Between Two Stools (PDF)

Author: Bishop S. Dwane

Format: eBook (PDF)

Preface
Since my childhood days, I have been fascinated by the ambivalence of our people towards the church and their own Afrikan culture. On the one hand the church which had become their new spiritual home was to them rather like a step-mother who provided for her step-children’s needs, but lacked the natural warmth and affection of a biological mother. Culture on the other hand was associated by ‘school people’ with backwardness and even decadence, and yet it is the sanctuary to which they returned in times of crisis and in the observance of the rites of passage. When the black con­sciousness movement came into the South Afrikan scene in the late 1960s history repeated itself as the lessons of the Ethiopian move­ment of the late 19th century had to be re-learnt, and its vision appropri­ated and sharpened for the cut and thrust of the South Afrikan political debate at the time. These essays entitled ‘Between two stools’ are about the division in the souls of many Afrikan Christians between the two ap­parently opposite forces of gospel and culture. I use the adverb ‘apparently’ advisedly because the conflict between the Good News and Afrikan culture is surely not real and cannot be. For if the gospel is in­deed Good News and for our salvation, then it came into the world not to destroy God’s own handiwork but to rescue and recreate it. The purpose of these essays therefore is to challenge us to regard inculturation as a di­vine imperative, and treat it as a priority and a matter of considerable ur­gency. For we already have contending rivals of Afrikan culture which threaten to steal the minds and hearts of our young people. We must therefore act with haste. Now is the opportunity for us to encounter the Christ as umntu who makes ubuntu feasible and realisable, and in whom we can say with a stronger conviction that we are because we belong.

I am enormously thankful to the various organisations like the Theologi­cal Education by Extension College, the Anglican Diocese of Pretoria and the Lutheran Diocese of Cape Orange for providing the occasion and the initial stimulus to write these addresses. Admittedly considerable volumes of water have gone under the bridge since the invitations were extended, and the first drafts of this material presented. However, with­out the challenge of the invitations and the pressure of the deadlines, the incentive to gather the harvest in these pages would have been absent, and this material would therefore not have seen the light of day. Intaka yakha ngoboya benye as we say in SiXhosa – a bird builds its nest with the feathers of another. I must therefore acknowledge my indebtedness to many of my Afrikan brothers and sisters who have given me clues, and in that way advanced my thinking, and also closed the gaps in my thoughts consequently making me realise more that I am because I be­long.

Camagu!
+ Sigqibo – Entlakohlaza 2002

About the author

Bishop Sigqibo Dwane was a theologian and a leading scholar in theologies of systematic theology, Gospel, culture and Afrikan spirituality. He was principal of St Peter’s College of the Federal Theological Seminary and subsequently consecrated as the first Bishop of the Order of Ethiopia in 1983. He led the transformation of the Order of Ethiopia (OE) to the Ethiopian Episcopal Church (EEC) and served as the first Presiding Bishop of the EEC after the OE became autonomous in 1999.

He is the author of –
• Issues in the South African theological debate
• Ethiopianism and the Order of Ethiopia
• Christ and our salvation: Dialogue with the Christian tradition from an African standpoint
• Ingulo emhlophe (white sickness) in Xhosa Society
• Ethiopianism and the Order of Ethiopia

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