Ralph Aghan
PhD student
Current situation
I am a minister in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, in Cape Town – South Africa, where I serve as Superintendent.
Since my candidature year (2003), I have served in various churches and leadership positions in the church and held the position of Mission Co-ordinator for 10 years in my local district.
Research Area
Rediscovering the Public Witness of the church in a Wesleyan Tradition: An Examination of the “inherent public character” of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in post-pandemic Cape Town (Cape of Good Hope District).
The impact of Covid-19 exposed the dark reality of poverty and inequality amongst the vulnerable groups that are at the brunt of the crisis. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) mobilized its people to become vessels of hope and justice against inequality but realized that there was little historical precedence on how to navigate the effects of the pandemic (Vilakati & Bentley, 2021).
The research will focus on the interplay between the public witness of the church as “inherent public character” (Smit 2017), poverty, and inequality, and expose how high levels of inequality often lead to economic instability. The discussion of the social and anthropological effects of understanding the diversity of human experiences and social structures. Furthermore, this study further seeks to investigate how can a Wesleyan theology of public witness about contemporary humanitarian and natural disasters, develop a theological framework to address contemporary disasters.
Publications
MA Thesis: Discovering the African Pot: Evangelism and Church Growth in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (2016)
Supervisory team
