M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N
Converse
GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM
An Interview with Seblewengel Daniel
Dr. Seblewengel Daniel lives with her husband and three children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She earned her PhD from Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture in Ghana. She is now the director of East Africa Sending Office, SIM, and a part-time faculty member at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. She is also the author of Perception and Identity: A Study of the Relationship between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Evangelical Churches in Ethiopia (Carlisle, UK: Langham Press, 2019). Dr. Daniel, thank you for taking the time to talk with us here at Modern Reformation. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself, your research, and what you are working on? Thank you for having me. Please refer to me as Seble as we have no surnames in Ethiopia. My full name is Seblewengel; it is a compound name. In Amharic, Seble means “harvest of ” and Wengel means “gospel.” While she was expecting me, my mother used to teach the Bible to women in the rural areas around Durame, southern Ethiopia, and that is why she named me “harvest of the gospel.” I am married to Tamiru, and we have three children: Sebhat, Leul, and Bamlak. I served in the academy for two decades as a faculty member in systematic theology, practical theology, and I taught a few Ethiopian church history courses. My PhD research focused on the relationship between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which follows one of the most ancient Christian traditions, and evangelical churches. I also engage in research that focuses on women’s contributions and eliminating harmful traditional practices. In our January/February 2022 issue, we learned about Ethiopian church history from an Ethiopian theologian (Dr. Frew Tamrat). We learned about the prominence of doctrinal disagreements between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Evangelical churches surrounding Christ’s two natures and Marian veneration. Could you briefly characterize those two doctrinal disagreements and any others you would like to add? First of all, I think it is very important to understand that the tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) is different from that of evangelicals. We should also refrain from using collective terms in speaking of followers in the EOC.
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