Imagine Ubuntu is meant to serve as a forum to think critically, and ultimately hopefully, about Western Christian engagement in Africa. The history of the West's role in Africa is complex, and while this blog will attempt to be fair in its reflections, the particular agenda that holds this blog together is this: Christian missions, NGOs, and educational institutions cannot do their work with their backs to the very real power structures put in place and set in motion by a colonial history; indeed, with their backs to history at all. Furthermore, this is a confessional blog - which means the reflections here hope to find their origin and goal in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.
Imagine Ubuntu hopes to engage both individual Christians and the Church community to foster more faithful understandings of/engagements with the non-Western world, and here specifically Africa. Borrowing from a methodology learned from the Duke Center for Reconciliation's African Great Lakes Initiative, it is also the conviction of this blog that any discussion of Christian social engagement in Africa should be at once theological, contextual, and practical. First, the theological reflection engages our imagination to mediate our relationship, not only with God, but with each other and with the earth through the person Jesus of Nazareth. This Christian imagination is rooted in theological anthropology (i.e. what does the witness of Scripture say it means to be human?), and Christological ethics (i.e. what does it mean to live into the likeness of Christ?). Second, The contextual reflection digs deeper into the social landscape that our theological imagination has helped shape. A close look at power structures, social realities, and history is possibly the most crucial step to challenge current Christian social engagement in Africa. The theological imagination only becomes radically transformative when it finds its roots in history, in the stuff of the earth. Third, the practical reflection attempts to construct a hopeful way forward (or at least a way that is faithful). The goal of this blog, therefore, is not only to deconstruct, but to reconstruct as well. This part of the discussion must be done carefully, never attempting to hold up projects, institutions, or people as the last word, bringing us back to our theological imagination which calls us to mediate our entire work and lives through the Word that become flesh and dwelt among us.
