Africa's urban explosion presents a clear challenge to the way theological education in Africa is done today. The backdrop of this article is a collaborative research project that involved 15 theological institutions across the African continent, contemplating what theological education and formation should look like, considering Africa's current and future urban realities. It proposes paradigmatic shifts in theological education, grounded in thorough conceptual and hermeneutical self-critique. It explores various approaches to urbanising theological curricula and concludes with a call for a new kind of African urban apostolate. 1 Stephan de Beer is Director of the Centre for Faith and Community and Associate Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Pretoria. This article forms part of a special collection titled ‚Urban Africa 2050: imagining theological education/formation for flourishing African cities'. The collection captures the outcomes of a research project with the same title, hosted in the Centre for Faith and Community at the University of Pretoria. This research project was funded by the Nagel Institute for World Christianity, based at the Calvin University, Grand Rapids.Stephan de Beer Missionalia 48-3 DeBeer article, and -as part of a broader collective of research contributions to reimagining urban theological education in the African city -hopes to stimulate more deliberate reflection on how the city presents not only a challenge to ho we do theological education, but also how the city as locale could provide the epistemic catalyst for liberating and transforming theological education.
Africa's urban explosionThe African continent has entered its urban century. Being slowest to urbanise, historically, projections are that Africa's rate of urbanisation is now surpassing that of other continents, including Latin America and Asia. Estimates are that Africa would have 1,2 billion urban dwellers by 2050, compared to the current urban population of 414 million people (Parnell & Pieterse, 2014).The City of Kinshasa will grow from an already staggering 13 million people in 2019, to be among the seven biggest cities in the world by 2035, with an estimated 26 million people (Thornton, 2019). With its current socio-economic, physical, and institutional infrastructure, the city is hardly able to cope. With such growth estimates, it almost sounds like a horrific sci-fi movie.Cities like Bangui in Central African Republic, Brazzaville in the Congo, and Khartoum in Sudan, count among the 10 cities in the world with the lowest quality of life -in terms of poverty, violence, political security and access to socioeconomic and health infrastructure -with little prospect of hopeful change any time soon, and almost no infrastructure able to manage these cities into the future (cf. Brinded, 2016).The Gauteng City-Region, arguably the wealthiest metropolitan area on the African continent, including Johannesburg, Pretoria/Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, and smaller municipalities, grew from about 8 million people in 200...
