Kuyper Conference Explores 'Prophetic,' Practical African Theology

Emmanuel Katongole recalls the woman who showed a “prophetic posture” after 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed 24 years ago by the Hutu-led government and ethnic militias in Rwanda.

She was one of those who, surrounded by the massacre that occurred in 1994, cried out “How long, God, how long?” said Katongole, a Roman Catholic priest from Uganda who was one of the plenary speakers at this week’s Kuyper Conference: The Future of African Theology at Calvin College and Seminary.

Katongole, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, came across this woman’s story and those of others like her while researching his 2009 book, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda.

“She was able, even though fire had burned things out everywhere, to gather some children around her in a new community of love. She created a new society of love that said ‘No!’ to violence and war. She created an oasis of peace for refugees. She is someone who gave an account of hope.”

Held Apr. 30 - May 1, the conference featured plenary talks, the presentation of research papers, and conversations involving African theologians and Reformed Christian scholars from several continents. They discussed the state of African public theology, the need for it, and the promise it holds for informing Christian thinking and practice on the African continent and beyond.

Among those speaking was Daniel Bourdanné, general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. A theologian who has long been an advocate for applying the perspectives of Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper in an African context, Bourdanné received this year’s Kuyper Prize, established in 1996 and awarded each year to a scholar or community leader whose outstanding contribution to their chosen field reflects the values of Neo-Calvinist religious engagement in one or more “spheres” of society.

After receiving the Kuyper Award, Bourdanné gave the Monday-evening plenary lecture, emphasizing how the numerical growth of Christianity in Africa requires an intensified focus on the importance of a lasting, qualitative growth and discipleship.

Bourdanné argued that the theological task and responsibility of African Christianity today is to contribute to the flourishing of African society by articulating, sharing, modeling, and living out a fresh contextual and biblically grounded imagination.

The Kuyper prize and conference are funded by a grant from Rimmer and Ruth De Vries.

Also speaking at the conference were Nicholas Wolterstorff, a philosophical theologian, author, and ethicist; and James Bratt, a historian who has written the biography Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat. Bratt interviewed Wolterstorff and engaged in a discussion with him about ways in which strains of Kuyper’s thought were used to both support and criticize apartheid in South Africa.

Helping to wrap up the conference was Anne Zaki, an assistant professor in the department of practical theology at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt. Zaki spoke on “Living Out Loud: Public Theology in an Islamic Context.”

Katongole, whose talk opened the conference, grew up in Uganda and has a personal connection to the fighting that took place in neighboring Rwanda. Because his mother was a Hutu and his father was a Tutsi, he knew a great deal about the cultural and historical tensions that led to the fighting.

As a theologian, he has worked to point out that the tragedy in Rwanda goes beyond the genocide and reflects the deep brokenness of the church, especially in the West, which for many years powered the colonization of Africa. But the tragedy also shows the hope he has seen in people who take prophetic postures.

“When we look deeper, we see that we all have so much more in common, that we all share the same longings,” said Katongole, who has written several books tracking God’s message and work through many places in Africa and elsewhere.

“There is something about God’s love being sent to the cross — it is about the mystery of Christianity that God’s love is centered on suffering.”

At the same time, though, this love doesn’t come easily in a world in which, Katongole said, quoting a poet, “a mother is cut into pieces by machetes, a brother commits suicide when he is forced to work for those who raped his mother.”

In places where violence and suffering are so real, we must turn to prophets such as Jeremiah who speak, said Katongole, about “the notion that it is a suffering God who must break in and play a decisive role.”

It is this prophet who says in Jeremiah 14:9, noted Katongole, “You are among us, Lord, and we bear your name; do not forsake us!”

Jeremiah is one who invites people to reform their ways and to pray for themselves and others and to bring lament to God for what has happened.

“It is God who breaks in and expresses our grief. It is God’s suffering that drives Christians to carry the cross in memory of Jesus Christ.”

Given the economic, political, ecological, and moral crises today in Africa and beyond, African theology cannot be simply an academic theology, expressed in books. It can’t simply be about speculations around the times to come, said Katongole.

“As theologians, we find ourselves suspended between God and society, between the cries of people and the hope of God. As God sees the cries of the people, we must hear and see those cries. We cannot afford to get involved in philosophical questions no one is asking.

“We must show and act out who Jesus is and how Scripture applies to everyday lives. Jesus Christ is Lord of creation, and that means Jesus is active everywhere, in every square inch of the world, as Kuyper says.”

The Kuyperian movement, originally primarily associated with Dutch Calvinists in the Netherlands and in North America, is now growing globally, especially with the publication of Kuyper’s work in English by the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society.