Human Dignity in an African Context

Human Dignity in an African Context PDF

Author: Motsamai Molefe

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-11-07

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 3031373413

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This book is a contribution to African philosophy, by philosophers focusing specifically on the concept of human dignity in ethical theory. The concept of ‘human dignity’ denotes the intrinsic and superlative worth associated with human beings in virtue of which we owe them utmost moral regard. Although dignity is a foundational concept for African philosophy, there remains scant literature in African philosophy dedicated to critical and systematic reflection on the concept of human dignity. This volume responds to this lacuna by bringing together chapters that offer philosophical exposition, defense (or even rejection) and application of the concept of human dignity in light of intellectual resources in African cultures, such as ubuntu, personhood, and serithi.

Re-Imaging Modernity

Re-Imaging Modernity PDF

Author: Gregg A. Okesson

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2012-10-03

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1610977416

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This is a book about Christianity in one particular region in Kenya. It walks into churches, listens to sermons, dances to music, and interviews the people sitting in the pews, all with the aim of understanding how spiritual power enables these churches to function as agents within their contemporary society. Ecclesiastical communities in Africa draw upon divine power in order to engage in modernity-related topics. Humans are not unresponsive to global flows of meaning; they are integrative agents who fashion their world by living in it. The kind of modernity arising from these churches does not blindly follow Western forms, but flows from its own internal logic in which spiritual power occupies central hermeneutical function. Theological resources contribute to the formation of sociological expressions. Divine power pertains directly to human constructs, which then allows the churches to actively "image" God for the development of unique forms of modernity arising on the continent.

That all may live!

That all may live! PDF

Author: Chitando, Ezra

Publisher: University of Bamberg Press

Published: 2021-10-13

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 3863098110

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This volume of BiAS/ ERA is a Festschrift honouring Nyambura J. Njoroge. She is an outstanding woman theologian whose work straddles diverse fields and disciplines. Inspired by her rich and impressive œuvre, in this volume friends and colleagues of her (among them celebrities like Musa Dube, Gerald West, Fulata Moyo, Ezra Chitando, and others) explore how religion and theology in diverse contexts can become more life giving. Contributors from many countries and different continents explore themes such as African women's leadership, theological education, HIV/ AIDS, lament, the Bible and liberation, adolescents and young women, sexual diversity and others. Collectively, the volume expresses Nyambura's consistent commitment to the full liberation of all human beings, in fulfilment of the gospel's promise that all may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10)

The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference

The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference PDF

Author: Jill L. Snodgrass

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2024-03-19

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1506499449

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The United States is witnessing a rise in the religiously unaffiliated. Participation in traditional religious settings is in decline. But everyone inhabits a location relative to religion, whether or not they practice or identify with a religious tradition. People engage in religious encounters and relationships in myriad ways, and their religious location is one part of their intersecting identities. This shifting religious landscape challenges spiritual caregivers to provide competent care and counsel that honors how persons' religious locations intersect. Jill Snodgrass argues that without a theoretical understanding of religious location, chaplains, counselors, and other spiritual caregivers are left without sufficient tools to navigate this relational terrain. In The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference, she gathers practices and insights from experienced spiritual caregivers and scholars to explore the concept of religious location--a term initially coined by pastoral theologian Kathleen Greider--as an aspect of an individual's intersecting identity. Snodgrass presents a compilation of essays that help spiritual caregivers think reflexively about their own religious locations and how these locations influence relational dynamics with care seekers within a diversity of cultural contexts. This vigorous compilation advances the fields of pastoral and practical theology as well as spiritual care and counseling by developing a robust, interreligious theory of religious difference grounded in insights from Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam. As such, The Art of Spiritual Care across Religious Difference presents a well-timed resource for the training of religiously competent caregivers to serve in hospitals, prisons, places of worship, community mental health centers, offices of campus ministry, and more. Scholars and practitioners will quickly discover that this book will serve as an enduring resource to meet the training needs for spiritual caregivers in ways that will help them to build enduring competencies.

An Ecological Christian Anthropology

An Ecological Christian Anthropology PDF

Author: Ernst M. Conradie

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1351958992

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What is the place and vocation of human beings in the earth community? This is the central question that this contribution towards a Christian ecological anthropology addresses. In ecological theology this question is often answered by the affirmation that 'We are at home on earth'. This affirmation rightly responds to the widespread sense of alienation from nature, to the anthropocentrism that pervades much of the Christian tradition and to concerns about the scope of environmental devastation. This book challenges the affirmation that we are at home on earth, examining natural suffering, anxieties concerning human finitude and especially the pervasiveness of evil. The book investigates contributions to ecological theology, South African and African theology, reformed theology and contemporary dialogues between theology and the sciences in search of a thoroughly ecological Christian anthropology.

Practicing Ubuntu

Practicing Ubuntu PDF

Author: Jaco Dreyer

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 3643908482

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Ubuntu is a dynamic and celebrated concept in Africa. In the great Sutu-nguni family of Southern Africa, being humane is regarded as the supreme virtue. The essence of this philosophy of life, called ubuntu or botho, is human relatedness and dignity. The Shona from Zimbabwe articulate it as: I am because we are; I exist because the community exists. This volume offers twenty-two such reflections on practicing ubuntu as it relates to justice, personhood, and human dignity, both in Southern Africa, as well as in a wider international context. It highlights the potential of ubuntu for enriching our understanding of justice, personhood, and human dignity in a globalizing world. (Series: International Practical Theology, Vol. 20) [Subject: African Studies, Religious Studies]

The Nation That Fears God Prospers

The Nation That Fears God Prospers PDF

Author: Chammah J. Kaunda

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1506447074

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Through its strength in numbers and remarkable presence in politics, Pentecostalism has become a force to reckon with in twenty-first-century Zambian society. Yet, some fundamental questions in the study of Zambian Pentecostalism and politics remain largely unaddressed by African scholars. Situated within an interdisciplinary perspective, this unique volume explores the challenge of continuity in the Zambian Pentecostal understanding and practice of spiritual power in relation to political engagement. Chammah J. Kaunda argues that the challenge of Pentecostal political imagination is found in the inculturation of spiritual power with political praxis. The result of this inculturation is that Zambian Pentecostals sacralize the political authority of state power through the charisma of the national president and other major political personalities. It has also contributed to the construction of Zambian Pentecostal leadership that is deified rather than leadership that is formed through the struggles and experiences of the marginalized and powerless. Kaunda argues that the solution does not lie either in desacralization of powers or the separation between the church and the state, but rather in rethinking the Christ event as a paradigm for the recovery of Pentecostalism's sociopolitical prophetic dynamism.

Corporate Governance in Less Developed and Emerging Economies

Corporate Governance in Less Developed and Emerging Economies PDF

Author: Matthew Tsamenyi

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2008-12-01

Total Pages: 565

ISBN-13: 1848552521

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Corporate governance reform has become an important global policy agenda driven by events such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis, corporate scandals (such as Enron and WorldCom) and the globalisation of capital markets. This book advances debate on corporate governance, accountability and transparency in less developed and emerging economies.

A Discourse on African Philosophy

A Discourse on African Philosophy PDF

Author: Christian B. N. Gade

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-04-18

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1498512267

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Many have argued that ubuntu was a formative influence on the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), South Africa’s famous transitional justice mechanism. A Discourse on African Philosophy: A New Perspective on Ubuntu and Transitional Justice in South Africa challenges and contextualizes this view in a way that not only provides new findings and reflections on ubuntu and the TRC, but also contributes to the field of African philosophy. One of Christian B. N. Gade’s key findings, founded on qualitative interviews in South Africa, is that some former TRC commissioners and committee members question the importance of ubuntu in the TRC process. Another is that there are several differing and historically developing interpretations of ubuntu, some of which have evident political implications and reflect non-factual and creative uses of history. Thus ubuntu is not a shared cultural heritage, in the ethnophilosophical sense of a static property characterizing a group. In fact, throughout this book Gade argues that the ethnophilosophical approach to African philosophy as a static group property is highly problematic. Gade’s research presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy (“collective” in the sense that it does not focus on any single individual in particular) that takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously. This book will be of interest to scholars in African philosophy, transitional justice, politics and cultural heritage, and law in South Africa.