“What Does Nicaea Have to Do with Black Theology?”

This article reflects on Christology, understood as part of a theological imagination whereby theological language is functionally world structuring. Beginning with how this theological imagination has a history of creating intra-black tension in South Africa, this article reflects on how the constitutive elements of this kind of theological imagination are drawn from Nicene orthodoxy. Then by heuristically engaging Mofokeng’s Black Christology and Ramose’s notion of the suspension of Christology, this article seeks to classify what is meant by the end of Christology. I conclude by arguing that while this is not an attempt to instrumentalise Christology for black liberation, it also does not mean the repudiation or even suspension of Christianity. It refers instead to the end of Christology as a language that structures reality. The importance of this argument is that it contributes to attempts to move beyond the ways in which Christianity’s imbrication in settler-colonialism has produced recuring obstacles for shared life in South Africa

Black theology · Christology · History of religions · Paraphrase · Systematic theology · African cultural and philosophical studies · Christian Theology and Mission · Theological Perspectives and Practices