የኦሮሞ ብሔር ባሕል ሥርዐተ አምልኮ እና የኢትዮጵያ ቤተ ክርስቲያን ቁርኝት

Abstract

The paper’s icebreaker is about the ‘where’ of the populous Ethiopians (the Oromo’s), which has been continuously contested among different historians. Despite the earlier beliefs that the nation’s origin was ‘somewhere’ outside Ethiopia, and then at             Mada-Walabu (Bale), recent evidence witness that it has been dwelling at the Northern part of the country and with its Cushitic civilizations before it faced forced evacuation to South by the Semitic families. The theme of this research is, however, neither to assess the origin of the people nor to locate the exact geography. Instead, it is geared to show the existing similarities between the Oromo cultural/religious practices with that of EOTC, with the ultimate intention of disclosing their possible unity ‘some time’ in history as well as potential future evangelization program direction by the church. The ‘purposively selected location-based’ research conducted through content analysis, key informant interviews, and participatory observation approaches disclosed that there exist almost perfect resemblance between the two targets in terms of monotheistic dogmatic content (belief in just one God); spiritual blessing ceremony of the newly born babies, types,   contents and practices of many holidays/feasts and festivals (like The Sabbath, Masqal /Finding of the true cross, anniversary of the elder/due to his respect for and reputes, holidays of Saints, etc), prayers and intercessions, sacrifices and divine forgiveness,   criteria, rituals and responsibilities of ordination, beliefs, and practices pertaining to the deceased soul; holiness and sacred things/places, and more social values. Generally, this research concludes that the majority of Oromo’s cultural beliefs and practices do align with that of EOTC although the ‘how’ and ‘when’ part of the alignment (assimilation) is left unanswered (forwarded for further research). It also recommends using such alliance as potential evangelization opportunities of the church, to effectively address the ‘disadvantaged’ people with salvation messages, instead of inconsiderately tagging their beliefs/ practices as ‘animism’, ‘paganism’ or ‘idolatry’.