Towards an African Ecclesiology Emergent from African History

Abstract

In what we think is a Very African mode, we propose that Ecclesiology should be a fruit of a community that is the result of, or that is built around a story. In reading many highly placed documents on the Church in Africa, it is not obvious that the push for inculturation goes hand in hand with the push for our African history.  And so we intend to spend a longer time facing the fact of our history. We hope to remain long enough with the contradiction in this history, without necessarily elabo­rating here the details of it, in order to accept it more than we regret it. When the vigil with our past has been long enough. we hope that energ~· and creativiry will 
flow from this experience that will enable us to move ahead tbanles to and not in spite of it. In so doing. we should be able to form a transforrnative and liberating Ecclesiology. We also hope that ending thus with a storv to tell. we shall gain parity with all other communities and persons, to talk on equal, if different terms, at the round table of human stories.