The Evangelization Process Among The Borana by the Spiritans
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Date
1998-02
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
Evangelization has been carried out as a process since the beginning of the
Christian era. For two millenniums it has been characterised by enormous effects,
challenges and drawbacks. In the early stages of Christianity, the most common
drawback upheld was a misinterpretation of a statement by Origen: 'extra ecclesiam
nulla whist (outside the Church there is no salvation). In essence, evangelization means
the preaching of the Kingdom of God as Good news. By it our humanity is thus liberated
from those hindrances that bars it from seeking and attaining its ultimate goal of true
happiness. That is why, through his Universal Salvific Will, God wants all people to be
saved and reach the full knowledge of the truth: Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:4-5).
When the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council was convoked, the negative form
of understanding evangelization was finally done away with. Evangelization assumed a
new approach, with much emphasis put on its two indispensable aspects namely interreligious
dialogue and inculturation. None of them has been fully realised due to some
areas and especially those in Africa and the Third World having been either scarcely or
never at all evangelised. At the time, many missionaries were still handicapped in terms
of having adequate formation in that field, that could enable them to facilitate the new
approach of evangelization efficiently enough, according to the 'Signs of Times'. In a
later development, the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops in Rome
(1994) made some deliberations on the evangelization process in Africa. It pledged the
Catholic Church to undertake a closer dialogue with Africa's realities, for Christianity to
come more effectively to terms with her social, cultural and economic ambiguities. The African Bishops perceive evangelization not as a theory but life, since it aims to bringing
about an overwhelming and exhilarating experience of Jesus Christ, on which Africa's
transformation would primarily depend. It is however in this last decade of the second
millinnium of Christianity that this new trend of evangelising is beginning to be realised
gradually. Which then brings me to the reason of writing this long essay.
It was after I had undergone a one year Pastoral Experience Program (an
essential requirement of our Spiritan initial formation) among the Borana of Southern
Ethiopia, that a thought crossed to my mind. I thus developed a keen interest in finding
out how effective enough and to what extent the Spiritans have evangelised them, in their
own situation.
Chapter one studies about the Borana as people and their culture atilt Chapter
two aims to show how they are attached to their cattle. It also responds to some of their
human and cultural elements derived from that attachment to cattle, that have been
inculturated by the Spiritans in some of their Christian liturgical celebrations. Chapter
three studies the Spiritans' history in terms of evangelising them primarily, the Spiritans'
pre-evangelization and their appreciation of the Borana religious and meaningful values.
Chapter four studies the whole spectrum in which the Borana responded to Christianity in
terms of inter-religious dialogue, the methodology used by the Spiritans so as to
evangelise them, and acknowledging the prospects the Spiritans had for them in terms
ofpraris.
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Keywords
Evangelization, Spiritans, Borana, cattle-complex, perfect sacrificial victim, Inter-religious Dialogue, praxis