African Christian Theology: Towards a Contextual Ecclesiology of Abila

This research project pleads for a deepening of the African character in the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church, especially within the African context. It argues that the first Christian missionaries to Uganda in their attempt to evangelize totally disregarded local traditions and practices and established a ‘foreign’ Church. Up until now, there has been a tension among believers because they have to choose between being Christians or practising their local traditions, yet not both. The precinct of syncretism has been applied loosely to most of the attempts to dialogue culture and the gospel. This makes many Ugandan Christians strangers in the Church. Deepening the African character and identity in the ecclesiology of the African Church will settle the Africans in the Church and ease the tension that hitherto has punctuated their manner of being Church. Relying on the Church’s endorsement of inculturation as an imperative tool of evangelization, this research invokes Charles Nyamiti’s method of inculturation to suggest elements of an ecclesiology based on the conceptualization of the Lango Abila – a traditional Shrine for animistic worship as an answer to the toxic tension many African Christians find themselves. This will not only contribute to the enrichment of the Church’s self-knowledge but will also author a new way of being Church in Uganda.