Trinitarian Foundations for African Christian Theology: A Comparative Reformed Approach to Contextualization and Public Ethics

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This article examines the Trinitarian theology of John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, and Herman Bavinck, and how it supplies underlying theological material in the construction of an African Christian theology which is biblically informed and contextually engaged. The aim of this article is to show how a recovery of Reformed Trinitarian theology can provide a theological underpinning for African theology which is robustly orthodox and societally transformative. The article, therefore, sides with Isaac Boaheng’s position by affirming that Trinitarian theology provides the needed balance in terms of a theological and methodological approach to contextualization, public theology, and ethics in Africa while subscribing to his “non-negotiable essentials” for doing African theology, namely biblical, glocal, oral-symbolic-written theologies, and societal relevance. The study employs a historical retrieval and reappropriation method by drawing insights from these theologians for purposes of conversation with African theological voices and communal philosophies. The conversation shows how Calvin’s covenantal order, Edwards’s theology of beauty and love, Barth’s Christocentric justice and Bavinck’s organic ontology are theological resources available to constructively address African concerns of justice, reconciliation, governance and public life. Among the recommendations are the need to develop African theology with a more highly integrated balance of doctrinal fidelity and contextual relevance; to retrieve both oral and symbolic forms of theological expression as well as written. This article adds to the scholarship by showing that classical Reformed Trinitarian theology, when reclaimed, can not only strengthen African Christianity but also furnishes global theology with contextual resources that are doxological, ethical and missional.

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