A Selected Yoruba Christological Titles among the Aladura Churches: An Insight into African Perception of Christ

Abstract

Christology is about Jesus Christ as God’s ultimate revelation to the world. It is an attempt aimed at arriving at the significance of Christ for faith and practice. A proper understanding of this ultimate revelation is the heart of Christian theology. The way one conceptualizes God and expresses his Christianity indicates whether such person has a rightknowledge of the person of Christ or not. In the attempt to contextualize Christology, African Indigenous Churches have employed various local concepts to explain the meaning and significance of the advent and works of Christ. This study looks into some selected Yoruba Christological titles mostly used for Christ among the Aladura Churches. The study is limited to the Aladura Churches, one of the African Indigenous Churches that uses the Yoruba language as a means of communication in her worship. The movement titling approach is an example of one of the ways that Africans contextualize Christology. The significance of Aladura Christological titles includes the fact that it helps to mirror the perception of Christ among the Yoruba Christian communities and howAladura Christology is substantially adding its Yoruba values to the beauty of Christianity. These Christ’s titles also show that the African Indigenous Churches give the Bible a place of priority in their spontaneous theology as those titles that can undermine the uniqueness of Christ are not used for Him. Although there is an abundance of titles and names that the Christians in Yoruba land have for Jesus, yet, all these titles could not say all that needs to be known of and about Jesus Christ about His character, mission and office in the African context. Therefore whatever the titles the Yoruba give to Christ is totally the creation of the Yoruba Christian community, based on their appraisal and perception of Jesus. Nevertheless, the Yoruba Christian Community Christology offers a viable opportunity for the development and enrichment of theological studies in Africa.