A Giant on Clay Legs? African Theological Education and the Formation of Missiocentric, Missionary-sending Church Leaders

Abstract

Many theological educators worldwide recognize the centrality of mission in God’s purposes for his Church, and therefore for the ministerial training of church leaders. However, African seminaries are commonly engaging with such issues from a disadvantaged position, having inherited fragmented and mission-deprioritized systems of theological training from Western contexts through processes of colonial and postcolonial transfer—to the extent that Rwandan theologian Tharcisse Gatwa calls Bible colleges the “clay legs” on which the African Church perilously stands. This article utilizes Fohle Lygunda li-M’s “Antioch” model to propose one way that sub-Saharan African seminaries might form missiocentric, missionary-sending church leaders through their theological education programs.