The religious practices of the church in a society are always in dialogue or contradiction with other religions that are situated in the context of practices (Seoka 1997:1-2). Crossman's understanding seems to be the reality of the life of the church and the academy in general. The church is civilizing the pagan Africans, hence the dominance of Western culture in the life of the church.
This is discussed in detail in the chapter on rituals and pastoral care of the church. The local culture and systems of knowledge are baptized to match the teachings of the Church.
The Problem of Christianity Failing to Understand African Traditional Religion
We can only guess whether the first missionaries who came to South Africa from Portugal in the 15th century ever expected to find God in this part of the world. In those days, the Christian attitude towards other religions and believers was considered hostile, and religions were considered a threat to the Christian faith. This was also true of African traditional religions, which were considered "pagan" as opposed to true religion (2010: 186).
Enmity between the church and ATR still exists and Grzelak is of the opinion that this antagonism is perpetuated by the lack of knowledge and therefore understanding of other religions (2010:186). However, if ATR is researched objectively, pastoral care can benefit from African indigenous knowledge systems inherent in African religion and culture. Christianity seems to continue to have good sermons because of the existence of its "enemies".
Chavunduka laments the fact that the church built its membership by destroying ATR and African culture in people (2001:3). With the assistance of the colonial administrators, it was decided that African shrines or places of worship should be destroyed; their spirit mediums or religious leaders were to be ignored and where possible prevented from organizing and conducting their religious services; Christians were to be discouraged from consulting African traditional healers; Zimbabweans were told that participation in traditional rituals of a religious nature was a sin (2001:3). Africans are a religious people as can be seen in the next case study of the Ndebele people.
Understanding the ATR basis of Africans' beliefs can contribute to social health and community building.
Research by Pastoral Theologians on the Religiosity of Africans and the Resilience of ATR and African Culture
Ndebele cosmology consists of visible and invisible spiritual beings that have influence on living human beings who are appeased by using rituals and living life according to socially acceptable norms and values, which can be described as a cultural way of life or way of life. religious. the life of good relations (Bozongwana 1983). In the Ndebele worldview, the unborn, the living, and the living dead are all part of the constellation of living spirits (Marova 1999). A Kenyan scholar, Ndeti argues that the community. it extends beyond the living members of the tribe and tribe.
By being part of the extended family and living in close proximity to God the creator, the ancestors are endowed with special powers. Therefore, they enable the birth of children and protect the living relatives from attacks by malevolent spirits. It recognizes and integrates the duality of mind and body, magic and rationality, order and disorder, negative and positive forces, and individual and communal consciousness (1981).
There is no significant recognition of the fact that all science must depart from and inject local culture and that these perspectives on the scientific enterprise are irreconcilable. Family relationships, communal relationships, and relationships with strangers are part of religious rites to continually appease the spiritual world. God and the ancestors are happy and bless those who relate well to others and the environment.
The church has failed to remove this worldview from the Matabo people or it could be argued that the European (Western) cultural/religious enslavement of the African church has failed in the Matabo.
Research on Christianity by Adherents and Sympathisers of ATR and African Culture
Christians participating in ATR care and support systems are welcomed by ATR caregivers while the same are mocked by the church for worshiping idols and ancestors. Dual membership is made possible by the nature of African religion and African culture itself. The African religion is a hospitable religion that accepts the fact that other religious systems are equally valid, or even more so.
My own observation is that the militancy of the church is not only directed against other religions such as ATR. So the church is not tolerant of a different view, hence Chavunduka's argument that the church is divisive and therefore not good for social construction and thinks that 'the African religion can therefore facilitate interfaith dialogue' (2001:4) better than Christianity. Research has also shown that Christianity is not a communal religion (Aaseng 1992; and Chavunduka 2001), as it separates the believers from the non-believers, despite being based on building a kingdom – which is a community.
It cast the missionaries into the role of disruptors of the community or as interested only in misfits or outcasts. In some cases, you see members of the same family going to different denominations. The church is interested in building itself, sometimes at the expense of the community, but ATR is not interested in building itself, it builds communities.
Community pastoral care can learn how to build communities by using some of the values inherent in this African value of community attachment.
Research on Suffering and Trauma in African Communities
In the African concept of community, the success of one community member is the success of the entire community. For example, if a family member commits murder, the entire extended family participates in paying for the deceased in fear of the deceased's vengeful spirit attacking the entire extended family (Sitshebo. Western philosophy, on the other hand, states that a person is simply composed of a soul and a body and that trauma is a matter of the mind.
Therefore, redefining trauma in light of this African worldview is critical and will improve our care for the many traumatized millions who desperately need help on this continent (Motsi and Masango 2000:1). The concept of the individual and the community is further elaborated by Dolamo who says: 'African culture and religion emphasizes the importance of the community, but also the indispensability of its individual members'. This is part of the AIKS that should expose and promote pastoral theological research and teaching.
Losi has concluded that, "belief in science and in the power of the international scientific community is so strong that it tends to marginalize local knowledge" (2000:10). That Christian pastoral theology, which is individual counseling (Ward 2003:54) to benefit Africans, must be understood that in the African worldview,. This calls for research into IAKS embedded in African care systems, religious systems and cultural systems for the training of pastoral care givers.
Dolamo thinks that if the African community and in turn the state and constitution could be based on the concept of community, African countries could overcome some of its challenges.
Research on Indigenization and Inculturation: Challenges and Possibilities
For good inculturation to occur, there is a need for both religions to be fully exposed to each other. There is a need for objective research from both Christianity and ATR on the other hand to identify the benefits for a dialogical approach to social care and counselling. Pastoral theologians should research and teach their pastoral care students the realities of ATR rather than studying it for the sake of condemning it.
This means that Christianity should be able to embody African culture in this case. Things like rituals, language and symbols should be directly related to the local culture. The language carries symbols and nuances that are sometimes very difficult to translate into the local language, which means that Christianity cannot communicate in the local language.
If the identified elements are to be understood by pastoral theologians, it is necessary to understand them from their cultural perspective and this call for the return of AIKS. Appiah argues that, “The culture in question is challenged and renewed by gospel values. This is the bias of current research by theologians of pastoral care; they want to transform the culture so that it fits the Christian gospel.
There must be room for the gospel or the Christian tradition (which in most cases is Western culture rather than the gospel) to be challenged and renewed by the local culture.
Conclusion
Good individual care, family care and community care systems can help create a healthy nation which can ultimately result in good state formation. The challenge of a theologically fruitful method to study Christian ethics in Africa: the role of the human sciences. The inclusive pluralism of Jacques Dupuis: his contribution to a Christian theology of religions, and its relevance to the South African interreligious context.
The Battle of the Mind: International New Media Elements of the New Religious Political Right in Zimbabwe. The Rediscovery of the Agency of Africans: An Emerging Paradigm of Post-Cold War and Post-Apartheid Black and African Theology. The role of African intellectuals in the reconstruction of the African social fabric (The Quest for Nation Building).
The Role of African Intellectuals in the Reconstruction of the African Social Fabric (The Quest for Nation Building) (Keynote speech presented at the Loccum Evangelische Akademie International Conference on: The Role of the Educated Class in Africa – between African Renaissance and Globalization - Critiques , March 21-23, 2003. The role and function of the pastoral counselor in the current crisis in South Africa. In Guma, M & L Milton (eds): An African challenge to the church in the twenty-first century.
Towards a theological synthesis of Christian and Shona views of death and the dead: Implications for pastoral care in.
