The “Indigenizing” and “Pilgrim” Principles of Andrew F. Walls Reassessed from a South African Perspective

Abstract

The Christian historian and distinguished scholar of world Christianity Andrew F. Walls described the pendulum-like influences of both indigenizing and pilgrim principles that are inherent to the way the Christian gospel has interacted with human cultures throughout history. This article takes seriously Walls’s idea as a powerful theological tool for assessing the authenticity of contextual Christianities. It considers Walls’s concepts from the divergent perspectives of Afrikaner Reformed Christianity, and African Zionist Christianity in South Africa. It concludes that although still very useful as intellectual tools, the pilgrim and indigenizing principles should not really be considered as opposing poles given the living realities of contemporary, migrant, world Christianities, of which African Zionist Christianity functions as a good example.