The recovery of the prophetic voice of the church: The adoption of a ‘missional church’ imagination

Verbum et Ecclesia

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The recovery of the prophetic voice of the church: The adoption of a ‘missional church’ imagination
 
Creator Baron, Eugene Maponya, Moses
 
Subject Missiology missional church; theatrical ecclesiology; stokvel ecclesiology; business ecclesiology; prophetic voice; ecclesial imagination; prosperity gospel.
Description The social context of church members spawns different ecclesial imaginations of the nature of the church. Those different ecclesial imaginations often function within one particular church. It interacts with each other – in isolation, competition or hostility – to ultimately shape the life of that church. This article discusses the result of a historical study in which the authors dissected the primary ecclesial imaginations of members of churches in South Africa. The authors, therefore, discuss three of the ecclesial imaginations that emanated from the research, which can be observed within the sampled congregations. The authors argue that because the congregants of the churches have such ‘ecclesiological imaginations’, the prophetic voice of the church in South Africa has become silent. Therefore, the authors suggest that the members of the churches in South Africa should re-imagine the nature of the church in terms of the missio Dei if it wants to recover the prophetic voice of the church. The authors conclude that the missional church discourse provides specific conceptual tools to assist congregations to recover the prophetic voice of the church in South Africa.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article demonstrates the relationship between societal context and its influence and impact on the emergence of ecclesial imaginations. There is an interaction between the discipline of social science, humanities, theology and missiological discourses in terms of the challenge that the authors address in this article.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2020-07-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Narrative approach
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ve.v41i1.2077
 
Source Verbum et Ecclesia; Vol 41, No 1 (2020); 9 pages 2074-7705 1609-9982
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/2077/4168 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/2077/4167 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/2077/4169 https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/2077/4166
 
Coverage South Africa 21st Century Churches in South Africa
Rights Copyright (c) 2020 Eugene Baron, Moses S. Maponya https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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