Lenses on spirituality and being church; the road ahead for the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA)

摘要

At this point of time the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa(NRCA) is facing the seemingly unsolvable dilemma of not being able to handle diversity in apositive manner. By applying three lenses to the current impasse with regards to the church’sstruggle with diversity, this article aims at providing an answer to the question of how toproceed. The first lens addresses the challenge to maintain spiritual health and harmonyin the midst of differences and tension in the church. The theory behind systems sensitiveleadership as lens serves as the guideline to achieve the necessary spiritual health that thechurch needs in such challenging times. The second lens explores the inner Christian spiritualpath in a both developmental and comprehensive way. Drawing on the work of Paul Smiththis lens sets forth the developmental framework by which Christians grow inwardly in theirunderstanding of Jesus and his teachings. The third lens is a view on a practice whereby thevalidity of intellectual positions, statements, or ideologies could be appraised as an innatequality in any subject. This lens opens a unique perspective which provides not only a newunderstanding of humanity’s journey in the universe, but also serves as a guide to were weand the whole cosmos are on our personal journeys to become who we could be. The visionthat is provided by these three lenses has the capacity not only to serve as guidelines, but alsoto provide the tools to handle the challenges the church has to face on the road a head.