Bekijk Volledige Versie : "The life of Jesus as revealed to Mary !" by Lex Hixon !
Sallahddin
20-12-09, 20:24
"The life of Jesus as revealed to Mary " by Lex Hixon !
source : Excerpted from "Heart of the Qur'an" by Lex Hixon also known as Sheikh Nur Al Jerrahi !
http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0612-3186
Sallahddin
23-12-09, 10:39
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sallahddin
23-12-09, 11:56
I wonder if Jesus w'd be "pleased" 'bout what's become of his noble message while checking the shameful history of the church , while looking at those silly pathetic tragic_hilarious christmas celebrations ......................
God...I guess Jesus w'd be deeply ashamed , sad , outraged, angry ......
wa Allah a3lam !
I wonder if Jesus w'd be "pleased" 'bout what's become of his noble message while checking the shameful history of the church , while looking at those silly pathetic tragic_hilarious christmas celebrations ......................
God...I guess Jesus w'd be deeply ashamed , sad , outraged, angry ......
wa Allah a3lam !
What do you care. Ik dacht dat interfereren en beoordelen van iemands ánders zijn religie volgens jou note done was? De Jezus die jij hebt gecastreerd tot iemand naar wat jij vindt dat hij moet zijn ondanks dat zijn volgelingen een andere overtuiging over hem hebben? Je bent een huichelaar.
What do you care. Ik dacht dat interfereren en beoordelen van iemands ánders zijn religie volgens jou note done was? De Jezus die jij hebt gecastreerd tot iemand naar wat jij vindt dat hij moet zijn ondanks dat zijn volgelingen een andere overtuiging over hem hebben? Je bent een huichelaar.
Nee joh, hij is ironical, sarcastic speaking in metaphors, using shock therapy to open the eyes of you 1dimensional, materialistic, darwinist eurocentric etc etc etc etc.
Nee joh, hij is ironical, sarcastic speaking in metaphors, using shock therapy to open the eyes of you 1dimensional, materialistic, darwinist eurocentric etc etc etc etc.
Hè... ik trap er ook elke keer weer in... Sorry Sal.
Hè... ik trap er ook elke keer weer in... Sorry Sal.
Niets om je voor te schamen, hij is niet voor niets de master of irony.
Ik vind het wel spannend. Misschien moet Dan Brown d'er is een boek over schrijven. :zozo:
Sallahddin
24-12-09, 17:38
What do you care. Ik dacht dat interfereren en beoordelen van iemands ánders zijn religie volgens jou note done was? De Jezus die jij hebt gecastreerd tot iemand naar wat jij vindt dat hij moet zijn ondanks dat zijn volgelingen een andere overtuiging over hem hebben? Je bent een huichelaar.
what do i care ???
huichelaar ???
I should be the one telling u : what do u care huichelaar :lol: :
'cause u jews don't believe in Jesus & ur ancestors had almost made the Romans crucify the man, remember !
RU that mentally retarted :lol: that u still don't understand that muslims do believe in ....Jesus too ???
so , i was speaking from the Islamic point of view mainly !
see the islamic version of the facts in relation to Jesus, his message, his life , Mary ...
on this site :
www.islamicity.com
Sallahddin
24-12-09, 17:40
Nee joh, hij is ironical, sarcastic speaking in metaphors, using shock therapy to open the eyes of you 1dimensional, materialistic, darwinist eurocentric etc etc etc etc.
:lol:
Merry christmas & happy holidays, ironic buddy !
best wishes !
:zwaai:
what do i care ???
huichelaar ???
I should be the one telling u : what do u care huichelaar :lol: :
'cause u jews don't believe in Jesus & ur ancestors had almost made the Romans crucify the man, remember !
RU that mentally retarted :lol: that u still don't understand that muslims do believe in ....Jesus too ???
so , i was speaking from the Islamic point of view mainly !
see the islamic version of the facts in relation to Jesus, his message, his life , Mary ...
on this site :
www.islamicity.com
Ja je bent een huichelar. Je zit moord en brand te gillen wanneer niet-Moslims iets over de Islam zeggen maar jij kan je gang gaan? Ik wijs je op je inconsequente gedrag en huichelachtige opvattingen. De inhoud en van welke standpunt je het bekijkt doet er totaal niets toe. Zo zijn ook jouw normen.
so , i was speaking from the Islamic point of view mainly !
see the islamic version of the facts in relation to Jesus, his message, his life , Mary ...
on this site :
www.islamicity.com
Ik meldde toch al dat je niet moet aankomen met je eigen versie van het Christendom? Dat is vanuit het Christendom gezien een gecastreerde versie.
Sallahddin
24-12-09, 19:27
Ja je bent een huichelar. Je zit moord en brand te gillen wanneer niet-Moslims iets over de Islam zeggen maar jij kan je gang gaan? Ik wijs je op je inconsequente gedrag en huichelachtige opvattingen. De inhoud en van welke standpunt je het bekijkt doet er totaal niets toe. Zo zijn ook jouw normen.
:lol:
:zwaai:
Sallahddin
24-12-09, 19:28
Ik meldde toch al dat je niet moet aankomen met je eigen versie van het Christendom? Dat is vanuit het Christendom gezien een gecastreerde versie.
:lol:
:zwaai:
The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology
Chapter 9 Jesus Christ
MERCY AMBA ODUYOYE
THE CONTEXT
African Christian theology is decidedly contextual, and this contribution on Jesus by an African woman will stay in that mode and reflect the faith of African Christian women in the African context. Jesus Christ yesterday, today, and tomorrow requires that each generation declares its faith in relation to its today. It is, therefore, natural that the Christologies African women were fed should reflect the faith of those who brought Christianity to Africa and the African men who did most of the interpretation and transmission. Having heard all this, African women today can announce in their own words the one in whom they have believed.
The intention of this chapter is to survey the language ofAfrican Christian women about Jesus and, through that, to build up a profile of the Jesus in their Christianity. We begin with a note on sources, as the expected ‘library study’ of this subject will yield very little that is of the provenance of women. We then sample the oral Christology which is our key source, as most of what is written by African women began as oral contributions to study groups and conferences. The third section is this writer’s assessment of what is being said about Jesus and why.
In the past thirty years or so, several Christological models have appeared in books written by men theologians of Africa.11 They share the emphases of the Western churches but several go beyond these. They are grounded in the classical Christian approach that identifies ‘Saviour myths’ with biblical narratives and attempt the question: ‘who is the Saviour?’ The classical divine–human motifis stated as a matter of faith and not debated, as the early church was wont to do. African theologians transmit as an article of faith the divine–human person whose sacrifice on the cross is salvific. As a human being, the Saviour is a pastor and an example for human life. As a human being, his role is like that of the royalty in traditional African communities, a representative and leader, but it is as divine that the Saviour is victorious over death.
The divinity of the Christ is experienced through the Bible as of the one in control of the universe and history. The Christ controls evil and is a wonder-worker. In times of crises, the Christ is expected to intervene directly on the side of the good, for God is the giver of Good. In the Gospels, the Christ is seen as a healer, an exorcist, and a companion. All these notions feature in African Christologies and influence what women, too, say about Jesus.
In dealing with Christologies in Africa, one finds two major trends, the inculturationalist and the liberationist. The first type are those who consciously appropriate Africa’s traditional experience of God. We note that the Greek Bible imagery that forms the foundations of traditional Christologies has appropriated beliefs and language from Jewish religion, as well as Græco-Roman paradigms. To talk intelligently about new experience, one cannot but build upon what is known. African religion and culture furnish the language of Christologies that describe Jesus as an ancestor, a king or elder brother. These carry notions of mediatorship and authority. It is as an ancestor that Jesus stands between humanity and God as the spokesperson, as the Okyeame; Jesus is interpreter and advocate. We name ourselves Christians after his being the Christ, just as we name our children after our worthy forebears.
We say Christ is king and we see the lives of royal leaders who were compassionate and brave community builders. We see the royal leaders of the Akan, who bear the title Osagyefo, the one who saves the battle, the victorious warrior, and we see Jesus as Nana, both ancestor and royalty. In several African traditional cultures, the rulers are regarded as hedged by divinity, and so one is able to talk about the Christ being both divine and human without raising the philosophical debates of early Christianity. So praying to and through Jesus follows naturally and is practised as the spirituality of the religion that enables Christians to face the daily realities of life.
Women have employed cultural paradigms to describe their belief in Jesus, but those that are most favoured are the cultural ones that are also liberative. They employ myths of wonder-workers who save their communities from hunger and from the onslaught of their enemies, both physical and spiritual. The women’s Christology in large measure therefore falls within the category of the liberationist types. Jesus is the brother or kin who frees women from the domination of inhuman husbands. They relate more easily to the Christ who knew hunger, thirst, and homelessness, and see Jesus as oppressed by the culture of his own people. Jesus the liberator is a paradigm for the critique of culture that most African women theologians do.
The faith in and the language about Jesus that is reviewed here has become written theology within the last two decades or so; none the less they are of African hue and have their roots in African Christianity in particular. The language about Jesus is heard in songs with lyrics created by both women and men, and sung lustily in churches and in TV drama. There are several women’s singing groups who have recorded cassettes sold in our streets, and songs are sung by people at work, at play, or while travelling. The name of Jesus is therefore on the lips, in the ears, and before the eyes ofall, including those of other faiths.
Ghana, the country of my birth, today wears many placards bearing slogans, which contain the name of Jesus. When you greet anyone in the streets and ask ‘How do you do?’ they will profess their faith by telling you ‘Yesu adom’ – by the grace of Jesus. This version replaces the traditional ‘by the grace of God’, which has become insufficient, as God was in Ghana before Christianity came and our Muslim sisters and brothers punctuate all hopes and plans and inquiries after their state of being with ‘Insha Allah’– by the will of Allah (God). Specifying the name of Jesus, therefore, properly claims Christian particularity. Who Jesus is to Ghanaian Christians is written largely in their songs, prayers, and sayings. The first full text of individual spirituality anchored in Jesus and coming from an African woman with no formal schooling is a publication with the English title Jesus of the Deep Forest.2
1 In this series one finds J. N. K. Mugambi and Laurenti Magesi (eds.), Jesus in African Christianity: Experimentation and Diversity in African Christology (Nairobi: Initiatives Ltd., 1989); J. S. Pobee (ed.), Exploring Afro-Christology (Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang Verlag, 1992); Enyi Ben Udoh, Guest Christology: An Interpretative View of the Christological Problem in Africa (Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang Verlag, 1988).
2 Afua Kuma, Jesus of the Deep Forest, eds. and trans. Peter Kwasi Ameyaw, Fr. Jon Kirby SVD, et al. (Accra: Asempa Press, 1980). The rendering here is by Mercy Amba Oduyoye.
THE TEXTS
Jesus of the Deep Forest signifies the place of Jesus in the life of people both rural and urban. It is the prayers they pray to Jesus and the praises they give to him. One could almost say that, of the women ‘writing theologians’ of Africa, Afua Kuma is the first, and she paved the way by pointing to the central theme of Christology. She became our first source, and will represent the women who weave lyrics about Jesus and pour their hearts out in prayer and praise at all times and in all places, the women whose theology gets ‘reduced’ into writing by those who can write.
Our second source is the writings of the women who belong to the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (eatwot)or tot he Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (the Circle). In the 1980s, eatwotcalled attention to the Christologies of the Third World and generated a lot of studies on the subject of Jesus. It is in this context that African women members of the association contributed to the publication, With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology.3 The Circle, with its initial focus on religion and culture, had ecclesiology as its main theological schema, but naturally the subject of Jesus looms large in its members’ reflection. The first publication of the Circle, Talitha Qumi!, features two Bible studies (Luke 840−6, and 142) and one article on that subject which can aid us in our study. The series of Circle Books and reflections published in the Newsletter Amka also provide relevant references.4
Our third source will be the writings of individual African women in other anthologies. An example ofthis is Anne Nasimiyu’s ‘Christology and an African Woman’s Experience’ in Robert Schreiter’s Faces of Jesus In Africa.5 Individually authored books on the subject by women are rare, but there is a chapter on Jesus in this writer’s Hearing and Knowing. Teresa Okure’s opus on mission can, ofcourse, be read from the perspective of Christology and so can Christina Landman’s, The Piety of South African6 Women.
3 V. Fabella and M. A. Oduyoye (eds.), With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1988)
4 Since the initiation of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians in 1989, the following anthologies and four issues of Amka have been published: M. A. Oduyoye and M. R. A. Kanyoro (eds.), Talitha Qumi!: Proceedings of the Convocation of African Women Theologians (Ibadan: Daystar Press, 1989 and 1990); M. A. Oduyoye and M. R. A. Kanyoro (eds.), The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition and the Church in Africa (Maryknoll: NY: Orbis Press, 1992); Rosemary N. Edet and Meg A. Umeagudosu (eds.), Life, Women and Culture: Theological Reflections. Proceedings of the National Conference of the Circle of African Women Theologians 1990 (Lagos: African Heritage Research & Publications, 1991); Justine Kahungi Mbwiti and Couthon M. Fassinou, et al., Le canari d’eau Fraiche ou L’hospitalit´e Africaine (Lubumbashi: Editions de Chemins de Vie, 1996); Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro and Nyambura J. Njoroge (eds.), Groaning in Faith: African Women in the Household of God (Nairobi: Acton Publishers, 1996); Elizabeth Amoah (ed.), Where God Reigns: Reflections on Women in God’s World (Accra: Sam Woode Publishers, 1997); Grace Wamui and Mary Getui, Violence Against Women: Reflections by Kenyan Women Theologians (Nairobi: Acton Publishers, 1996); M. A. Oduyoye (ed.), Transforming Power: Women in the Household of God. Proceedings of the Pan-African Conference of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (Accra: Sam Woode Publishers, 1997).
5 Robert Schreiter (ed.), Faces of Jesus in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1988); Denise Ackermann, et al. (eds.), Women Hold upHalf the Sky: Women in the Church in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 1991).
6 Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1986); Teresa Okure, Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study of John 41−42 (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr/
Paul Sieback Verlag, 1988); Christina Landman, The Piety of South African Women (Pretoria: C. B. Powell Bible Centre, UNISA, 1999).
ORAL CHRISTOLOGY
In Jesus of the DeepForest by Afua Kuma, our example of oral Christology, one encounters a lot of astonishing reversals of so-called natural laws and unexpected outcomes of simple actions. Jesus is the one who catches birds from the depths of the ocean and fish from the heights of the trees. These reversals are then reflected in a magnificent type of deeds in the lives of people. Jesus, the Great Provider under all circumstances, brings wealth to widows and orphans and is the friend of the aged. Jesus frees children from the fear of kakae (the monster) and breaks the will of the murderer. It is Jesus who has accepted the poor and given them glory. Jesus clears the forest of all evil spirits making it safe for hunters. Imagery that is in keeping with the stilling of the storm abounds in oral Christology.
The motif of Saviour and liberator is very strong in this and other reflections on Jesus by women. For Afua Kuma, the Exodus becomes another motif. Jesus is Yahweh of the Exodus, who defeated Pharaoh and his troops and becomes the sun ahead ofIsrael and lightning behind them. He is given the Akan title ‘Osagyefo, the one who saves the battle’ and so we can depend on him to win life’s battles. Other biblical images, like good shepherd, healer, and the compassionate one, are seen together with cultural ones such as ‘the mighty edifice that accommodates all corners’, while provision of hospitality common to both serves the very antidote to death. Whatever the situation, Jesus has the last word. There are no life challenges for which the power of Jesus is found unequal to the task of achieving victory. The following excerpt from Jesus of the Deep Forest illustrates the ethos of this publication:
All-powerful Jesus who engages in marvelous deeds, he is the one
called Hero Okatakyi! Of all earthly dominions he is master; the
Python not overcome with mere sticks, the Big Boat which cannot be
sunk.
Jesus, Saviour of the poor, who brightens up our faces! Damfo-Adu:
the clever one. We rely on you as the tongue relies on the mouth.
The great Rock we hide behind: the great forest canopy that gives cool
shade: the Big Tree that lifts its vines to peep at the heavens, the
magnificent Tree whose dripping leaves encourage the luxuriant
growth.7
Several images in Afua Kuma come from Gospel-events involving Jesus and women. ‘Women recognize his uniqueness and put their cloths on the ground for him. A woman anoints him as Messiah, friend and Saviour.’8
Reflecting on Jesus is not simply an intellectual task or one of personal spirituality. Afua Kuma, like many African women theologians, speaks as an evangelist. ‘Follow Jesus’, says she, and not only will you witness miracles, but for you will come grace, blessings, eternal life, and peace. The cross of Jesus, she says, is like a net with which Jesus gathers in people; it is the bridge from this life to eternal life. The word of Jesus is the highway along which we should walk. She therefore prays to Jesus: ‘Use us to do your will for you have cleansed us with your blood.’9 This saving blood motifis featuring more and more frequently in song and in prayers in this period ofdeliverance seeking. The royal blood of Jesus, precious and potent, has given us health and happiness for it has overcome and kept at bay the power ofdemons. This living faith is proclaimed daily in the churches, on store fronts, on vehicles, and even in the designs of clothes people wear.
7. Kuma, Jesus,p.5.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
WRITTEN CHRISTOLOGY I
‘There is a concrete history that is lived which is prior to the history that is recounted. That lived history in all its concreteness is the ultimate ground ofall the history that is written.’10 Christologies, therefore, are the results of questions asked by succeeding generations of theologians, the interpreters of the history ofJesus. The vocabulary of African women’s theology is focussed on Jesus, rarely Christ or Christ Jesus. Few questions are asked beyond that of human response to that history. The oral affirmations ask hardly any questions, but Edet insists that some women do ask questions of this Jesus-Story. As a Nigerian woman she could ask: ‘Who is the Christ to the Nigerian Woman? What type of Christ does she know? How does she relate to this Christ?’11 The spirituality of the majority of African women moves us to conclude that it is the personality ofthe one about whom the Gospels speak that draws prayer and praise from them. The songs about Jesus proclaim royalty, king of kings. Jesus is the first and the best of all that is counted good in humanity, and best and first of all good professionals who keep human beings and human communities in a state of health and general well-being. Predominant is Jesus the wonder-worker. Essentially, what we get from African women is an affirmation of faith such as is stated by Rosemary Edet: ‘Jesus is the Son of God, son of Mary, sent by the Father to our planet to redeem mankind from sin and death and to restore them to grace.’12
Snippets from the contributors to this volume follow the same train of reflections as in ‘Christ and the Nigerian Woman’ in Edet and Umeagudosu.13 In the same publication, Kwazu writes, ‘Jesus was born on earth to reform man who has completely deviated from God’s call to being good.’14 Akon E. Udo affirms, ‘God has sent Jesus Christ to the world to break the barriers of culture and sexism, that is why the names ofwomen appear in the genealogy ofJesus Christ.’15 This inclusiveness of the mission of God is then illustrated by Jesus’ example of giving women the mandate to ‘Go and Tell’ of the resurrection (Mark 16:7).
In response to this inclusive mission, African women are heard loud and clear singing the redemptive love of Jesus the liberator. Jesus accomplishes God’s mission by setting women free from sexism, oppression, and marginalisation through his death and resurrection, and both women and men are made members ofGod’s household and of the same royal priesthood as men.16 In Talitha Qumi!, we read: ‘The ultimate mission of Jesus was to bring healing, life and dignity to the suffering. Jesus came to give voice to the voiceless.’17
Teresa M. Hinga’s contribution in The Will to Arise: Jesus Christ and the Liberation of Women offers a section on ‘Christology and African Women: The Ambivalence of the Encounter’. Here she discusses two faces of Christ that are prevalent in African Christologies – the Colonial Christ who is a warrior-king, whose followers sang ‘Soldiers of Christ arise’, battling against other religions and cultures and indeed races, and the Imperial Christ, the conquering Christ of the missionaries who did battle for Africa, on behalf of the missionaries. Africans embraced this version of Christianity as a ‘means of social and economic mobility’ – hence the reports we have of mass conversions in some parts of Africa. Hinga states that African women were among those who perceived the emancipating impulses of Christianity and turned to it. Women were among those who took refuge at the mission stations. The early missionary period in Africa presented a Christ who had two faces, the conqueror who inspires the subjugation of people and their cultures while promoting the liberation of individuals from the oppression generated by their environment. Jesus of missionary praxis in Africa was an ambiguous Christ. Thus it is that he has acquired many faces on the continent.
The Christ of missionary teaching, mainly biblical, adds complexity to this scenario. Hinga presents three of these dimensions. Personal Saviour and personal friend – accepting people as they are and meeting their needs at a very personal level – Jesus ‘friend of the lonely’ and ‘healer of those who are sick, whether spiritually or physically’.18 The title ‘friend’ is ‘one of the most popular among women, precisely because they need such a personal friend the most’. Thus the heightened image of Jesus as the Christ who helps them to bear their griefs, loneliness, and suffering is a welcome one indeed.19 Women’s oral Christologies reflect this history and have been translated into the written ones.
Hinga observes that, in the African women’s theology, the ‘Image of Christ is a blend of Christology with pneumatology. Jesus is seen as the embodiment of the spirit, the power of God, and the dispenser of the same to all who follow him.’20 This ‘pneumatic Christology’ is very popular among women. For here Christ is the voice of the voiceless and the power of the powerless on the models sculptured by Afua Kuma. African women do need such a Christ for they are often expected to be mute and to accept oppression. The Spirit empowers them to enjoy a lively spiritual life that cannot be controlled by the official powers of the church. In this way they are able to defy unjust authority and repressive structures and to stand against cultural demands that go against the spirit of Jesus.
The Christ, the iconoclastic prophet – critic of the status quo that ‘engenders social injustices and marginalisation of some in society’ illustrates ‘some of the defining characteristics of the Christ whom women confess’:
For Christ to become meaningful in the context of women’s search for emancipation, he would need to be a concrete and personal figure who engenders hope in the oppressed by taking their [women’s] side, to give them confidence and courage to persevere.21
Jesus has to be the Christ on the side of the powerless to empower them, the one who is concerned with the lot of victims of social injustice and with the dismantling of unjust social structures. However, the concern most heard these days is deliverance from ‘Satanic Bondage’, and from demons who seem to have become very active in the Africa of the last decades of the twentieth century. The need for deliverance has revived traditional religious methods. Most especially the importance ofblood in African religions is reflected in the central place given to the blood of Jesus in women’s theological imagery and, indeed, in much of ‘deliverance spirituality’ of contemporary African Christianity. Just one example should suffice.
10. Rosemary Edet, ‘Christ and the Nigerian Womanhood’, in Edet and Umeagudosu (eds.), Life, Women and Culture, p. 177.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid. Note that inclusive language, even on the horizontal level, is not common with African women, most of whose mother-tongues have non-gendered pronouns and words for humanity.
13. Ibid., pp. 177–93.
14. A. E. Kwazu, ‘Church Leadership and the Nigerian Woman’, in Edet and Umeagudosu (eds.), Life, Women and Culture,p.94.
15. Akon E. Udo, ‘The Emerging Spiritualities ofWomen in Nigeria’, in Edet and Umeagudosu (eds.), Life, Women and Culture, p. 102.
16. Akon E. Udo, ‘Women in God’s Household: Some Biblical Affirmations’, in Amoah (ed.), Where God Reigns.
17. Musimbi Kanyoro, ‘Daughter, Arise: Luke 840−56’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), Talitha Qumi!,p.59.
18. Teresa M. Hinga, ‘Jesus Christ and the Liberation ofWomen in Africa’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), The Will to Arise, p. 190.
19. Hinga, ‘Jesus Christ’, p. 191; See also Christine Landman, The Piety of South African Women, pp. 19, 51.
20. Hinga, ‘Jesus Christ’, p. 191.
21. Ibid., pp. 191–2.
WRITTEN CHRISTOLOGY II
Grace Duah, a ‘deliverance Minister’ in her book, Deliverance: Fact or Fantasy?, includes puberty rites for girls in her windows for demon possession, to demonstrate how easily people can come under the influence of demons and so need deliverance. She writes in her introduction:
Jesus came not only to give us the highest form of deliverance i.e. Salvation – Deliverance from a Kingdom of sin and darkness into a Kingdom of Righteousness and light – but also to give us deliverance from demonic obsession, demonic oppression, and demonic possession, as well as all forms of fleshly enslavement.22
Rosemary Edet, a foundation member of the Circle, reflects this in her contribution to the Circle’s inaugural conference. Looking at the life of Jesus, she points out that ‘Christ has triumphed over illness, blood taboos, women’s rituals and the conventions ofsociety’.23 She is, ofcourse, referring to those that are inimical to women’s well-being. These are the ones that Grace Duah is referring to as providing opportunity for demons to possess women.
Jesus has become for us a liberator by countering misogynist culture. After all, says Edet, Jesus’ humanity is the humanity of a woman; no human father has contributed. The touch of the ‘bleeding woman’ has become a very important imagery not only for healing, but also for total liberation from all that oppresses women culturally and makes Jesus Saviour par excellence, as we saw in the oral Christology. Therefore Obaga, commenting on the salvific role ofthe Christ, puts her emphasis on the breaking down ofwalls ofhostilities created by religion and culture. She writes: ‘The breaking of the wall therefore meant the abolishing of all external customs and taboos of Judaism which created and perpetuated a state of enmity between Jews and Gentiles.24 In her discussion of Ephesians 2:15, she calls attention to contemporary gender issues that are a source of subjugation for women in Africa.
In Afua Kuma, as in most of the writings under review, salvation comes to women and men alike. Even so, she does have feminist consciousness. In Edet, this consciousness is overt in the very title that her paper displays, but even here the starting point is the universal appeal. She notes that Jesus is ‘sensitive to the oppression of the weak and the helpless, took them on in his incarnation’, as a carpenter’s son from a nondescript town.25 This is heightened by his interpretation of Messiahship, which he portrayed ‘not as king but as a servant by contradicting in his life and person, the messianic expectation of Israel’. Jessica Nakawombe is even more overt in this regard. She states bluntly that:
Jesus was born of Mary, a good and godly woman. She was the obedient vessel through which Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit. She was given a unique part to play in the outworking of God’s plan for the salvation of humankind, for the Incarnation and the virgin birth have had a tremendous significance for Christology.26
The women cling to the full humanity of the Christ in order to honour their own humanity and to insist on the link between the human and the divine in all persons as it was in Jesus. The church’s imagery of Jesus, which marginalises women, is therefore non-biblical, and contemporary women theologians of other continents have traced the history of this state of affairs. For Edet, this process was most evident in the Constantinian era, with its return to the royal ideology ofthe Davidic Messiah that made the Christ the ‘pantokrator’, reinforcing the distance between Christ and the feminine.27
The Jesus of African women’s Christology is the Jesus of the Bible and of whatever scholarship aids the identification of this Jesus and the context in which he lived his earthly life.
Another historical development lifted up by Edet is the Aristotelian desecration of womanhood. This desacralisation ofthe feminine has succeeded in making the totality of the imago dei male, says Edet. Consequently women have had to lead the Christian community towards a ‘return to the Christ of the gospels, his Person and his words and deeds’.28 It is in this tradition that African women’s Christology stands:
Africans in general have a holistic view of life which demands a Christ who affects the whole of life for there is nothing that is not the realm of God if it is true that God made everything and keeps them in being. God as father is beneficent but there are good and evil forces operating in the world. These affect humanity. In short, a Nigerian woman is a victim of evil forces like witches, hunger, infant mortality as well as the triple oppression of culture, religion and socio-economy. How does Christ function within this situation? If Jesus did take on himself our weakness and injustice at his incarnation, then he is a suffering Christ, a liberating Christ and a friend.29
22. Grace Duah, Deliverance: Fact or Fantasy? no publication details available
23. R. N. Edet, ‘Christianity and African Women’s Rituals’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), The Will to Arise, pp. 26–9.
24. M. K. Obaga, ‘Women are Members ofGod’s Commonwealth’, in Kanyoro and Njoroge (eds.), Groaning in Faith,p.69.
25. Edet, ‘Christ’, p. 178.
26. J. K. Nakawombe, ‘Women in the Kingdom ofGod’, in Kanyoro and Njoroge (eds.), Groaning in Faith, p. 47. See also Betty Govinden on the link between Christology and Mariology in Kanyoro and Njoroge, Groaning in Faith, pp. 122–3.
27. Edet, ‘Christ’, p. 183. Note it seems, however, that, for women like Afua Kuma, this ‘pantokrator’ is not a distant emperor, but the African ruler into whose courts all can run for refuge, for food, for fairness, and fair-play.
28. Ibid., p. 184.
29. Ibid., pp. 184–5.
WRITTEN CHRISTOLOGY III
Continuing the Christological texts of African women, we call attention now to Passion and Compassion. In this publication, Térèsa Souga from Cameroun, writing on ‘The Christ event’, introduces her reflections with what she titles, ‘My Act of Faith’. She has as her opening sentence, ‘Jesus Christ means everything to me . . . Christ is the true Human, the one who makes it possible for all persons to reach fulfilment and to overcome the historic alienation weighing them down.’30 Similarly, Afua Kuma would recite the traditional praise of enablers saying: Jesus is the big tree that makes it possible for the climbing plant to reach the sun. Souga’s theology is deeply informed by Philippians 29-11, an affirmation of faith that enables her to link the suffering and resurrection of Jesus with women.31This, she says, is the source and motivation of African women’s spirituality. She writes: ‘The realism of the cross every day tells me, as a woman of the Third World, that the laws of history can be overcome by means of crucified love.’32 Jesus bears a message ofliberation for every human being and especially for those social categories that are most disadvantaged.
Jesus ‘delivers women from every infirmity and suffering’.33 Souga has in view Africa’s threefold captivity – cultural, spiritual, socioeconomic – when she writes, ‘there can be no understanding of Jesus Christ outside of the situation in which we seek to understand ourselves’.34 ‘It is by way of these situations that Jesus bears on his person the condition of the weak, and hence that of women’ (Luke 26-7, 22-4; John 2:46).’35 In the light of Christ, if Jesus is the God who has become weakness in our context, in his identity as God–Man, Jesus takes on the condition of the African woman. Souga surmises that the correlation between women’s experience and liberation in Jesus Christ ‘leads us to discover that Jesus reveals God in the various kinds of bonds connecting him to women throughout the Gospels’. Paul emphasises the realism of the incarnation with a legacy of faith saying, ‘when the times were fulfilled, the son of God was born of a woman’.36Afua Kuma would have said Jesus is the royal one who chooses to live as the common poor so that the common poor might appropriate the dignity of being human:
Looking at Africa, I wondered how I could write on a subject that
suggests or points towards hope and renewed life in a continent that
for decades has witnessed unending violence, suffering and death.
A critical reflection on the resurrected Christ, the one Paul knew and
wrote about in the epistles, however, reminded me of the crucified
and suffering Christ who faced violence and death. The awareness
gave me the courage to write about the labour pains experienced by all
creation in Africa as a Christian woman.37
The image of Jesus as the suffering servant is very prominent in the writings of African women theologians. Most, like Edet and Njoroge, describe Jesus as identifying with the suffering of humanity, especially that of women. In this vein, Edet describes Jesus as ‘the revelation of God’s self-giving suffering and enduring love to humanity’.38
This suffering love moves into healing the hurts of humanity and so Christ the healer is very popular with church women. Ada Nyaga brings out the results of this love among human beings when she writes:
Similarly, Jesus calls us to revise our ways of thinking and asks us to reconsider what it means to be a woman in our new understanding. Just as Jesus forced the ruler of a synagogue to reconsider what it means to work on the Sabbath, when he showed his compassion for a crippled woman by healing her (Luke 13:10-17), there is an obvious need today to awaken women and free them from socio-cultural and theological restrictions based on a false understanding of the Bible.39
Suffering love operating in the incarnation wipes off the dirt that hides the glory of our true humanity, that which we believe is of the imago dei. Healing here includes liberating women from all evil and life-denying forces, enabling the fullness of all we know of perfect womanhood to be revealed. Jesus is the friend who enables women to overcome the difficulties of life and restore to them the dignity of being in the image of God, having annulled the stigma ofblood taboos used as a separation of women’s humanity. Akon E. Udo affirms that Jesus Christ has broken the barriers of distinction between men and women and used his precious blood to seal the broken relationships and to make men and women one in himself.40 Amoah and Oduyoye state in Passion and Compassion that:
the Christ for us is the Jesus of Nazareth who agreed to be God’s ‘Sacrificial Lamb’, thus teaching that true and living sacrifice is that which is freely and consciously made; and who pointed to the example ofthe widow who gave all she had in response to God’s love. Christ is the Jesus of Nazareth who approved of the costly sacrifice of the woman with the expensive oil, who anointed him (king, prophet, priest) in preparation for his burial, thereby also approving all that is noble, lovely, loving and motivated by love and gratitude.41
Louise Tappa of Cameroon in Passion and Compassion, states that ‘[t]he task of Christology is to work out the full meaning of the reality of the Christ-event for humankind’. The doctrinal Christology, which reduces the Christ to a positive but sublime abstraction, can be and is ignored ‘when the time comes to translate it into the life of our communities’. She continues: ‘[t]hat is why even to the present it has been possible to interpret the doctrines of the incarnation (liberation) and of expiation (reconciliation) in terms that leave intact the social structures and models of our communities, including the church’.42 Like Afua Kuma, Tappa proposes another procedure, which she says is much simpler, but no less Christological. It is to put more emphasis on the praxis of Jesus himself, even though she occasionally refers also to Jesus’ teaching.
30. Térèsa Souga, ‘The Christ Event from the Viewpoint of African Women: A Catholic Perspective’, in Fabella and Oduyoye (eds.), With Passion and Compassion,p.22.
31. Ibid., pp. 28–9.
32. Ibid., p. 22.
33. Ibid., p. 24.
34. Ibid., p. 26.
35. Ibid., p. 28.
36. Ibid.
37. Nyambura Njoroge, ‘Groaning and Languishing in Labour Pains’, in Kanyoro and Njoroge (eds.), Groaning in Faith,p.4.
38. Edet, ‘Christ’, p. 185.
39. Ada Nyaga, ‘Women’s Dignity and Worth in God’s Kingdom’, in Kanyoro and Njoroge (eds.), Groaning in Faith,p.81.
40. Akon E. Udo, ‘Emerging Spiritualities ofWomen in Nigeria’, in Edet and Umeagudosu (eds.), Life, Women and Culture, p. 105.
41. Oduyoye and Amoah, ‘The Christ for African Women’, in Fabella and Oduyoye (eds.), With Passion and Compassion, p. 44. The sacrifice involved in the widow’s mite, however, does raise a question. Is Jesus only approving her action or also illustrating how religious obligations can rob the poor ofeven the little they have for sustaining their lives?
42. Louise Tappa, ‘The Christ-Event: A Protestant Perspective’, in Fabella and Oduyoye (eds.), With Passion and Compassion,p.31.
SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS I
These works and words of Jesus culled from the reflections of African women on Jesus, constitute the Christologies that they are developing and which embolden them to work and to speak for Jesus towards the liberation of the world in fulfilment of the missio dei. ‘The Christ of history is the one who defined his mission as a mission of liberation’ (Luke 4:18-19). The Christ of dogma therefore plays only a marginal role in the women’s affirmations about Jesus, who defined liberation by his quotation from Isaiah 61, and whose actions revealed that ‘[t]he truly spiritual is that which embraces all the material and physical life of the human being and our communities’ (Mark 5:21-34).43
In the same publication, Amoah and Oduyoye, writing on ‘The Christ for African Women’, point out that Jesus, the Messiah, is God-sent and the anointed of God. The messianic imagery is very powerful in Ghana and is reflected in Afua Kuma’s praises that make references to what priests are teaching when they speak of deliverance. The influence ofmale theologians is evident in how large the cross looms in the theology of women like Afua Kuma. The cross, she says, ‘has become the fishing net of Jesus. It is also the bridge from which Christians can jump into the pool of saving blood that leads to everlasting life.’44 The emphasis of women, however, is not that we emulate the suffering, but that it becomes the source of our liberation. We do not only admire Jesus, but we are caught in the net of liberation which we believe will bring us into fullness of life:
The Christ whom African women worship, honour and depend on is
the victorious Christ, knowing that evil is a reality. Death and
life-denying forces are the experience of women, and so Christ, who
countered these forces and who gave back her child to the widow of
Nain, is the African woman’s Christ.45
Ghana must have great hunger in its history, as is evidenced in folk tales and legend. The more recent 1983 drought revives this reality, and so a Saviour is certainly the one who can keep us whole, integrating body and soul and enabling us to enhance the quality ofour lives. Jesus of Nazareth was all of this; his earthly life and today his name and spirit keep the liberative ministry alive. With Jesus we do not need guns and bullets to make the enemy disappear, since, as Afua Kuma encourages us, we only need to ‘tell Jesus’. ‘I’m going to tell Jesus about it, today my husband is a lawyer. How eloquent he is!’46
Deliverance from death into life is often discussed by African women in the context of aspects of cultural practice that they experience as negative in their quest for fullness of life:
This Christ is the liberator from the burden of disease and the ostracism of a society riddled with blood-taboos and theories of inauspiciousness arising out of women’s blood. Christ liberated women by being born of Mary, demanding that the woman bent double with gynecological disorders should stand up straight. The practice of making women become silent ‘beasts’ of societies’ burdens, bent double under racism, poverty, and lack of appreciation of what fullness of womanhood should be, has been annulled and countered by Christ. Christ transcends and transforms culture and has liberated us to do the same.47
African women’s experiences lead them into Christological language that does not come to African men. Hence Tappa can say: ‘I am convinced that Jesus died so that the patriarchal God might die and that Jesus rose so that the true God revealed in Jesus might rise in our lives, and in our ommunities.’48
Souga and others have reiterated that it is by self-emptying that we become filled with the spirit of Jesus. What African women reject is the combination of cross and sacrifice laid on them by people who have no intention of walking those paths themselves. They would argue that the calls to take up the cross and that to self-emptying are directed to all who would be called Christians; it is not sensitive to gender, race, or class. Amoah and Oduyoye, commenting on Kuma, highlight the same point.49
The vividness of this drama of jumping from bridges into pools of blood, even when blood has been the main source of their marginalisation, signifies the intensity of African women’s spirituality of relating their lives to what the life of Jesus means to them. For them, Christology is not words or reasoning about Jesus, but an actuality in their lives. This is a life of faith, not of theological debates. It is a spirituality to overcome evil and oppression and to lift up constant thanks to God.
It is difficult to say whether the language of intimate relationships with Jesus, as used by African women, is to be read as eroticism or mysticism.
What is clear, however, is that their spirituality is the result of this type of Christology. They find an affirmation of their personhood and worth in the person of Jesus, born of a woman without the participation of a man. The significance for them is that ‘womanness’ contains the fullness of ‘humanness’. By this they counter earlier assertions that a woman by herself is not fully human. This eroticism–mysticism enables them to understand suffering as related to crucified love with an anticipation of transformation and shalom.
Hinga has suggested that it is the lack ofmale companionship that drives women into the near-erotic language of Jesus as husband. Afua Kuma relies on Jesus, her husband, who is a lawyer who liberates her from the hands of oppressive legal procedures with his eloquence. The only time Jesus appeared in the diary of Dutch-Afrikaans woman, Alie Badenhorst (1866– 1908), was when even God ‘The Strong One, the Powerful Father in heaven’ had seemed impotent to deliver her. When she thought her last hour had come, ‘[s]he left a message for her husband with her son, that she was going to Jesus and that she would wait for him there’.50 Thus for her – as for many African women, products of the same European missionary theology – Jesus is the last sure haven. While life lasts, however, African women theologians would suggest that Christology should be about reclaiming and reasserting the role of Jesus Christ as Liberator and a saviour of women from all the oppressive contexts discussed, and empowerer ofwomen in their contexts ofpowerlessness, and as their friend and ally in contexts of alienation and pain that women may be confronted with’.51
The Christology is reflected in the spirituality. African women produce very intimate, almost erotic language, about Jesus, a genre more a kin to mysticism than theology. They sing lustily about ‘Darling Jesus’; they sing:
I am married to Jesus,
Satan leave me alone.
My husband is coming
To take me away
Into everlasting love.52
Afua Kuma is not afraid of court cases, for her ‘husband’ Jesus is a most eloquent lawyer. Christina Landman, who has documented The Piety of South African Women from diaries, has several examples of this language from both African and Afrikaner women of South Africa under the influence of European Calvinism. In the context of racial persecution (black women) and suburban boredom’ for white women, pious women escaped ‘into the arms of Jesus’, who suffered for them and continues to suffer with them. Landman comments: ‘where there is suffering, a woman is in control’,53 and oh, how Africa suffers. It is African women’s experience that, where there is suffering, the powers that be, usually men, would allow women to take control. Women derive power from caring and being caregivers, a role which puts them on the side of the Christ. The hallowing of suffering however is rejected in the theology of several African women who see this as a source of patriarchal domestication. The cross and suffering of Jesus are not to be perpetuated but rather decried and prevented.
43. Ibid., pp. 31–2.
44. As quoted by Oduyoye and Amoah in ‘The Christ for African Women’, p. 43.
45. Oduyoye and Amoah, ibid.
46. Kuma, Jesus,p.42.
47. Oduyoye and Amoah, ‘The Christ for African Women’, p. 43.
48. Tappa, ‘The Christ-Event’, p. 34.
49. Oduyoye and Amoah, ‘The Christ for African Women’, p. 44.
50. Landman, Piety,p.63.
51. Oduyoye and Kanyoro, Talitha Qumi!, p. 206.
52. Conversations on Christology with Pastor Pamela Martin, Baptist from Cameroon, November 1999.
53. Landman, Piety,p.29.
SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS II
The victorious Christ of Afua Kuma is clearly the Jesus of the writing theologians. Jesus turns death into life and overcomes the life-denying forces that dog our way. He conquers death and restores life to all who believe in him. Having triumphed over death, he has become our liberator by countering women-denying culture. After all – is his own humanity not that of a woman?54
My reading of African women’s theology is that they have had no problem of particularising the ‘Christ of God’ in the man of Nazareth. They know of saviours in their own histories; some are men, others are women. Their stance is that the maleness of Jesus is unjustly capitalised on by those who want to exclude women, but that does not detract from the fact that in Jesus’ own practice, inclusion is the norm. What Edet says about the humanity of Jesus was that it is the humanity of woman, and African women should and do claim Jesus as their liberator. They claim the soundly constructed so-called feminine traits they find in Jesus – his care and compassion for the weak and excluded. The anti-hunger ministry, healing, and the place of children in his words and works – all go together to create a bonding around women’s lives that African women feel with Jesus. He is one of us, knows our world, and can therefore accompany us in our daily joys and struggles.
What alienates some African women is the interpretation of revelation that suggests that before Jesus Africans had not encountered God and that without Jesus all are doomed. The Christian exclusiveness is in large measure not biblical and is therefore not allowed to become an obstacle in the multireligious communities of Africa. African women theologians have often reinterpreted the exclusiveness of John as a directive to walk in the path of Jesus. Elizabeth Amoah would say, ‘Jesus is the only way’ is a call to the recognition that to make salvation a reality for all, we all should walk55 in the way of Jesus and live the truth of the implication of a kenotic life.
There has been no need to insist on the Christ as the wisdom of God. The biblical references to Sophia as eternally with God, has not played a significant role in this theology. What is clear is that the Wisdom language would be associated with fairness in dealings among humans and fidelity to the will of God that Jesus exemplified. Thus Christology is reflected in the spirituality.
African Christian women attribute the positive outcome of their endeavours to God or Jesus and to the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit. They learn from biblical narrators and from stories of liberation that others have attributed to their faith in Jesus. They cling to their own faith in the liberating powers of Jesus and expect them to work in their own lives. Living under conditions of such hardship, African women and men have learnt to identify the good, attribute it to God in Christ, and live a life of prayer in the anticipation that the liberative potential of the person of Jesus will become a reality in their lives.
The victory of Jesus is not over other nations and cultures. It is over death and life-denying forces. The Jesus ‘who countered these forces and gave back her child to the widow of Nain, is the African woman’s Christ’. Jesus of Nazareth, by the counter-cultural relations he established with women, has become for us the Christ, the anointed one who liberates, the companion, friend, teacher, and true ‘Child of Woman’. ‘Child of Woman’ truly, because in Christ the fullness of all that we know of perfect womanhood is revealed. The Christ for us is the Jesus of Nazareth who agreed to be God’s sacrificial lamb, thus teaching that true and living sacrifice is that which is freely and consciously made. Jesus of Nazareth, designated ‘the Christ’, is the one who has broken down the barriers we have erected between God and us as well as among us. The Christ is the Reconciler calling us back to our true selves, to one another and to God, thereby saving us from isolation and alienation which is the lack ofcommunity that is the real experience of death.56
‘The Christ of the women of Africa upholds not only motherhood, but all who like Jesus of Nazareth perform "mothering roles" ofbringing out the best in all around them.’ The present profit-centred economies of our world deny responsibly to bring life to the dying and to empower those challenged by the multitude of impairments that many have to live with. Justine Kahungu Mbwiti, in a study of Jesus and a Samaritan woman (John 41−42), draws out several ofthe images of Jesus that empower African women. As rural women, they see the scandal ofthe incarnation, the appearance of God in the hinterlands ofthe Roman Empire as God coming to their rural and slum situations. They relate to Jesus who deliberately shakes what was customary as a sign ofrenewal that opens for them the space to put critical questions to what was traditional. They referred to the scandalous action in the temple (John 213−16), and the many violations of the Sabbath (John 51−18), as affirmation that life is to be lived consciously and conscientiously. Jesus becomes therefore not just the one by whom God saves; He is Himself the Saviour.57
We may conclude with another survey treatment of Christology in African women’s theology, in Mabel Morny’s contribution to Talitha Qumi!, ‘Christ Restores to Life’. She states: ‘When I think of liberation, a vision comes into my mind. A vision of a fuller and less injured life in a world where people can say "I" with happiness; a vision is a means ofrestoring life.’58 Morny tries to develop an understanding of Christ as the liberator of all people; she writes as an African woman within the context of situations in Africa – cultural, social, religious, economic, and political. She writes in a context where women resort to Jesus as the liberator from bondage, all that makes them less than what God intended them to be. Christology becomes a study of the Jesus who responds to African women’s experiences offear, uncertainty, sickness, illiteracy, hunger, aggression by spouse, and distortion ofthe image oftheir humanity.
African women theologians think in inclusive terms, hence the emphasis on Jesus for all and particular contexts, peoples, and all situations. At the same time, they wish to maintain the relations the individual could establish with the Christ, as each is unique, and each a child of God. My reading of African women’s Christology, as it appears in the writings of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, may therefore be summed up in the words of the workshop on ‘Jesus Christ and the liberation of women’: Jesus Christ is liberator and a saviour of women from all the oppressive contexts discussed and empowerer of women in their contexts of powerlessness, and their friend and ally in the context of alienation and pain that women may be confronted with.59
54. Edet, ‘Christ’, p. 187.
55. Conversations on Christology with Dr Elizabeth Amoah, June 1999.
56. Landman, Piety,p.34.
57. J. K. Mbwiti, ‘Jesus and the Samaritan Woman’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), Talitha Qumi!, pp. 63–76. At the time ofwriting, the name ofthe country was Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, a nation still crying for shalom.
58. Mabel S. Morny, ‘Christ Restores to Life’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), Talitha Qumi!, pp. 145–9.
59. Workshop on ‘Jesus Christ and the Liberation ofthe African Woman’, in Oduyoye and Kanyoro (eds.), Talitha Qumi!, p. 206.
Selected reading
Brock, Rita Nakashima. Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, New York: Crossroad, 1988.
Carr, Anne. Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988.
Fabella, Virginia and Oduyoye, Mercy Amba (eds.). With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1988.
Grant, Jacquelyn. White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989.
Grey, Mary. Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition, London: SPCK, 1989.
Johnson, Elizabeth. Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology, London: SCM Press, 1994.
Stevens, M. (ed.). Reconstructing the Christ Symbol: Essays in Feminist Christology, New York: Paulist Press, 1993.
Tamez, Elsa. Through Her Eyes: Women’s Theology from Latin America, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1989.
Wilson-Kastner, Patricia. Faith, Feminism and the Christ, Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983.
RU that mentally retarted :lol: that u still don't understand that muslims do believe in ....Jesus too ???
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Ja, en ze hadden Mohammed ook al bijna te pakken genomen. Gelukkig was de profeet ze voor.
Zalig kerstfeest, Sallah!
:cola:
Nee joh, hij is ironical, sarcastic speaking in metaphors, using shock therapy to open the eyes of you 1dimensional, materialistic, darwinist eurocentric etc etc etc etc.
:lol:
:zwaai:
Ik vind het wel spannend. Misschien moet Dan Brown d'er is een boek over schrijven. :zozo:
:lol:
:zwaai:
De Jezus die jij hebt gecastreerd tot iemand naar wat jij vindt dat hij moet zijn ondanks dat zijn volgelingen een andere overtuiging over hem hebben?
Liever gekruisigd dan gecastreerd?
Je bent een huichelaar.
Wie niet?
Liever gekruisigd dan gecastreerd?
Wie niet?
:lol:
:fpetaf:
"....see this conversation between a rabbi & a priest :
The christian :
_ Jesus will come back on Earth ...
The jew:
_well, u can say whatever u please ,we don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah , but i can assure u , we will not make the same mistake ....twice ! :lol:
referring to the failed attempt to ...crucify Jesus under the Romans !
Sallahddin
27-12-09, 17:59
:lol:
:fpetaf:
"....see this conversation between a rabbi & a priest :
The christian :
_ Jesus will come back on Earth ...
The jew:
_well, u can say whatever u please ,we don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah , but i can assure u , we will not make the same mistake ....twice ! :lol:
referring to the failed attempt to ...crucify Jesus under the Romans !
:lol:
:zwaai:
Sallahddin
31-12-09, 20:26
God ............