Reincarnation Christology in African Christian Theology
Edward Agboada 
& Francis Appiah Kubi
Issue: Vol.9 No.12 December 2023 Issue Article 4 pp. 593 – 606
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.20239124 | Published online 15th January, 2024.
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The subject of reincarnation has been considered a reserve of primal (esoteric) religions or cultures. Therefore, it has not been thoroughly studied to decipher the philosophical and theological issues thereof. Notwithstanding, what seems to be the total neglect and lack of interest, the significance of christological parallelism that exists between reincarnation and resurrection as Christological parallels in both African Traditional Religion and African Christianity cannot be disregarded. Reincarnation Christology provides a paradigmatic christological framework that conceptualises Africa’s notion of life as a cycle of death, birth, and rebirth (reincarnation) similar to incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies of the missionary (Western) Christianity and provides a competitive context that defines the identity, and significance of Jesus in African Christianity and Theology. Even though reincarnation provides a good context for the Christology of Jesus in African traditional religion, Christianity, and Biblical Theology, theologians and biblical scholars such as Mbiti, Bediako, Nyamiti, Wiredu, and Gyekye failed to give it any attention. Nevertheless, the article argued that, like incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies, reincarnation Christology provides very powerful and strong philosophical constructs for the inculturation of the Christology of Jesus in African Traditional Religion, African Christianity and African Christian Biblical scholarship. The article further argued that, there also exists a strong parallelism between resurrection and reincarnation Christologies which can provide complementing philosophical paradigmatic framework for the christological nomenclatures in Christianity and African traditional religions.
Keywords: Christianity, Theology, Reincarnation, Christology, Resurrection, Inculturation, Ancestor, Decolonisation.
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Edward Agboada is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana. is an Ordained Minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Until recently he was a Senior Lecturer at the Ramseyer Training Centre, (Abetifi, Ghana) where he taught courses in World Religions, Islamic Studies, Christian-Muslim relations, interfaith dialogue, Cross-Cultural Missions, New Religious Movements, Homiletic (Practice of Preaching), and studies in African Traditional Religions.
Rev. Fr. Prof. Francis Appiah-Kubi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana. He is currently the first Rector of St. Anthony Rectorate, the first regional President of Regional Union of Priests of West Africa (RUPWA) and the Immediate past President of the National Union of Ghana Diocesan Priests Associations (NUGDPA). He also served as the Acting Chairman, Governing Council of the Spiritan University College, Ejisu -Ghana and former Moderator of Fountainhead Christian College, Accra.
Agboada, Edward & Appiah-Kubi, Francis. “Reincarnation Christology in African Christian Theology,” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, 9 no.12 (2023): 593 – 606. https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.20239124
© 2023 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
