Browsing by Author "Joel Mpalanyi Musaasizi"

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    Jean Marc-Éla and Common Property Resources: An African Christian Perspective on Eco-Theology
    (Uganda Christian University, 2024-08-29) Joel Mpalanyi Musaasizi
    This dissertation explores an African eco-theology that encourages African Christians to work to promote ecological balance in their surroundings in order to fairly distribute the resources that are available. Uganda is home to a variety of ecosystems, including lakes, rivers, wetlands, forests, and rangÉlands. She is a significant country for the preservation of biodiversity worldwide as well as in Africa. However, a variety of factors, such as the conversion of natural habitats to agricultural land and infrastructure development, are contributing to the loss of biodiversity and irreversible degradation of the environment. Christians, those belonging to the Church of the Province of Uganda, are looking for ways in which their faith may provide constructive answers and practical ways forward. Jean-Marc Éla stands as a relevant and insightful resource for Christians asking these kinds of questions. The attitude towards nature advocated by Éla is liberational in its thrust, but also rooted in the traditions of the African peoples. The imported Judeo-Christian rationalism with which we approach ecological issues, should be cleansed with “a wash in the pond of Siloam” which is the culture of the African people. Peasants across the country who are excluded from benefiting from common property resources are prisoners of a system developed elsewhere for the interest of others. Their situation challenges our faith as Africans and the church can no longer pass by as people are threatened by the clutches of famine whose very appearance strangles the whole of life. We must rethink our Christianity if we are to respond adequately to the situation. Environmental action and eco-mission follows the stewardship motive but Éla proposes a liberative and prophetic motive that rejects any system which produces empty granaries. The study recommends that: the Church of the Province of Uganda rethinks her approach to ecological mission with a view to adopting Jean-marc Éla’s framework in environmental protection activity; that the COU environmental office intentionally works at developing robust eco-theological frameworks that recognize the need for the African Christian to write an alternative history to the past; and, that the Provincial environmental office and the Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology collaborate to establish a Ugandan platform that engages with important apologetic issues, holds periodic conversations on beneficial eco-theology work, and constructively profiles through case studies the actions, experiences, and motivations of Christians involved in Ugandan nature conservation and eco-mission projects.