Gudina Tumsa’s Approach to Human Rights: a Dialogue between Anthropology and Christology

Abstract

I shall present Rev. Gudina’s approach to the crucial issue of human rights.  Put rightly, the very phenomenon that marks that particular period in Ethiopian history was the Marxist [-Leninist] ideology. Marxism emphasized social and economic issues more than anything to the extent of seeing human beings but in terms of this internal logic. Knowing the dangers of this socio-economic view of human beings, Rev. Gudina developed an approach to understanding of human nature from an informed [theological] anthropological perspective. Based on his theological-anthropological analysis of human nature he developed a stance on human rights. But theological anthropology was not the only starting point of Rev. Gudina’s perspective on human rights. In this paper, I shall discuss that Rev. Gudina’s approach to human rights was the result of his creative holding of a dialog between theological anthropology and Christology.