The Hermannsburg Mission Society (HMS) missionaries who
were first sent in the mid-1850s by Louis Harms from
Hermannsburg were revived in confessional Lutheranism.
Their independent foundations were disturbed when the Kingdom
of Hannover was cemented into the Kingdom of Prussia
that insisted that the HMS was to abide by the rules that
governed the united state church in Prussia and Hannover in
1866. Ever since, a small number of Lutherans have maintained
their adherence to the Lutheran Reformation confessions
despite the global call for ecumenism, open opposition to state
injustices, women ordination and opposition to duplication of
institutions. This article intends to show how fragile in Africa
the confessional Lutheran identity is today. The challenges
facing the African Lutheran confessionalism in seminaries are
manifold. For instance there is increased global Christian
cooperation, dwindling financial support for Third World
countries and a free expression of African religious identity.
Citation:Ntsimane, R. 2010,'The fragile identity of being Lutheran and African : the vulnerability of confessional Lutheran seminaries in Africa today',Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, vol. XXXVI, no. 2, p. 219-235.
Items in UNISA Institutional Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Items may only be viewed and downloaded for private research and study purposes. Please acknowledge publications according to acceptable standards and norms.
