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Christ is Mangi, ideal king analogically speaking from Chagga perspective

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Having concentrated on the Chagga people who live around Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the study contributes to the efforts of making the faithful truly Christian and truly African. It considers Christ´s Kingship and the Chagga concept of umangi and tries to bring out the ways in which this rich Chagga concept can help the Christians of Moshi Diocese to understand Christ´s Kingship. Hence the work is Christological in nature employing umangi category.
The Mangi Christology is technically referred to as Christology from below (which is a theological efforts to understand better Christ´s Divinity by first understanding his humanity) which is similar in many ways to the African cultural category of a King. Such a Christology leads to a profound Faith - hence a deep evangelization.
The study has realized the need for a deeper evangelization, with new methods and vigour of doing evangelization, coupled with the ever-present need for initial evangelization among those who have never heard of Christ and his message of salvation. With a rich background information about the Chagga people especially the understanding of the concept and nature of umangi, having had the knowledge of the history of umangi in Chaggaland, and significance of this concept among the Chagga people, the study moves deeper into a theological reflection, centred in Christian teachings on Christ´s Kingship and uses this as the light with which to purify the umangi concept and bring out the interrelationship between the two.
The study finally proposes that among the Chagga people, the concept of mangi is vital in helping the process of evangelization because; in this concept there are fundamental elements which explicate the Kingship of Christ and his teachings. This is ideal because there are a lot of rich elements in the African social, cultural and religious life, which should be inculcated into the process of spreading the Good News of the Kingdom of God. It is only in this way that the much needed evangelization, in all its categories, will be realized.

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Mafikiri, Severian
Priester in der Diozöse Moshi, Tansania

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