Koinonia Academic Journal
Volume 4, Paper 1
October – December 2020
Legacy of GMA Jansen (Fr Norbertus)
Catherine N Whittle DD (Ed)
www.koinonia.org
Abstract: The latter part of the twentieth century produced an international level of change in Christian dynamics. One significant development comprised the rise of the churches in the global south, both in numbers and in their engagement with their socio-cultural contexts. The worldwide church learns from prophetic voices of both past and present. One such voice, that of a Dutch Dominican, brought a vision for the future to South Africa. Gerardus Marie Antonius Jansen (cloister name Father Norbertus) authored an existential approach to theology in the twentieth century. The theological legacy of Fr Jansen is so profound that a quotation from his pioneering work “The Sacramental We” was placed inter alia alongside religious greats such as Ignatius of Antioch, Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Pope Gelasius I of Rome, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Andrew Murray and F.F. Bruce.
The writings and ministry of Fr Jansen influenced spiritual education in the latter part of the twentieth century and continues to do so today. Fr Jansen’s writings have significantly contributed to the body of knowledge within seminaries, colleges, universities, libraries and the internet. His training and authorship enabled interested laity to claim their role within the church with confidence and competence. Fr Jansen conducted training courses for the empowerment of the laity within the church: these included education of the Dominican third order, training for the male deaconate and parish theological education.
He played a pivotal role in the pioneering of ecumenism within Southern Africa. Fr Jansen’s ecumenical undertakings and writings inspired interchurch activities and dialogue. One of the bodies influenced by Fr Jansen was the Theological Education by Extension College of Southern Africa. He collaborated with other Dominicans in a correspondence course in theology, later becoming more or less its exclusive editor. These theology correspondence courses from South Africa reached students locally and abroad as far as America through the reliable postal services of the day. The resultant theological education structure culminated in 1976 with the institution of an ecumenical educational body, the Theological Education by Extension College (TEEC).
Today, TEEC includes numerous countries with ecumenical membership. According to Mouat, TEE remains an outstanding ecumenical witness to theological education in Southern Africa. TEEC, as growing and vibrant theological college, is one of the biggest theological colleges in the country.
For many years Fr Jansen edited the theology correspondence course which was the springboard from which the TEEC College was founded. Ecumenical and theological impact exerted by the distance spiritual education afforded by TEEC of Southern Africa is extensive. Many clergy and laity have received quantifiable theological education which had been non-existent earlier on.
In addition to performing his endeavours in the fields of theology, philosophy, ecumenism, deaconate, empowerment of laity, secular and spiritual education and pastoral leadership, Fr Jansen disseminated his writings at a pivotal stage within developmental Southern African theology. These writings have exerted lasting international influence. In this paper will be revealed the legacy enshrined through Fr Jansen’s international influence in the fields of philosophy, theology and literature within the latter decades of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
Keywords: Deaconate, Dominican third order, ecumenism, existentialism,
Father, Jansen, laity, Norbertus, phenomenology, philosophy, Theological
education by extension Southern Africa
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