Towards a Christological missiology for Africa: on-going relevance of Jesus Christ in missions in South Africa

𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 In the multi-faith, multicultural context of South Africa today, we need Christological missiology that will orient the church and missions to an understanding of Christ as the centre of Christian missions in South Africa. This missiology should witness in a non-judgemental manner, without compromising and without losing its critical edge. This is a missiology that will acknowledge and respect, in a spirit of honest openness, the reality of the context of South Africa and the world today and the reality of other religions and their mission endeavours. This research thesis has eight chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction to the research. It deals with the background of the research and proposal. My hypothesis is that Christological missiology will guide the church in South Africa in continuing to see the relevance of Jesus Christ in missions. The church and missions will have a healthy understanding that her calling to missions is centred on the person and work of Jesus Christ protecting and preventing her from syncretism and entanglement in politics. In order to test this hypothesis, three questions were raised: How does an evangelical church respond to this quest? Have the evangelicals in South Africa orientated themselves enough to an understanding of Christ-centred missiology to be able to help the church in missionary work? What is the importance of the person and work of Christ in missions? The second chapter is dedicated to the definition of terms that are used in this study. Chapters 3 and 4 look at Christology and missiology. Chapter 5 reveals the findings of interviews with three missionary organisations: AIM (Africa Inland Mission), OM (Operational Mobilisation) and SIM (Serving In Mission). Contextualisation in missions is dealt with in Chapter 6, while Chapter seven deals with missions in South Africa, focussing on Jesus as the centre of missions. Chapter 8 concludes with final remarks and recommendation for further study in related fields. ___________________________________________________________________