The African Palaver Method: A Model Synodal Process for Today's Church
Many traditional African societies have a rich social and spiritual heritage. The African palaver is the art of conversation, dialogue, and consensus-building in both decision-making and in decision-taking in society. African Christians should recover and bring it to the table in the current search...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
SCM Press
2021
|
| In: |
Concilium
Year: 2021, Issue: 2, Pages: 68-76 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Africa
/ Palaver
/ Catholic church
/ Synodales Prinzip
|
| IxTheo Classification: | KBN Sub-Saharan Africa KDB Roman Catholic Church RB Church office; congregation |
| Further subjects: | B
Church
B Councils & synods |
| Summary: | Many traditional African societies have a rich social and spiritual heritage. The African palaver is the art of conversation, dialogue, and consensus-building in both decision-making and in decision-taking in society. African Christians should recover and bring it to the table in the current search for local and universal approaches to resolving conflicts, and healing the polarisation in our churches on questions of faith and morals, and maintaining a dynamic balance between tradition and innovation in the crisis of modernity in today's Church. The African palaver offers a good model of how a non-Western civilization, long before the current conversation in the Church on synodality, developed practices of listening, engaging, dialoguing, and discerning the truth about things, and the path for the future. Traditional African societies created a sacred space for creative dialogue in communal decision-making, where everyone's voice, concerns and insights were welcomed. A variant of the African palaver is in the Igbo ethnic group of West Africa. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0010-5236 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Concilium
|