Unnoticed and unloved : the indigenous storyteller and public theology in a postcolonial age

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dc.contributor.author Wimberly, Edward Powell, 1943-
dc.date.accessioned 2012-05-28T06:40:18Z
dc.date.available 2012-05-28T06:40:18Z
dc.date.issued 2011-12-12
dc.description.abstract The purpose of this paper was to present a commentary on my longstanding practice, as an African-American pastoral theologian, of utilising the ethnographic qualitative research approach centring on Black masculinity and violence. My goal was to comment on what I experienced, learned, practiced and published about violence as an African-American man who happens to be a pastor, pastoral counsellor, licensed marriage and family therapist, and teacher of pastoral care and counselling for over 40 years. My method of data collection for my research and writing has been ethnographic listening to the stories of African-Americans within families and small groups, and in churches, workshops and classrooms. There is a major limitation to this approach because ethnographic research is socially and culturally located and confined to the United States of America and to the African community. Yet, my published reflections as a pastoral theologian on violence over the years were presented to stimulate conversation and discussions in the cross-cultural contexts of students, faculty and interested publics within seminaries universities and churches, particularly in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia where I have lectured and taught. Violence in this paper was understood as being adversarial, behavioural, physical, verbal and nonverbal, exploitive and combative reactions to very powerful economic and socio-cultural values which exist globally. These values recruit and reduce all human beings from all social strata into commodity-orientated and commercialised economic definitions of human worth. Human identity and dignity are defined exclusively by the possession of wealth, social status, privileged position, power and prestige. Those who lack such so-called honourable designations and characteristics are deemed worthless, invisible and unlovable. To be poor in this orientation means to be completely worthless and valueless. Therefore, the paper proposed an indigenous narrative storytelling model which could be used to orientate people publicly to the appropriate source of human worth and dignity. en
dc.description.librarian nf2012 en
dc.description.uri http://www.ve.org.za en_US
dc.identifier.citation Wimberly, E.P., 2011, ‘Unnoticed and unloved: The indigenous storyteller and public theology in a postcolonial age’, Verbum et Ecclesia 32(2), Art. #506, 9 pages. http://dx.DOI. org/10.4102/ve.v32i2.506 en
dc.identifier.issn 1609-9982
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/18929
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher OpenJournals Publishing en_US
dc.rights © 2011. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Masculinity -- Religious aspects en
dc.subject.lcsh Violence -- Moral and ethical aspects en
dc.subject.lcsh Church work with African Americans en
dc.subject.lcsh Indigenous peoples -- Legal status, laws, etc. en
dc.subject.lcsh Storytelling -- Religious aspects en
dc.subject.lcsh Public theology en
dc.subject.lcsh Postcolonial theology en
dc.subject.lcsh Dignity -- Religious aspects en
dc.title Unnoticed and unloved : the indigenous storyteller and public theology in a postcolonial age en
dc.type Article en


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