This book examines how social change affects the role of the pastor in an African context. Through field study in African churches, author Zawadi Job Kinyamagoha explores how pastors work amid the tensions of rapid social change and suggests how pastors can constructively respond to social change by using it as an opportunity in their pastoral ministry.
Contemporary society is characterized by three cultural spheres: the economic sphere, the public sphere, and the democratic or self-governance rule, the realities of which many pastors seem to overlook. Church authorities seem to adhere rigidly to strict principles and rules without accommodating the realities of society. Conversely, a changing society demands that pastors work with the reality at hand, leaving pastors caught between two conflicting tensions: the pressure from church authorities and from a changing social reality.
The Pastor in a Changing Society seeks to help Tanzanian and African pastors rethink existing doctrines and practices in order to better respond to the reality of a changing society.
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Elia Shabani Mligo (Ph D, University of Oslo, Norway) is Senior Lecturer in Research, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at Tumaini University Makumira, Mbeya Center in Tanzania. He is the author of many books and articles on contextual theology and research. Some of his books include Jesus and the Stigmatized (2011), Writing Academic Papers (2012), Doing Effective Fieldwork (2013), Elements of African Traditional Religion (2013), Symbolic Interactionism in the Gospel According to John (2014), and He Descended into Hell (2015).