Abstract

Every theological discipline has some proposal for the use of narrative as a means for rethinking the nature, task, and methods thereof. This article presents a „narrative Christology” in the African milieu; it actually deals with Christ and culture on the African continent. Contemporary African theologians explain the African culture and then they use that culture with its traditional oral wisdom to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. African theologians do an admirable job relating the rich culture of Africa. In their studies they display knowledge of the culture with which they are dealing and, in the process, they respect that culture by adapting the Gospel to it. The narrative is not merely ornamental in African Christology, but constitutive. Modern African Christology should not be separated from narrative description or argumentation, because Christology involves the „recasting” of the Christian story. Some theologians recognize that Christology may lead to a new reading or „recasting” of the narrative(s), they recognize that closer attention to the African traditional myths, and the stories, proverbs, songs and tales may also result in a reinterpretation of Christology. There are attempts to formulate Christology not in terms of the classical categories of nature, substance, and person, but in categories derived from African narratives that give Jesus his African identity as the Christ.