapidly changing society. Industrialization, modernization, immigration were all affecting their personal, professional, and spiritual lives.  It also reflects on how the collection as a whole mirrors the evolution of one sector of 20th century American culture.

Marseille

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-127
Author(s):  
Kathryn Kleppinger
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Production Capacities ◽  
The City ◽  
European Populations ◽  
Local Leaders

This contribution examines the city of Marseille’s strikingly vague relationship to its colonial past. Through an analysis of economic policies developed in response to the national government’s colonial expansion, the essay shows how Marseille’s business leaders effectively channeled natural resources from throughout the French Empire to enhance their own production capacities. Aided by the population flow to and through the city, industry in Marseille also took advantage of access to cheap colonial labor. After the independence of Vietnam and Algeria, however, local leaders were faced with a new challenge with the mass arrivals of European populations who chose to resettle in France. Today the city’s relationship with its colonial past remains palimpsestic: readily visible in heavily Algerian neighborhoods such as Belsunce but officially unacknowledged by museums or memorials.

scholarly journals Cults, Crosses, and Crescents: Religion and Healing from Colonial Violence in Tanzania

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 519
Author(s):  
Nancy Rushohora ◽  
Valence Silayo
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Colonial Violence ◽  
Colonial Government

More often than not, Africans employed local religion and the seemingly antagonistic faith of Christianity and Islam, to respond to colonial exploitation, cruelty, and violence. Southern Tanzanians’ reaction during the Majimaji resistance presents a case in point where the application of local religion, Christianity, and Islam for both individual and community spiritual solace were vivid. Kinjekitile Ngwale—the prominent war ritualist—prophesied that a concoction (Maji) would turn the German’s bullets to water, which in turn would be the defeat of the colonial government. Equally, Christian and Islamic doctrines were used to motivate the resistance. How religion is used in the post-colonial context as a cure for maladies of early 20th-century colonialism and how local religion can inspire political change is the focus of this paper. The paper suggests that religion, as propagated by the Majimaji people for the restoration of social justice to the descendant’s communities, is a form of cultural heritage playing a social role of remedying colonial violence.

Baptist Worship in Britain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Radical Reformation ◽  
Evangelistic Preaching ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Hymn Singing ◽  
Evangelical Theology ◽  
The Church

Baptists stand within the Free Church and Evangelical traditions. They baptize only those who profess personal faith, and they also give a high priority to evangelism. Although there is some variety around the world in this the fifth-largest Christian denomination, the main features of Baptist worship developed in Britain, where the Baptist story began. Emerging from the Radical Reformation at the beginning of the 17th century, British Baptists formed two main groups, each holding Calvinistic or Arminian theology, respectively. Both emphasized an ecclesiology in which the church was perceived to be a fellowship of believers and each rejected the baptism of infants. By the 19th century, most British Baptists held a common, though varied, evangelical theology, and this continues to characterize this denomination. The importance of scriptural preaching, extempore prayer, and the emergence of congregational hymn singing are all continuing features of Baptist worship. The core aspects of Baptist spirituality can be seen in their worship, including giving due attention to scripture and its relevant application for the life and witness of the church; the importance of the devotional life and an openness to the Holy Spirit, as seen in extempore prayer; emphasis on the church as a fellowship of believers, as expressed in the communal nature of the Eucharist celebrated as the Lord’s Supper; and the importance of personal faith and the mission of the church, embodied in the baptism of believers and evangelistic preaching.

8. Globalizing sanctity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Yarrow
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Cult Of Saints ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
World Mission ◽  
The Church

The cult of saints crossed global horizons as part of the spread of Roman Catholicism that began in the late 15th century with the maritime expeditions of Catholic Portugal and Spain. ‘Globalizing sanctity’ explains that the most successful seedbed of sainthood was the Americas, where the Church received most patronage when it operated as a colonial government ideological arm, working to pacify and economically exploit the Amerindian natives. Why did the indigenous people adopt their Christian oppressors’ religion and what part did saints play? A fundamental feature of Catholic world mission was syncretism, mixing elements of two sets of religious belief and meaning through the adaptation of symbols and practices culturally accommodating to both.

The Recovery of the Holy Spirit in Evangelical Theology

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Clark Pinnock
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Academic Theology ◽  
Evangelical Theology ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis article offers a positive overview of the resurgence of attention to the Holy Spirit in recent evangelical theology. Appreciation is registered for the reinvigorating effects of this development in the life of the church as well as in the work of academic theology, where fresh emphasis and perspective on the Spirit are treated in terms of their impact on each of the major theological loci. This concise summary of recent work on the Spirit draws together the insights of a number of theologians in relation to the author’s own widely regarded pneumatological study and provides a basis for some fresh suggestions on how to build upon the leads and gains that have been made.

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