Johan Buitendag

The ecological crisis almost forces different disciplines to search together for a better world. We all share one earth: the closer we reach a certain point, the closer we come together. This places the paper amid the so-called science and religion dialogue in which theology increasingly cognises empirical research and scientific data. On the other hand, sciences are becoming increasingly aware of the need to transcend their evidential limitations to find a comprehensive paradigm. This paper will apply an exemplary methodology by selecting the eco-theology of Jürgen Moltmann as a theologian who takes relevant results of scientific ecological research seriously. The Club of Rome, on the other hand, is an example of social (and natural) sciences urging to find a new inclusive paradigm for a world in peril. The juxtaposition of theology and science provides the need for a new value system emerging in social sciences. Randers makes clear that the culture of consumerism had to be replaced by cultural elements that provide substantial longer-term satisfaction and increase well-being. The latest report of the Club of Rome (2022) and Moltmann’s latest two titles on this topic (2019 and 2020) have been integrated into the argument and previous publications of the author. Contribution: This exemplary approach contributes to a scientifically grounded and biblically founded eco-theology. The two exponents of science and eco-theology provide the much-needed vocabulary for each other. The Earth Charter, one could add, provides a grammar for the engagement of eco-theology and environmental science.

The basic challenge that readers of the New Testament face is not only about what Jesus Christ teaches but who he is. Functional Christology has developed at the expense of ontological Christology. This challenge centres on Jesus Christ’s relevance, in terms of his identity, not only for Christians in particular but also for creation as a whole. The question ‘who is Jesus Christ in relation to creation?’ is thus of special interest to this study. Various authors such as Gunton, Gregersen, Peacocke and others have approached this question from different perspectives. The PhD study by Rabie-Boshoff was completed to shed light into the context of dialogue between Christian theology and the science of linguistics in an effort to understand the Genesis 1 creation story. This article refers to part of the study in an effort to make sense of who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. This provides consolation in a time of worldwide lockdown because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 virus. The human struggle of making sense of the world is brought into sharp focus in times like these, more so in terms of making sense of their creatureliness and mortality. Although science as a valid knowledge base may provide some answers to this human dilemma, Christians in particular appeal to the Bible and their belief in Jesus Christ. This turn to Jesus, and who he is, provides human beings with enduring and satisfying answers to their suffering and pain.Contribution: This article is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussion on creation in terms of how human beings make sense of creation, considering who Jesus Christ is in relation to creation. Human beings have always been engaged in a process of making sense of the world they live in. Ancient cultures provide such a window, allowing a glimpse into how those cultures perceived their world.

This article is about the imago Dei, proceeding from an ecotheological perspective. Both the ‘image of God’ and the ‘likeness of God’ are examined based on the understanding that God is a relational God. It approaches the question of the imago Dei in terms of God’s incorporeal nature, and what it is that human beings have in common with God apart from the human being’s capacity for personal and interpersonal relationships. It addresses the question of the imago Dei in terms of God’s spiritual nature and the human being’s ‘earthly’ nature by utilising the metaphor of ‘shadow’. This metaphor was investigated in terms of its meaning in Hebrew (tselem), and Genesis 2:7–8 where the creation of the human being is described in terms of God breathing the breath of life into the human being. A distinction has been drawn between the ‘image of God’ and the ‘likeness of God’, with the ‘likeness of God’ (demuth) that was investigated in the context of Exodus 31:1–5, and the various spiritual gifts conferred to Bezalel by the Spirit of God. Based on this investigation the article posits that the imago Dei as the Shadow of God (life) has been bestowed on all living creatures and not only human beings.Contribution: The suggestion that the imago Dei as the Shadow of God is present in all of the creation urges us to seek further and look deeper into the issue of imago Dei in the sense that such an understanding pointedly has far-reaching implications for the current understanding of the place of human beings in creation. In consideration of this, it bears on our understanding of the meaning of life within the bigger picture of creation and how we respond to the living environment with which we share life.

This article explores and seeks to appropriate theologically the African notion of vital force as a relational, non-reductionist ecological concept that would enrich the Christian doctrine of pneumatheology. The understanding that relational and pneumatological categories are viable within the theology–science dialogue is the broader framework within which this article is conceived. The relationship between natural theology and revelation provides an epistemological standpoint that does not divorce Spirit and reality.

This article is about the juxtaposition of the notion of perichoresis in the work and theology of the Cappadocian Fathers and the notion of Ubuntu in the African Traditional Religion. Perichoresis was a result of an attempt to understand and to resolve the relationships within the Trinity. The issue at hand was how to make sense between the one and the many at the same time. The Cappadocian Fathers understood the oneness of God as unity in plurality, not a singularity. One Ousia and three hypostases were based on the understanding of the relationships within the trinity. The question of three yet one God, the apostles according to the information we have never question nor try to resolve the position and status of Jesus within the oneness. It appears as though they celebrated the tension rather than resolving it. They heard from Jesus, who said to them ‘you believe in God believe also in me’ and ‘if you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him … whoever has seen me has seen the Father’. They also heard him when he said ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’. The article is going to investigate and analyse the two notions, Perichoresis and Ubuntu, within the African Christian context. Yet there is a tension between Jesus and the ancestors. Can this tension be resolved? The notion of Ubuntu is based upon the understanding that a person becomes fully a person in the presence of other persons. It is a notion that deals with the relationships from an individual to the community and from physical to spiritual perspectives. The article shall also attempt to analyse any categories of thinking that are within the ATR that may better explain the relationship within the Trinity.

For most people on our planet, spiritual values are vital in driving communitarian behaviour. It is becoming increasingly clear that a lasting and effective social commitment must consider cultural, sociological and religious dimensions. In particular, the current environmental crisis has demonstrated how effectively religious communities have mobilised to respond to climate change. With their emphasis on wisdom, social cohesion and interrelationships, religions can be a strategic player in ensuring effective integral human development. The ecological crisis is not just an ethical dilemma but an ontological and theological matter that demands both a new way of thinking and a new way of being. Think differently and act differently! The United Nations (UN) and many governments are increasingly recognising the vital contribution of religious leaders and organisations in political processes, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, hypostasised in the Faith Plans for People and Planet programme, representing the most prominent and boldest environmental initiative to date by the global faith community. Contribution: Today we realise that a combination of science and spirituality can engage and empower an array of stakeholders from different cultural and religious backgrounds. This article addresses the question of an integrated ecology by selecting appropriate and recent literature from mainstream religions and the subsequent interpretation and application.

The environmental crisis is undoubtedly one of the most critical and urgent problems of our times. Many people are raising their voices in support of nature to build a better future for humanity and for our planet. In this article, the authors explore the specific contribution that Christianity and Islam can offer in this debate and how religions can help bring back into the ecological discourse the element of the sacred that abandoned the reflection about nature since the advent of the Enlightenment. Moving from the spiritual dimension of nature in the light of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on ecology Laudato Si’, the authors argue that the current ecological crisis can represent an opportunity for a renewed encounter among religions, bringing together the ethical and the spiritual, recovering the element of communion between human beings and nature that points to something beyond themselves. The authors present the Laudato Si’ as a universal invitation and a space for encounter between world religions that puts at its heart love as a guiding principle and animating force of a much-needed ecological, spiritual and anthropological conversion. Contribution: This article focuses on the spiritual dimension of nature in Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si ’. The authors argue that the document with its emphasis on love represents a platform for dialogue between Christianity and Islam by bringing back the element of the sacred in the current ecological debate.

In this article, the author engages with the question ‘what is so theological about theological education?’, which he calls a genealogy of theology. This matter is approached from a very specific vantage point as the author was the former dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria and has engaged in this research project over the past 5 years, as the Faculty was under severe review as to its composition, and ultimately its very future. This article endeavours to bring to the surface the underlying theology of the author and the paradigm he is operating from. It concludes with a definition of theology as he sees it, but with the explicit qualification of it being situated at a research-intensive university competing for a notable position on the ranking indexes of world universities. A new niche is thus opening up for theology, namely, a ‘scholarly endeavour of believers in the public sphere in order to inquire into a multi-dimensional reality in a manner that matters’.

This article is an attempt to provide a systematic and integrative picture of the main contributions presented at the colloquium which addressed the current state of theological education, proposals for the basic values to be laid as foundation for a new theological curriculum and concrete attempts to build such a curriculum in South Africa, the African continent and especially at the University of Pretoria with a particular stress on decolonisation as contextualisation. In dealing with these aspects, the article focuses on whether or not theology as an academic field has a future in university and society by implementing a concrete programme of decolonisation which is adapted – by means of education – to the specifics of various local contexts including those in Africa. If the answer to this question is positive – and the colloquium contributors, as well as the authors, of this article do believe to be so – then one must find out how theology should be done in the university, how theology should work in society and what theology should be taught in the university so that its impact in society is continuously transformative and permanently relevant to human life and human existence in Africa and throughout the world.

This article shows how eco-theology could and should be indigenised in an African context using the Copperbelt in Zambia as a case study. The ecological crisis worldwide has given rise to the call for everyone to work together to start caring about our natural environment. In theology, the response to this call received the name eco-theology. By means of a literature review, ethnographic information and governmental legislation, the article tries to illustrate how eco-theology could and should be indigenised in an African context using the Copperbelt in Zambia as a case study. This article makes an attempt to contribute to the needed ecological renewal by reinterpreting two traditions that inform thinking on the Copperbelt: Christianity and African traditional religion. The supernatural belief of the Lamba people is no longer embodied in this creation, and it is not too late for the people to form any indigenous environmental protection movement to protect the sacredness of mother Earth from further contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining and respecting the traditional teachings and the cultural laws. Obedience to God’s command to tend creation is a quest for continued creation by humans, so that value is added to what is already in existence. This is embodied making the place we live in more beautiful, appealing and peaceful. Fruitfulness with sustainability becomes core values for interdependence and earth keeping.Contribution: We wish to address the ecological situation of the mining industry in Zambia from a theological perspective by assessing the impact of the copper mining and processing industry on humans, their environment and nature and by showing how the traditions of African traditional religion thought can be transformed into tools to oppose this ecological disaster.

The article is authored by the Dean of Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, celebrating the Faculty’s centenary in 2017. The exposition of the argument is unfolded on the basis of Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis of prefiguration, configuration and reconfiguration. The earliest decisive statement with regard to the nature of the Faculty, and which is eagerly pursued, was made by the Rev. M.J. Goddefroy in 1888, epitomising theological training as of academic deference, that is as a Faculty at a university and not a seminary. This has been the fibre of Theology at the University of Pretoria and intellectual inquiry is an uncompromised value. The article is a critical reflection on the past century and an orientation towards the next hundred years, identifying the essence of what a real Pretoria Model could and should be and looking ahead to the next century. ‘History is not a destination, but an orientation’, sounds like a refrain in the article. The enterprise is contextual with regard to time and space. The assessment is subsequently done in terms of this continent and this century, that is Africa and the 21st century. The conclusion of the article is that the Pretoria Model fills a unique niche in theological inquiry at public universities competing for a position among the top 500 on the ranking of world universities.

In this article, the author engages with the question ‘what is so theological about theological education’, which he calls the genealogy of theology. This matter is approached from a very specific vantage point as the author was the former Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and has been engaged in this research project over the last 5 years as the Faculty was under severe review as to its composition and ultimately its very future. This article endeavours to bring to the surface the underlying theology of the author and the paradigm he is operating from. It concludes with a definition of theology as he sees it, but with the explicit qualification of it being situated at a research-intensive university competing for a notable position on the ranking indexes of world universities. A new niche is thus opening up for theology ( vis-à-vis a seminary or even a Christian university), namely, a ‘scholarly endeavour of believers in the public sphere in order to inquire into a multi-dimensional reality in a manner that matters’.