An Analysis of Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace and Its Relevance to the Anglican Church in Tanzania

Abstract

This dissertation explores the theology of grace of Augustine of Hippo and its theological and pastoral implications to the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) specifically with reference to the Victoria Nyanza Diocese. The theology of grace of Augustine with its strong emphasis on human dependence on God’s initiative in salvation has had a profound impact on Western christianity, including Anglican confessional formulations. The dissertation looks at the reception, interpretation, and practice of the doctrine in the Tanzanian Anglican context, within theological education, liturgical life, pastoral ministry, and engagement with contemporary issues. Through qualitative, library-based research methodology, the study applies historical, doctrinal, comparative, and contextual theological methods. The principal theological sources are Augustine's Confessions and The City of God, Anglican doctrinal sources such as the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and Richard Hooker’s Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The study also engages the African theological materials, in the writings of John Mbiti and Kwame Bediako, to examine the reaction of African spirituality and communal ethics towards Augustinian grace. Research from church archives includes church synod minutes, packages for theological training, and liturgical texts that offer evidence on how Augustine’s theology of grace has been responded to in the past and in practice in ACT teachings. The dissertation places in center stage the prominence of grace within Tanzanian Anglican theology, that is to say, within salvation, sacramental life, and moral renewal. Differences emerge, however, between classical Anglican, charismatic, and African contextual conceptions of grace. Theological challenges like legalism, prosperity gospel, and syncretism are also addressed in the study, and proposals about how theological purity and contextual theological imagination might find balance are proffered. This dissertation enriches Anglican pastoral practice, African Christian theology, and education in Anglican theology and demonstrates how Augustinian grace is a life giving and shaping doctrine to Tanzanian Anglicans since it speaks to spirituality, social justice, and disciple-making.