Francisca Chimhanda

An Incarnational Narrative Christology of Shona Women of Zimbabwe: Shona Women's Incarnational Narrative Christology Francisca Chimhanda

In a Shona women's Incarnational narrative Christology, the Incarnation is also understood as a lived reality. God in Christ is the God who is present and acts in human history and in the contemporaneity and particularity of our being. Shona women pattern their lives on the meta-story - the life of Christ as found in the Gospel. They are given a forum to appropriate their creation and baptismal dignity and vocation in a patriarchal church and society. The theanthropocosmic Christology that emerges captures the Shona holistic world-view that involves the head, gut, womb and heart underlined by the circle symbolism that is further affirmed by the Shona hut kitchen. The latter as woman space is the acme of Shona hospitality and thus God becomes all in all. At the interface of gender, ethnicity, class and creed, God in Christ transcends human limitedness and artificial boundaries in creating catholic space and advocating all-embracing apostolic action. In a hermeneutic of engagement and suspicion, prophetic witness becomes the hallmark of Christian discipleship and of a Christology that culminates in liberative praxis.