Team

Between 2020-2022, G_NET will use pilot co-operation projects to lay the foundations of a sustainable research initiative for ongoing collaborative research. The initial network of partners is comprised of scholars and practitioners from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA.

G_NET Network

Advancing theological research through partnerships built around mutuality and cooperation.

Network

Prof. Dr. Rose Mary Amenga-Etego (Ghana) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Head of Department in the Department for the Study of Religions, University of Ghana, Legon. She has also been Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Theology and Religion (RITR), University of South Africa. Her current research interest includes African Indigenous Religions, Gender Issues in Religion and African Culture, Religions and Development, African Sexuality, and methodological concerns of indigenous African scholars. Amenga-Etego is the current Ghana Representative of the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) and past Anglophone coordinator of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.

Dr. Philipp Andrew Davis, Jr. is research associate in New Testament at the Protestant Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn and holds a Dr. theol. in New Testament from the University of Münster. In addition to teaching at the University of Bonn, he has also taught classes at Loyola Marimount University. He is an Argelander StarterKit Postdoc Grant recipient, and he currently runs synoptichub.com, a site publishing exegetical research data. He is also co-editor of the Bonner Exegetisches Lexikon.

Dr. Andrew D. DeCort (Ethiopia) directs the Institute for Faith and Flourishing, works with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ethiopia, and has partnered with the US Embassy on many citizenship-forming initiatives across Ethiopia. He also currently leads the “Balinjeraye” (“Friend”) Neighbor Love movement, which organizes schoolings, cultural events, and publishes books and video courses on interreligious solidarity with neighbors. He holds a PhD in Religious and Political Ethics from the University of Chicago. He has served as a lecturer in ethics at Wheaton College (USA), the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (Ethiopia), and the University of Bonn (Germany). 

Prof. Dr. Yaser Ellethy (Egypt/Netherlands) is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and head of the Centre for Islamic Theology at the Faculty of Religion and Theology – VU Amsterdam. He holds a PhD in Islamic Theology. He also holds a PhD in Philology. His research focuses mainly on the exegesis tradition and the hermeneutics of Islamic source texts, diachronic development of Islamic thought, Islam in the western context and Islam, democracy and pluralism.

Prof. Dr. C. I. David Joy (India) is the principal of Kerala Theological Seminary in Trivandrum. He was formerly professor of New Testament at the United Theological College, Bangalore. He is an editor for the International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, a board member of the Journal for Postcolonial Theologies and Theories, published by Postcolonial Network, Sophist Press, USA, and an editorial board members of SOMA, a journal published by St. John’s University of Tanzania. He is also a member of the editorial board of “International Voices for Biblical Studies” of the Society of Biblical Literature. 

Dr. Matthew Ryan Robinson is research associate in Practical Theology in the Protestant Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn, where he specializes in Intercultural Theology, Ecumenical Studies, and Religious Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Northwestern University (USA). In addition to organizing G_NET, he leads the “What Does Theology Do, Actually?” project and edits the book series connected to it.  


 G_NET Researchers

Lani Anaya

Lani Anaya is a Masters Student in the Bonn MESt and a research associate in the EXTRa program, working in Action Area "Social Response-abilities", Problem Fields "Social Upheaval" and "Cultural Heritage". 

Ms. Anaya is a Mexican practice-based research expert in peace and development. She holds a BA in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Lani holds an MSc. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University, graduate studies at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey from the WCC. She is currently studying the Master of Ecumenical Studies at Bonn. 

Lani has done research and fieldwork for projects related to the 2030 Agenda, youth and peace, child reintegration, human rights, migration, and ecumenism with local and international organizations (e.g. the UN, the AU, and the WB). She is a member of the Methodist Church of Mexico, the  Mexican Council for International Relations, MY World Mexico, and the Latin American youth and peace network Juventudes por la Paz. She is a columnist and commentator for Mexican local media. 

Contact: lanayaji@uni-bonn.de

Lani Anaya
© Lani Anaya
Johannes Fröh
© Johannes Fröh

Johannes Fröh

Johannes Fröh is a researcher in the "Transcultural Semantics of Resilience" project funded by the VW Stiftung. He recently completed his Masters thesis within the framework of this project and is continuing as a doctoral researcher. The work applies empirical research methods (specifically, data scientific) to theological research questions, combining practical and systematic theological approaches in order to analyze the communication of Christian self-understandings on twitter in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contact: johannes.froeh@uni-bonn.de

Elorm Nick Ahialey-Mawusi 

Elorm Nick Ahialey-Mawusi is a doctoral student in the department of Practical Theology of the Protestant Faculty at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn.

He received his MA in Extended Ecumenical Studies (MEESt) at the University of Bonn with a thesis on post-migration churches of African backgrounds as a new ecclesial development in Germany. He holds a BA in Mission Studies and International Diakonia from the Fachhochschule für Interkulturelle Theologie, Hermannsburg; and a ‘Diplom der Missionsakademie’ from the Academy of Mission at the University of Hamburg. 

Nick is the leading pastor of the Living Generation Church in Hamburg, and the director of Center of Theological and Ministerial Formation-Germany (CTMF-G).

Nick’s research focuses on the purposes and the methods of doing theology in post-migration churches of African backgrounds, specifically among the second-generation of churches with migration backgrounds. He is interested in researching how the self-understanding of these churches as Christian, as African and as German European is mediated among second-generation individuals of African backgrounds. This complex transcultural experience encoded in a focused way in theological (religious) practices and communications will be explored with a focus on theological practices and communications.

Contact: s2elahia@uni-bonn.de

Nick Mawusi
© Elorm Nick Ahialey-Mawusi
Ikenna Okpaleke
© Dr. Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke

Dr. Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke

Dr. Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke is a post-doctoral researcher working in Action Area 3 (Social Response-abilities), Problem Field 1-3 (Social Upheaval) on a project titled "The Legitimacy of Dissent? Democracy and Ecclesiology in Dialogue". Dr. Okpaleke holds a PhD and two Masters degrees from the KU Leuven. He has published numerous journal articles on topics in ecumenical theology, African theologies, and spirituality. 

Project Abstract: On the one hand, the functioning of any democratic society demands the pressure provided by legitimate dissent. The active presence of opposition political groups, the constitutionality of protests and civil disobedience and other forms of dissension attest to its importance. Constitutionality, however, does not imply outright tolerance of dissent within many democratic settings, since the defects of democracies invariably frustrate the acceptability of dissent as a democratic practice.  On the other hand, a Roman Catholic ecclesiology that emphasizes unity (Mayer, 2013) grapples with consequences of a mismanaged dissent, whereby dissent is not constitutively necessary for the identity of the church, but emerges as an inevitable outcome of its internal diversity. Hence, while schisms, sanctions, and excommunications have often been the legitimate responses to apostacies and heresies within the Roman Catholic Church (RCC; Code of Canon Law, 1983:Book VI), the RCC regards all human beings as children of God. To this end the RCC has strongly advocated for “receptive” and “listening” models of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Can the democratic space with its constitutional validation of dissent provide an opportunity for a Catholic learning? Conversely, can the emerging models of addressing dissent in the RCC help in addressing the intolerance of constitutional dissent in democratic settings? These questions will be investigated by means of (1) a descriptive combination of historical and ethnographic researches on specific cases of democratic and ecclesiological dissent, namely, the Occupy Nigeria movement and the “burden of Liberation Theology”, and (2 by constructively cross-applying democratic and ecclesiological tools for processing dissent and legitimacy. 


Contact

Avatar Robinson

Dr. Matthew Ryan Robinson

Coordinator

R 3.007

Am Hofgarten 8

53113 Bonn

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G_NET pursues excellence through community and co-operation.

If you are interested in a project co-operation, in a research visit, or just in learning more about research on religion, intercultural theology, and transcultural issues in Bonn, please contact: gnet@uni-bonn.de

See also

G_NET

Global Network for Excellence in Theology (G_NET) in Bonn.

Projects

Various projects are being worked on within G_NET.

Events

Find out about the events organized as part of the project.

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