Discussions after Matins

Since reading the novels of Andre Brink I have wanted to visit South Africa. The desire has grown as I have followed the course of events in this country over the last 25 years. My curiosity about the political and social changes that have occurred has also aroused my interest in discovering how the Lutheran church has adapted to its changing context here since the end of apartheid.

So when Dr Weber asked me to come to teach at the Lutheran Seminary in Tshwane and I discovered that the seminary drew on students from many different Lutheran churches in Sub-Sahara Africa, I had no hesitation in accepting his invitation. This was made easier for me by my retirement in 2010 from full time teaching at the Australian Lutheran College, formerly called Luther Seminary, in Adelaide, South Australia.

Since 1982 I have been training pastors there for ordination by teaching courses on introduction to the Bible, the Psalms, wisdom in the Old Testament, the theology of the Old Testament, liturgics, preaching, and Lutheran spirituality. You can see from this that while I teach in many different areas, my main expertise is in the Old Testament. That’s what I have studied in my post-graduate work at the University of Cambridge in England. For my master’s degree I submitted a thesis on the getting of wisdom in Proverbs; for my doctorate I wrote a published dissertation on the basis, function and significance of choral music in Chronicles. I have also written a commentary on Leviticus and book on Lutheran Spirituality called Grace Upon Grace.

Here in Pretoria I have been teaching two intensive courses, the first over two weeks on the Psalms and the second over one week on Lutheran spirituality. This has been most enjoyable for me, because, as we have studied these topics, we have, from the questions of the students, also covered many practical topics such as spiritual warfare, ancestral spirits, the purpose of praising God, the Lutheran theology of worship, and providing pastoral care for African people in many different situations.

One of my passionate interests is the cross-cultural communication of the gospel with a concern for evangelising and teaching people from animist societies, such as the Aborigines in Australia as well as tribal people in New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and India. From my own experience I have discovered how God’s word seems to transcend the barriers of language and custom and culture. So I have been eager to discover how the gospel has been taught and received by various tribal groups here in Africa.

There is so much that I have learnt so far in the short time that I have been here. Two things have struck me most in my exposure to African Lutherans here at the seminary and in the few congregations that I have visited. The first is the wonderful African way of singing and praising God. With that goes a sense of rhythm and bodily movement that I have never seen anywhere else. The other is the challenge to the Lutheran church from various Pentecostal churches that put more emphasis on what we do and bring to God in worship than on what the triune God does for us and gives to us through his word.

Many scholars who study the mission of the church around the world, claim that within the next century the church will, most likely, be strongest in Africa. I do know if that will happen. But I am grateful to see for myself just a little of what is happening in this wonderful continent.

Prof. Dr. John Kleinig [Australia]