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Elochukwu Uzukwu, Th.D.Associate ProfessorPierre Schouver, C.S.Sp., Endowed Chair in MissionEDUCATION ThD, University of St Michael’s College, University of Toronto (1979);MTh, University of St Michael’s College, University of Toronto (1976); S.T.B. Urban University Rome; Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu, Nigeria (1972). CV [Word] CONTACT INFORMATION |
RESEARCH, PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICE
Dr. Uzukwu’s research interests are in the areas of liturgy-sacraments, ritual studies, ecclesiology, missiology, and contextual theology with particular focus on continental Africa and Africa in the diaspora. For the past number of years he has been working on the viability for Christian theology of the West African insight into God-Spirit practiced in African Traditional Religion and various versions of Christianity that characterize the region. The research results have been accepted for publication and will soon appear in the book God, Spirit, and Human Wholeness: Appropriating Faith and Culture in West African Style.
His most recent research project focuses on ritology: its performative dimensions, its uses and abuses in the wars that plague the African continent—especially ritual technology in the initiation of child soldiers (2008); the performative dimension of ritual and Pauline interpretation of life as liturgy and koinonia as worship-sacrifice (2009). He is currently working on a book that is probing the insight of the 1994 African Synod of Bishops on Church-Family-of-God rooted in the Trinitarian Family: “Church Family of God”―Africa’s Treasure, Reinventing Christianity and the World.
Dr. Uzukwu is the Editor of the Bulletin of Ecumenical Theology, a journal published by the Ecumenical Association of Nigerian Theologians.
Dr Uzukwu is frequently invited to present papers, give workshops and participate in conferences in Europe, Africa, and USA. Recently, he gave workshop for missionaries in Ethiopia: "Mission and first Evangelisation, Inculturation Challenges: Dialogue, Ecumenism, ATR, Islam” (Conference of Major Religious Superiors Workshop, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 23-25 October 2008).
Select publications:
Liturgy, Truly Christian Truly African (Eldoret: Gaba Publications, 1982);
Father Uzukwu details how patterns of African ritual assemblies and sacred narratives have merged with Jewish, Gospel, and early Church traditions to create living Christian communities and liturgies. This book throws new light on liturgical action and theology using a socio-historical method. It suggests the use of more transition rituals, and it provides samples of emergent African Christian liturgies that emphasize intense community participation with appropriate gestures.
A Listening Church: Autonomy and Communion in African Churches, (Maryknoll, New York, Orbis, 1996).
Articles and Book Sections:
“Body and Belief: Exploration in African Ritology – the Magic of Body Language,” Jaarboek voor liturgie-onderzoek 24 (2008):199-218;
“Afrikas Zeichen der Zeit,” in Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil und die Zeichen der Zeit heute (ed. Peter Hünermann; Freiburg / Basel/ Vienna: Herder, 2006), 207-225.
“West African Religious Universe Engaging the Jewish Christian Universe: Entertaining Views About God,” in Faithful Witnesses – Glimpses of the Kingdom. Essays in Honour of M. Anthony Geoghegan cssp and Vincent MacNamara sps (ed. Joe Egan & Brendan McConvery; Dublin: Department of Mission Theology and Cultures, Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, 2005), 158-171;
“La Liturgie et les rites sacramentels dans l’Église Africaine,” in L’Avenir de l’Activité missionnaire « Ad Gentes » Perspectives pour le XX1ème Siècle. Actes du Congres International de Missiologie « Tertio Millennio » (Kinshasa : 11-17 juillet 2004), (ed. Mgr Tharcisse T. Tshibangu; Kinshasa : Médiaspaul, 2005),189-196.
“Bible and Christian Worship in Africa. African Christianity and the Labour of Contextualization,” Chakana 1 (2004): 7-32.
“L’inculturation et l’enseignement de la Théologie: un point de vue africain,” in La responsabilité des théologiens: Mélanges offerts à Joseph Doré (ed. François Bousquet et al.; Paris : Desclée, 2002), 265-272.
“Food and Drink in Africa and the Christian Eucharist: An Inquiry into the Use of African Symbols in the Eucharistic Celebration,” Bulletin of African Theology (BAT) II / 4 (1980):171-187; African Ecclesial Review 22 (1980): 370-385, 398.
