Christ and Ancestors in the Malagasy Context

The question of Christology has always been a fascinating subject in the history of doctrine. As an African, I can say that sometime, our understanding of Jesus remains only like a “fideistic image of the Christian life, one whose primary dynamic is faith, understood as believing certain things about Jesus to be true…” as Marcus Borg described in his book “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time”. In addition, the image of Christ that the missionaries brought and taught to Africa was wrapped with their own westerners covers and understanding that we feel the foreignness of Christ from our culture and understanding. Marcus Borg tries to show an unusual or unexpected trait of Christology than the classical connotation, from his personal testimony. He denotes a change in the way he perceived Christology; from an image of Christ being out there to an image of Christ being the holy mystery around us and within us . That is the reason why I think that Borg’s testimony and experiences could be put in relation to the African, Malagasy people experiences on how they perceived Christ from the Christ’s image that the missionaries brought to them and the Christ’s image they perceive themselves through their own experiences and culture.