Mark your calendar and plan to attend The Andrews S. Burgess Lecture on Feb. 2, 2017. Kenneth Mtata will present “Transforming Biblical Hermeneutics: The Bible as a Resource for Holistic Renewal in Africa in Light of the Reformation 500.”
Apart from the internal changes in religious practices, ideas and organization, the reformation unleashed transformations at individual, societal, political and economic levels. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a main resource for such transformations during the Reformation. Key to this transformational potential was a realization of how new interpretations of biblical texts revitalize a sense of the common good, resulting in growing appreciation of justice, a renewed sense of critical faith resulting in enhanced human agency, and a new orientation of space and time resulting in long-term commitments and sense of exploration.
How can such transformative appropriation of the Bible produce similar results in Africa today? How, as we commemorate 500 years of the Reformation, could the special use of the Bible result in the individual, institutional and societal transformation in Africa? This lecture is shaped by Kenneth Mtata’s work with the LWF hermeneutics process. Mtata is general secretary of the Council of Churches in Zimbabwe.