The Exclusive Authority Of Scripture And African Anti-Foundationalism: The Byang Kato Legacy
ISSUE: Vol.4 No.1 September 2018 Article 3 pp.28-40
AUTHOR: Philip Tachin
ABSTRACT
In the African context, anti-foundationalism started gaining currency when some African theologians began to clamor for a reconstruction of local theology in Africa that gives room to some African beliefs and practices in addition to Scripture as sources for doing theology. It is within this context that Byang Kato labored to establish solid biblical theological foundations for the church in Africa. On this account, a theological conflict ensued between Kato and his contemporaries who stood on the other side of the divide. Though he did not write much, it is very evident in some of his works that he was an astute orthodox evangelical theologian. As the anti-foundational philosophy is increasingly clamoring for wider acceptance in African Christian theology, this writer highlights the importance of Kato’s legacies and argues for a sustainable evangelical Christian faith in the context of growing rebellion against the historic confessions. In conclusion, African Christian theology and African theology are two different strands of theology due to their sources, and we should not conflate their distinctions. Theologians of African traditional religion too should make their religion stand on its own terms with its own non-biblical scripture, as do other religions; however, any attempt to merge African traditional religion with Christian theology is fraudulent and counterproductive.
© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).