Faith, Work, and Economics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 59, No. 2 - Spring 2017
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
The Church: God’s Pilgrim People. By David Zac Niringiye. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015. viii + 200 pages. Paperback, $24.00.
David Zac Niringiye (Ph.D. Edinburgh) is an African theologian and churchman. Born and raised in Uganda, Niringiye later became a bishop in the diocese of the Anglican Church of Uganda. With a passion for theology along with social activism, Niringiye has been involved in issues like the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Niringiye now serves as a fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Uganda Christian University.
From the outset of The Church, Niringiye sets his ecclesiology within his Ugandan context. Niringiye demonstrates that the church in Uganda is fractured, with churches from all denominations in close proximity to one another yet with little cooperation. This situation leads Niringiye to ask this guiding question: “Who, then is the church? What distinguishes and authenticates a particular community as the ‘people of God?’” (6). While many groups in Uganda, and the world for that matter, might be classified as a church, Niringiye seeks to define who the church is in order to differentiate between true and false churches.
Niringiye begins The Church by reminding his readers that all churches claim their authenticity through two primary elements: Jesus and the Bible, two elements which converge in one story, humanity’s story (28). Because story is the organizing theme in Niringiye’s ecclesiology, he chooses to utilize narrative as his methodology, retelling the one story of the people of God.
For Niringiye, the story begins in Genesis with the creation of humanity. From there, Niringiye retells the story of Abraham’s call, the Exodus, and God’s covenant with Israel. From these stages of the story, one point becomes abundantly clear: God desires to covenant with his people. From this stage of the story, Niringiye highlights the motifs of gathering and pilgrimage, noting that the people of God were and are “‘being and becoming’ the people of God” (55). The story continues with the retelling of the monarchy and exile of Israel. If the people of God had gained their identity with the Exodus and entrance into the Promised Land, they lost their identity through their request for kings and their ultimate exile. Niringiye notes that as Israel desired to be like the surrounding nations, they were losing their corporate consciousness as the people of God, on a pilgrimage with a purpose” (66). While they had lost their identity, in exile, a promise emerged of a new covenant forming a renewed community through a suffering servant.
Beginning with chapter four, Niringiye enters the New Testament. He writes, “The foundation of the New Testament is that the hope of the faith of ancient Israel was fulfilled in Jesus” (87). Most importantly, Jesus is the one who inaugurates the Kingdom of God and the church is to be the community of this Kingdom. While this new community began with the twelve apostles, the community expanded at Pentecost. This new community would be a community of love where both Jew and Gentile were to co-exist. Such community was and is only possible through the Holy Spirit. Today, as the church continues to develop and redevelop a mission strategy, the church “must first and foremost be about listening to the Holy Spirit to discover what he is doing, and then in obedience following” (144).
Niringiye continues by looking at the stories of four churches in Acts: (1) Antioch, (2) Philippi, (3) Corinth, and (4) Ephesus. Niringiye notes that these churches “serve as a mirror for us as communities of followers of Jesus in the twenty-first-century globalized world” (171). These churches demonstrate that “what matters most in exemplifying Spirit-filled communities is not what characterizes many that we call churches of Christ today” (171). Niringiye concludes The Church by suggesting that faith, hope, and love do and should characterize the people of God (176). Returning to the central motif of pilgrimage, Niringiye concludes The Church by reminding his readers that “‘becoming church’ is authenticated by ‘being pilgrim people’” (198).
While more non-white and non-Western theologians are writing theology, the need for more diversity in theology today cannot be underestimated. Thus David Zac Niringiye’s The Church is a welcome addition to theology in general and ecclesiology in particular. He provides white, western readers with a look into ecclesiology from the perspective of an African theologian and churchman, a perspective many have not seen nor experienced.
Niringiye’s narrative methodology is refreshing in that it is thoroughly biblical, biblical in that he utilizes the Christian Scriptures and in that he traces the metanarrative found from Genesis to Revelation. He does an excellent job in interpreting the text as well as developing a biblical theology that speaks to ecclesiology. While some might find issue with the continuity he finds between the Old and New Testaments, he also righty recognizes the discontinuity that exists. While strength lies in his narrative methodology, it also seems to be a methodology that is overplayed. Many in the biblical and theological studies have recently emphasized the biblical metanarrative and therefore Niringiye seems to be offering an ecclesiological picture many have already seen.
Still, Niringiye’s central motifs of pilgrimage and gathering—being and becoming—prove to be beneficial and useful. Ecclesiologists of all Christian traditions could learn much by studying and seeing their church through the lenses of pilgrimage and gathering. For that, Niringiye’s The Church is a valuable addition to the study of the church.
