This article interrogates the challenge artificial general intelligence (AGI) poses to religion and human societies, in general. More specifically, it seeks to respond to “Singularity”—when machines reach a level of intelligence that would put into question the privileged position humanity enjoys as imago Dei . Employing the Bemba notion of mystico‐relationality in dialogue with the concepts of the “created co‐creator” and Christ the Key, it argues for the possibility of AI participating in imago Dei . The findings show that imaging (...) is a fluid, participatory activity that aims at likeness, but also social harmony. It also argues that God is the only original creator, humans are created creators, and that every aspect of visible existence, including AI, is inherently divine imaging. However, strong imaging is only attainable based on the only One and True Image—Christ, whose union of the material and the divine means that all creation can image, excluding nothing, even AI. (shrink)

In this article, I demonstrate how Capital Christian Ministries International has been conceptualised as ecclesiastical spaces for de-gendering. I have utilised symbolic imagination within the Ndembu cultural liminality as theoretical framework in theological studies. I have argued that the initiates in the liminal spaces subverted social normative through the process of un-gendering. The article concludes by arguing that reclaim and reconstitute ecclesia spaces as liminal spaces have potential to promote gender emancipation within African Christianity.

This article contends that technology has evolved into a fundamental theo‐philosophical category. Acknowledging the intricacy of technology, it advocates for an exploration of indigenous philosophies to cultivate 'response‐ability' wisdom. The concept of environmEntity is introduced as an alternative to the traditional understanding of the environment, representing a vibrant and living world. Rooted in ubuntu sensibilities, environmEntity becomes a multi‐nature locus that fosters empathy and recognises inclusive differences as expressions of the same ultimate life. By integrating the wisdom from Christ's dual (...) natures and ubuntu's relationality, the article proposes a comprehensive and empathic life wisdom to address contemporary challenges and promote a sustainable and interconnected future. (shrink)

This article explores the nexus of themes of sexual desire, gender and prayer in the Bemba mythology of creation. Approached from Sarah Coakley’s theology of participation in the divine desire, the article utilizes email technique to collect data from African scholars both women and men with an intention to find out their perspectives on the nexus of the entangled themes above as embodied within the widespread Bemba mythology. The second objective was to understand the ways in which these three themes (...) are intersected in the mythology and demonstrate how the contemporary African Christian search for gender and sexual desire justice might be linked to a gendered prayer. The findings show that gendered prayer could be a place of sexual desire and gender healing and justice for women. (shrink)

This article uses decolonial to critique the discourse of ‘subaltern whiteness’ by questioning some Afrikaner scholars’ morality of regarding ‘white Afrikaners as subaltern’. Subaltern designates submerged, subordinated, exploited or suppressed – those whose voices have been historically muted, their humanity stripped by those with sociopolitical and economic power. Within South Africa, this raises the question: to what extent can white Afrikaners be regarded as subaltern? The article proposes indivisibility of epistemic vulnerability and regenerative theological praxis both emerging within Afrikaner theological (...) discussion as viable response to broken bodies of those who still bear the marks or scars of apartheid and rather not to seek to hijack their voice. (shrink)

This article engages with the question of land in South Africa based on the jubilee notion, from a decolonial theological perspective. It shifts the focus from debating the merits of ‘expropriation of land without compensation’ towards assessing the relations of power that determine and legitimate what constitutes the human relationship to the land. It argues that disruption in eco-relationality wrought by colonial-apartheid is a foundational factor of the land struggles in post-apartheid South Africa. In order to promote land justice, there (...) is a need to liberate the land from apartheid through reclaiming African and Christian notions of land as belonging to God. (shrink)

This article argues that libation, often associated with the ancestors, artefacts, images and pre-Christian religious devotions, constitutes sources for articulating authentic African cultural history of Obang community in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. It highlights that among traditional memory carriers, the ritual of libation remains trust worthy and pervasive, even among communities challenged by globalisation and colonising effects of Christianity. The article demonstrates the immense potentials of libation as an epitome and stabiliser of cultural memory, and a maxim in cultural (...) resilience in contemporary Africa. Thus, the article calls for revisiting this ancient ritual to expose its potentials as a veritable memory repertoire in cultural-historical studies, especially at a time when social change and modernism continue to challenge the memories of traditional societies. (shrink)

This article engages through an interdisciplinary approach to re-envision Tangintebu Theological College’s (TTC) model of theological education in the context of climate change in Kiribati. It utilises the anthropological theory of symbolic interactionism within missiological, cultural and, theological studies of climate change. It argues for the coconut tree as an appropriate cultural conceptual metaphorical idiom for translating and understanding Christian faith and shaping a theological pedagogy within the Kiribati context of climate change. The coconut image is an indigenous, holistic way (...) of knowing and learning informed by Kiribati cosmology embedded within people’s experiences and understanding of the coconut tree. Its life-centeredness has the potential to contextualise the theological curriculum and teaching methodology to assist in equipping theological students with climate change-sensitive approaches. The qualitative method was utilised to allow participants to reflect on their experiences of climate change in relation to the mission of the church. The data that informs this article was generated through unstructured interviews and focus group discussions with members of the Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC). The data was analysed using symbolic interactionism. The results suggest that the Kiribati people symbolically interact with God through their understanding of the coconut tree, which is conceived as the embodiment of God’s presence. It became clear that while this world view informs the faith of members of the KUC, the TTC curriculum has sidelined it, resulting in miseducation of pastors because this omission means they are not equipped to engage with the challenge of climate change. The participants argued that there is an urgent need to understand theological education and ministerial formation within the indigenous framework of Kiribati coconut imagination that is embedded in the promotion of justice and equitable society not only for human beings but for all of God’s creation through symbolic interaction with the presence of God in the coconut. (shrink)

In this article the author argues that indigenous Bemba women of Zambia used their culture of symbolic communication for marital sex agency. African women are often portrayed as not having agency and negotiating power when it comes to sex whether in marital or casual relationships. However, through imbusa teachings, Bemba women of Zambia had the negotiating power and agency over their sexual desires using indigenous beads as a marital communication tool before Christianity, interaction with various cultures, and colonial activity infiltrated (...) the institution of imbusa. Missionaries were consistently and insistently invading the space of imbusa claiming the need to be made aware of what was being taught. Missionaries claimed that they wanted to prepare a manual for new arriving priests so that they would include Christianity to the teachings in order to teach the Bemba women Christian ways of marriage. As a result, much of the indigenous imbusa teaching was portrayed as demonic and Bemba women needed to disregard them in order to be Christian married women. Using symbolic interactionism, this article will demonstrate the teachings of imbusa that gave Bemba women agency to express and negotiate their sexual desires in marriage. Bemba women had a ritual of hanging beads on the wall or placing them on the bed at certain times in their marriage. For instance, when they were menstruating, they hung red beads which was to communicate that they were not available for sexual relations.Contribution: This article contributes to the African indigenous cultural understandings and positions held by indigenous women prior to their interactions with diverse cultures and religious views. Contemporary indigenous women can leverage some positive feminist approaches from within the culture. (shrink)

This article is autoethnographic, based upon the authors’ experiences and reflections upon encountered moments of ethical tension whilst conducting research in rural Malawi. Given that knowledge production, as a process, has been marred by colonial forms of power, the project was underpinned by efforts to achieve a decolonial approach to the research, including the research ethics. The authors share of their endeavours to counterbalance the challenges of power asymmetries whilst researching and working with an Indigenous community whose reality can be (...) marginalised by the Western canon. The authors attempted to ensure that the values and customs of the researched community were respected and central to the research approach. When researchers are guided by local culture and customs, the participants are able to drive the research approach, incorporate their voice and share knowledge that is true to their context and reality. In this way, the research study is illustrative of how an ethics of care can help to facilitate decolonial research practice. (shrink)

Soon after taking power, three leaders of nonviolent African independence movements, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia immediately turned to violent means to suppress internal opposition. The paper examines the reasons for the success of their Gandhian nonviolent tactics in ousting British colonial governments and argues that these new heads of state lost confidence in nonviolence due to a mixture of self-serving expediency, a lack of understanding of nonviolence's many different forms, and (...) the constraints of inheriting a state already dependent on the use of force. (shrink)

This article explores the contribution of indigenous African women to the growth of Christianity in North Eastern Zambia. Using a socio-historical method, the article shows that the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in North Eastern Zambia evangelized mainly through literacy training and preaching. The active involvement of indigenous ministers and teacher-evangelists was indispensable in this process. The article argues that omission of the contribution of indigenous African women who were teacher-evangelists in the standard literature relating to the work of the (...) Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in North Eastern Zambia exposes a patriarchal bias in mission historiography. In an effort to redress this omission, the article explores and evaluates the contribution and experience of an indigenous African woman, Helen Nyirenda Kaunda. Based on relevant research the article concludes that indigenous African women were among the pioneers of mission work in North Eastern Zambia. (shrink)

This paper argues that the grammarians Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita and Kauṇḍa Bhaṭṭa did innovate in the realm of grammatical philosophy, without however admitting or perhaps even knowing it. Their most important innovation is the reinterpretation of the sphoṭa. For reasons linked to new developments in sentence interpretation (śābdabodha), in their hands the sphoṭa became a semantic rather that an ontological entity.

There is one thing about some of the first crop of post independence rulers of Africa that I admire greatly. It is their keen sense of the practical importance of philosophy. Preeminent among them were leaders like Nkrumah, Senghor, Nyerere, Awolowo, Kaunda, and Sekou Toure. Amidst the awesome exigencies of postcolonial reconstruction they still devoted considerable attention to the philosophical bases of their programs. It can be debated whether the limits of the appreciation of the relevance of theory to (...) practice were not touched in Nkrumah's Consciencism in which proof of the consistency of his “revolutionary” propositions was offered by means of mathematical logic, but there can be no doubt of the sincerity of the underlying passion. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 2008: pp. 332-339. (shrink)

Ubuntu as a living spirit of liberation -- Ubuntu for warriors : introduction -- Ubuntu for King Shaka and warriors -- Ubuntu for Nelson Mandela and war -- Ubuntu for Archbishop Tutu and Just War -- Ubuntu for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and honour -- Ubuntu for Kenneth Kaunda, pacifism and war -- Ubuntu for Steve Biko and the envisioned warrior.