The monthly EGST academic seminar was held on February14, 2020 on the theme of “Voices from the Global South: A Reading of David Bosch with a Focus on Quest for Global Social Justice”.
Lectured by Dr. Girma Bekele the seminar outlined the development of contextual theologies, introductory context and presuppositions, black theologies in African, African American, and southern African perspective, the alternative community as a counter community, the non-absoluteness of contextualization, and theological entity vs. sociological entity in the quest for justice. He further reflected on the way of the Missional Alternative Community as non-violent liberating action, and reconciliation and liberation as non-antithetically intertwined motifs in the quest for justice. Mission as cross-bearing witness and the reign of God and eschatological motivation for mission against escapism marked the conclusion of the seminar.
In his final remarks, Dr. Girma addressed current missiological issues in Ethiopian context and challenged theological institutions to rethink their relationship with the church and the society and how they deal with extremism, marriage issues, the youth, women, unemployment, migration, and other social problems. Furthermore, he urged the audience to rethink how they deal with Trinitarian believing churches (The Orthodox and Catholic), the Muslim community, and our environmental stewardship.
Dr. Girma Bekele earns a Ph.D. in Missiology from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto and he is an adjunct professor of Missions and Development studies in the same university. His Master of Theology focused on Philosophical Theology with thesis title: Theodicy in the context of Ethiopia.
This month, he accepted the invitation to speak at the monthly academic seminar of the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology which was attended by faculty members, alumni, current students, guests, and staff.