The African Synod has witnessed the emergence (partly thanks to the powerful arguments taken from anthropology) of a concept for which present Ecclesiology has had as yet little use, the concept of the Church as Family. African theologians have spontaneously looked for its justification in the Trinitarian dogma. But no development has as yet been proposed starting from the personal behavior of Christ towards his own family and of the new family of his disciples. Yet it seems that this is the way that light can be thrown on the concept of the Church and on the values of the extended family at the heart of African culture.
