The Interplay between Religion and Society: Towards a Hermeneutic of Covenant Summary and Conclusion

The intention of this study was to make an inquiry into the notion of covenant as a hermeneutical tool that offers a framework to rethink the society-religion nexus in Ethiopia. This inquiry arose from a socio-political and cultural dilemma in the Ethiopian history. On the one hand, Ethiopia is a deeply religious society whose worldview is greatly shaped by religious beliefs and practices. Moreover the application of religion in social and political reality has left some positive legacies. On the other hand, history has proven, time and again, that the application of religion in the social and political reality of Ethiopia has produced as many problems as benefits. I therefore started wondering: What would be a suitable conceptual framework to resolve this apparent tension evident in the religion-society nexus in Ethiopia? Because the notion of covenant appears to be of basic importance to the Ethiopian identity I later rephrased this question as: How could we reformulate this concept which is already deeply embedded in the culture in such a way that it addresses the insufficiencies in Ethiopian conception without radically disentangling ourselves from Ethiopian culture and identity? Before answering this question, I asked: what actual models of interplay between religion and society were and are there in Ethiopia? In order to answer this question, I made an in-depth exploration of three paradigms of the interplay between religion and society in Ethiopia. I try to unravel each paradigm in terms of its historical background, worldview (paying especial attention to metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and the idea of social organization), before subsequently making some critical and hermeneutical observations. The first paradigm I discussed is the paradigm of wax and gold. This paradigm takes its name from a literary motif – sem-ena-werq tradition – which plays with a double layered meaning. Central to my analysis is a dualistic understanding of the created reality that this paradigm takes as its philosophical basis. As to the metaphysics of its worldview, I showed the complexity of its nature. The understanding of the relationship between God and the world has both monistic and dualistic features. God is seen as the creator of everything. At the same time the material world has a certain degree of independence over against God. As a result, a dualistic dichotomy between what is thought to be sacred and profane is the hallmark of the metaphysics of the wax and gold paradigm. Connected to …