To browse Academia. This dissertation is an ethnographic description of how pastors and other ministers in the Northern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania understand and carry out their ministry: How they reflect, mediate, and influence local Christian practice and identities; how theology and theologizing forms an integral part of their social worlds; and how navigating and maintaining relationships with Christian mission partnerships including "short-term mission" becomes an important part of their ministry.
Drawing from fieldwork conducted between June and September , I present an account of Christianity that adds to anthropological scholarship by emphasizing the role of theology as a grounded social practice, and considers the increasingly divergent character of Christian mission and its role in modern Tanzanian Christianity.
Additionally, I offer a contribution to existing scholarship on Christianity by focusing on pastors as a central mediating figure in Christianity, showing how, in their work, Christian practice, theology, and mission are experienced in social relationships.
I demonstrate how theology and theologizing directly address local negotiations of Christian identity and practice, I examine the articulation between theological debates and Tanzanian experiences of mission, and I describe how mission in Tanzania has been and continues to be contextually understood with reference to the local practice of Christianity.
Many people made this dissertation possible. I want to acknowledge first of all my late advisor Prof. George Bond. I hope he would have enjoyed reading this. Thanks to my cohort, and also to Daniel Souleles for his advice throughout the research and writing phases. Nawashukuru wote mlionisaidia wakati wa utafiti wangu.
