Scriptura 114 (2015:1), pp. 1-12
http://scriptura.journals.ac.za
JÜRGEN MOLTMANN AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS IN THE JOHANNINE PRIESTLY PRAYER Matthew Michael Stellenbosch University ETSK, Nigeria “The ecumenical unity of the Church can only be a unity in Truth, and this Truth which enables (and demands) unity is the all-embracing and all-saving truth of his sacrificial death on the Cross at Golgotha. The internal basis of the ecumenical movement is found in the Priestly Prayer of Christ himself: ‘... that they may be one’” (Jn. 17:21). – Jürgen Moltmann
Abstract Based on the cross-centred ecumenism of Moltmann, this article describes the problems of ecumenism among the churches of the global south. While acknowledging the paradigmatic shift in the centre of Christianity to these regions, it notes the problematic character of this shift for ecumenism especially in Africa. Situating Moltmann in discourse to the Johannine priestly prayer, it explicates some defining aspects of Moltmann’s cross-defined ecumenism for the African church. In this regard, the paper describes the problems as well as prospects that this christocentric mapping of Moltmann’s thought provides for the unity of the churches in Africa.
Key Words: Moltmann; Ecumenism; Christology; Johnanine Gospel;African Church
I. Introduction Within the contemporary discourses on church’s growth in the global south, there is an obsession with the numbers and statistics, which for better or worse, has described the sensational movement of Christianity from the West to the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. 1 In the excitement of this paradigm shift, there are three important
1
See Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; idem, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006; Idem, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. On the other hand, several studies have suggested the growth of African initiated churches in Europe, thus underscoring the global character in the growth of African Christianity. For example , Jehu Hanciles has studied the exportation of African Christianity to the West through migration [See Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration and the Transformation of the West , Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008:350-73, 207-28]. Similarly, Adogame Afe and Kwabena J Asamoah-Gyadu have underscored the thriving of African Christianity in the former Soviet Republic [Adogame Afe, “Up, Up Jesus! Down, Down Satan! African Religiosity in the Former Soviet Bloc – the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations,” Exchange 37, no. 3 2008:310-334].