Emerging Africa

Roger mentioned the eschatology term here, so I thought I might post some questions and thoughts.

Firstly, I think you are right that eschatology is at the centre of the conversation. It's especially evident in the use of "Kingdom of God" (of "kingdom of heaven" if you are working with Matthew) terminology. Usually I think mission when I think kingdom, but kingdom of God is an absolute eschatological term.

Questions:

I don't know if you have experienced this, but I'm experiencing it more and more. I get into conversations about theological stuff, usually sort of dogmatic stuff, and usually conversations where concepts like Sin, Hell, Heaven, Grace, Faith, are used. And suddenly I get the feeling that I'm at a distinct disadvantage.

This may sound very bad, like it's some kind of argument, or even worse, some kind of competition. Usually it's not anything of the sort. It's just that we have all these concepts that is simply assumed in our church circles. If you are comfortable with these concepts you have a whole system of theological thinking sorted out for yourself. If not, you have very little. I get into these conversations, and simply can't seem to express myself, because I'm not always comfortable with the traditional ways in which we used these concepts, but I don't have a nicely worked out alternative yet.