It was Gudina Tumsa’s vision to develop an African theology that contextualized the gospel for African nations, in political, cultural and economic aspects of life. Gudina writes on multiple occasions about an indeginous understanding of the Gospel, one example of this is, “In our case, theology must grow out of concrete daily experiences, from our dealing with ordinary affairs of life as we experience them in our situation, economic life, in our political experience and in our social practice.” (Witness and Discipleship Pg.69).
He understood that the Gospel has one message but not one context everywhere it goes. It is the churches along with theologians responsibility to develop a context for the word of God that fits the people it is being preached to. He advocated for a contextual gospel especially in reference to culture, language and the social lives of people, this is because it creates a sense of meaning and familiarity with the people that it is being preached to. This is seen when he wirtes,
“Contextual theology is making the message of the Gospel of the Risen Lord meaningful and relevant to our life situation, economic life, political life and social life as a whole.” (Witness and Discipleship Pg.69).
An example of Gudina pushing for the contextualization of the Gospel can be seen in his writings about Ethiopia and Africa. Gudina accredits church growth in Ethiopia to the translation of the Bible into indeginous dialects, “It would be unfair not to mention the role the vernacular have played in contributing to church growth in Ethiopia.” (Witness and Discipleship Pg.137).
Gudina understood the main way of contextualization was the language that the Gospel reached the people in. This idea he may have gotten from Martin Luther, who broke the Catholic’s church rule and translated the Bible into the German language. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church applied the same principle as the Roman Catholic Church; they only ministered in one language and many of the early evangelical churches took the same apporach. All of this led to Gudina fighting for the Gospel to reach people in their own tongue. Gudina understood that language was the first and most important step to contextualizing the Gospel, so that it has a personal value to the reader.
Another part of Gudina’s African theological understanding came for his understanding of the division between Western and African values of life. In multiple of his writings Gudina can be seen discussing how Western ideas cannot and will not apply in Africa. As the political, economic and social structures of life are far too different from one another, When addressing the Lutheran World Federation Gudina said, “We would like to call attention to the traditional African concept of life and the Western concept, which has created a credibility gap between the recipient churches in Africa and the supporting and donor agencies in the West.” (Witness and Discipleship Pg.123).
Gudina Tumsa’s various writings on the division between Western and African life shows two things. Firstly, the Gospel is not a generalization rather a specialization and that Gudina Tumsa himself was a Pan-Africanist who was living through colonialism and the post colonialism era, which created that starting block for his idea to develop an indgenious or home grown theology.
Gudina’s reasoning for promoting an African theology was to influence the newly established African Churches to develop individual and distinct features in order to follow the calling of God.This is seen when he writes, “National character, identity and integrity are a must for a church in a given society if she is to fulfill the commission of her Lord.” (Witness and Discipleship Pg.102).
His attempt at constructing an African theology, was not only to relate the Gospel to the people of Africa, but also to help African churches become self reliant, become partners– not dependents– with foreign missions, and lastly to make the Church a model for the recuperation that Africa needed after the devastating colonial period. Gudina Tumsa was murdered and was never able to develop his idea of an African theology, which would have been able to minister to the life situation of Africans. Today the Church in Africa needs to restructure and form its own theology that can minister to the life of Africa's struggling people. This can be done from using the foundation that Gudina Tumsa laid for us. As Øyvind M. Edie writes, “Qes Gudina was not given the opportuntiy to develop a “Confessio Africana”, but his integrated approach to human developments and his theology of “love and justice” may serve as a guideline for further reflection on the task of the church in a continent ravaged by conflict and deep human suffering.” (Life and Ministry Pg.73)