Byang kato biography

Byang Kato, “Black Theology and African Theology,” Evangelical Review of Theology 1 (October 1977): 45.

Kato, African Cultural Revolution, pp. Press, 1986), p. ** In this connection Kato’s swift acceptance of the notion of contextualization was particularly significant.

22-24.

John S. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Nairobi: Oxford Univ. “Evangelical Theology in Africa: Byang Kato’s Legacy.” Trinity Journal, n.s., 1 (1980): 84-87.

——–. . His principal concern was to insist on the radical discontinuity between the Gospel and African traditional religions-or indeed any non- Christian religion-in response to approaches that suggested an essential continuity between them.

As a symbol of my sincerity, I took off my shirt and laid it alongside the other gifts. 62. A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker; Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 2000), p. Kato thus insists that we face the fundamental choice: “Must one betray Scriptural principles of God and His dealing with man at the altar of any regional theology?”[24] In this sense, then, Kato certainly held the Gospel to be acultural; his position, however, does not negate the need for suitable cultural articulations of it.

From this perspective Kato’s role was the prophetic one of confronting a theological trend that in his view threatened the future of vital Christianity in Africa. A. Scott Moreau, pp. Kato further believed that a biblical understanding of the Gospel entailed an exclusivist approach toward other religions. It was here that there had to be a radical break with traditional belief, in favor, not of Western theology, but of the Gospel itself.

In 1973 he was appointed general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (AEAM, now the Association of Evangelicals of Africa), the second incumbent of that position and the first African to hold it. . He also hoped to see the establishment of an evangelical theological journal for the whole of Africa and an association of evangelical theologians.

His literary output was modest, comprising a number of articles, one or two pamphlets, and Theological Pitfalls in Africa, which is the published version of his doctoral thesis. 12-16.

1975 “Evangelism Opportunities and Obstacles in Africa.” In Let the Earth Hear His Voice, ed. None of this was the vision of a man wedded to a Western agenda and indifferent or opposed to a distinctively African theology.

Finally, less visible perhaps than the establishment of such institutions but no less significant-and still remembered fondly by many-was the warm personal encouragement and help he gave to aspiring younger African theologians, passing on his vision for the growth to theological maturity of the African church.

Minneapolis: World Wide Publications.

1975 “The Gospel, Cultural Context, and Religious Syncretism.” In Let the Earth Hear His Voice, ed. Bowers refers to its “angularity” and “limitations,” noting that “the analysis is not always accurate, the polemic not always just, the demonstration not always persuasive, the organization not always clear.”[8] Such criticisms do not of themselves negate the essential validity of Kato’s case.