Inducting the Socratic Method of Forming Faith in African Contexts
Masauso Moyo 
Issue: Vol.10 No. 10 October 2024 Issue Article 1 pp.328-339
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.202410101 | Published online 16th October, 2024.
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The Socratic method of questioning and answering as a learning and teaching strategy has been used widely over time, for it effectively stimulates meaningful learning. Its learner-centered and transformative nature promotes ongoing dialogue. Since cultural differences influence the nature of questions asked, induction of the Socratic method is inevitable so that faith formation leads to thinking theologically where faith becomes a contextual form of thinking and thinking a form of contextualized faith. Some mainline churches in Africa have adopted catechisms with pre-asked and pre-answered questions formulated in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The challenges of time, culture, and geographical contextual differences create a gap between the church’s faith formation and context-based spiritual quests. These gaps demand asking the right questions that challenge and inverse wrong attitudes that foster deep reflective self-evaluation, interpretation, and understanding, shaping appropriate perceptions to address the contemporary spiritual quests of Africa. Using the qualitative literature review methodology, this article discovered that there are some gaps between questions and answers in catechisms used in mainline churches and contemporary spiritual quests of Africa. This article aims to discuss the means of closing the gap between questions and answers in catechism and context-based spiritual quests. It recommends induction of the Socratic method so that the questions and answers in catechisms are contextual, communicable, assimilable, and appropriable in African contexts. This study contributes to faith formation by recommending the induction of the Socratic method so that the questions and answers in catechisms are contextual, communicable, assimilable, and appropriable in African contexts.
Keywords: Inducting, Socratic Method, Faith Formation, Questions and Answers Communicability, Assimilability, Appropriateness
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Dr. Masauso Moyo is a Minister of the Word and Sacraments in the Reformed Church in Zambia with more than 23 years of service. He is also a Research Fellow at Department of Practical and Missiology Theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of the Free State, South Africa. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Christian Education, Children’s Ministry and Youth Ministry at Justo Mwale University with more than ten years of experience. He also lectured at Morning Star Bible College in between 2021 to 2022. In the year 2000 he graduated with a Bachelor of Theology from Justo Mwale University, Lusaka, Zambia. He is a holder of Masters of Theology with specialisation in Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics obtained from University of the Free State Bloemfontein South Africa in 2015. In 2023 he graduated with Doctor of Philosophy degree specialised in Practical Theology, obtained from the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein South Africa.
Moyo, Masauso. “Inducting the Socratic Method of Forming Faith in African Contexts,” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, 10 no.10 (2024): 328-339. https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.202410101
© 2024 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/).
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