can effectively interact ntumbuluko. The terms 'Christian faith' or 'Christian faith gospel' and '(the) gospel' are used interchangeably in this study. This is the basic understanding from which we will be viewing interaction between the gospel and ntumbuluko within the context of gospel and culture.
The problem of gospel and ntumbuluko has never, to my knowledge, been explored deeply in any academic inquiry at this level from an evangelical missiological and theological point of view among the Tsongas in Mozambique17, particularly so in my own denomination, the Igreja Uniao Baptista de Mozambique. The relationship between faith and culture is sometimes an area of conflict between nationals and missionaries, between clergy and congregation, and sometimes even among the clergy.
As indicated above, Mozambican Tsonga culture and worldview can summarized by the concept ntumbuluko. My experience suggests that ntumbuluko has more power and authority over the lives of many Tsonga Christians in Mozambique than the gospel or Christian faith has. In times of crisis many Christians resort to ntumbuluko.
This research will clarify the ways in which ntumbuluko impacts Christians in Mozambique, with a view to assisting them to understand and live their culture and faith better.
Since we are both Christians and Tsongas, it is of primary importance to understand our ntumbuluko as well as our Christian existence. We ought to know the kind of relationship between ntumbuluko and the gospel if we are both truly Christians and also truly Tsongas. To be a true Christian and a true Tsonga is not just a theological hypothesis and missiological possibility, but it is the whole purpose of the divine revelation and incarnation into Tsonga ntumbuluko, life and culture. But, in order to deal with the problem of the relationship between ntumbuluko and the Christian faith, we must first tackle other problems surrounding the main problem.
1.3.2 Research sub-problems
a) What is ntumbuluko?
We must answer this question before attempting to solve the problem of the relationship between ntumbuluko and the Christian gospel. We need to hear from the Tsongas what they understand ntumbuluko to be. With that information we will describe, interpret and explain the concept of ntumbuluko and relate it to parallel concepts.
b) Are there any related concepts or interpretative approaches that can help us understand and interpret ntumbuluko from different disciplines?
Ntumbuluko is not a well-known and researched concept either in Christian scholarship or in academic inquiry. Being a little-known concept, the description of the research findings needs to be studied and interpreted for the wider audience, with aid from different human and social sciences. After understanding, explaining and interpreting ntumbuluko from different approaches and disciplines, we will be better able to assess the relationship between ntumbuluko and the gospel.
c) What challenge does ntumbuluko, as described by the informants and interpreted from different approaches, pose to Christian faith among the Tsongas of Mozambique?
This question will eventually lead us back to the main research problem, i.e. the way people relate ntumbuluko to the gospel or to their faith in Christ. Our understanding of the kind of challenge that ntumbuluko is to the Christian gospel will lead us to suggest what the acceptable and healthy relationship between ntumbuluko and the gospel should be.
d) From a Tsonga evangelical perspective, what should a distinctive theological and missiological response be to ntumbuluko and the Christian gospel challenge?
As a Tsonga evangelical I am dissatisfied with the present understanding of the relationship between ntumbuluko and the gospel. In my theological and evangelical response I will suggest another form of relationship. In the process I will do some exegesis of scripture on the biblical use of the ntumbuluko concept in the new and old versions of the Tsonga Bibles. I will analyse Hebrew and Greek concepts that are parallel to the Tsonga concept of ntumbuluko in OT and NT theology. Based on these analyses, my suggestion for a new paradigm in the relationship between ntumbuluko and Christian faith will take shape.
1.3.3 The assumptions of the research
• All Tsongas in Mozambique encounter the gospel from the same cultural milieu or theoretical construct of reality, i.e. ntumbuluko. However, different backgrounds and contexts mediate the interaction between the Tsonga and Christian theoretical constructs of reality.
• Since all Tsongas in Mozambique are in the same milieu of ntumbuluko, they face similar problems and crises, whether their background is traditionalist, modernist or Christian. In the Tsonga encounter with the gospel, the problem of
ntumbuluko and crises add to the "conversion crisis", and it is at this juncture that the question arises of how to relate one's existence in ntumbuluko as a Tsonga to the new existence in the gospel of Christ as a Christian.
• The issue at stake is that both Christians and practitioners of traditional religion respond to ntumbuluko in the same way. The gospel is therefore in a precarious position in its relation to ntumbuluko. In solving or handling problems and crises, many Tsonga Christians obliterate their faith in the gospel of Christ, or give it a marginal, dormant position, and ntumbuluko takes or is given the dominant position.
• The way that Christians experience ntumbuluko, highlights issues around gospel and culture and surface age-old questions about the relationship between them.
This thesis attempts to clarify some of the dynamics in this relationship.