Integrating Public Theology into African theological institutions’ curricula

Abstract

The primary aim of this article is to argue that the curricula of many African evangelical theological seminaries are devoid of Public Theology. This lack has made it extremely difficult for the church in Africa to collapse the sacred-secular divide. As a result, our public faith does not tally with our private faith, beliefs and practices. The curriculum that our evangelical pastors get trained in lacking an important ingredient: Public Theology. As such it does not address and help its graduates to collapse the sacred-secular divide. Thus, although year in and year out our evangelical seminaries are turning out graduates, they are in much cases incapable of overcoming ethnic differences. They do not know how to reposition and transform their communities into vibrant Christian communities. They largely tend to have no clear-cut understanding of the public relevance of their Christian faith, talk less of helping their members to collapse the sacred-secular divide and become effective Christians in every sphere of public life and human endeavours.

To address this abnormality in our African theological training, Public Theology needs to be introduced in our evangelical seminaries. In a continent a in transition with shaky moral and ethical foundations we can afford to continue turning blind eyes to the faulty lines of our theological education in Africa. African theological enterprise owes the continent a solution to some of the destructive and systemic structures of injustice, corruption and impunity. To address this salient problem, the article discusses the role of Public Theology in theological education; the challenge of theological seminaries in Africa; Why Africa needs integrative curricula; the urgent needs and the challenges of integrative curricula theological education; the parochial nature of theological schools: the sacred-secular divide; Why public theology is important for integrative curricula in theological education; the salient relevance of public theology to African educational integrative curricula; and concludes with a narrative of Nigerian seminaries modelling integrative curricula through public theology.