LITMIR.BIZ

In the last fifty years, the history of World Christianity has been disproportionally shaped, if not defined, by African Pentecostalism. The objective of this volume is to investigate and interrogate the critical junctures at which World Christianity invigorates and is invigorated by African Pentecostalism. The essays of the thinkers gathered here examine the general relationships between World Christianity and Africa and the specific interplays between World Christianity and African Pentecostalism. Scholars from multiple disciplines, continents, and countries evaluate how the theological scholarship and missional works of eminent African intellectual Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu have contributed to the scholarly understanding of how Global Christianity has been mediated by its reception in Africa. They also investigate how African Pentecostalism has been shaped by its contact with the diverse forms of Christianity in Africa and the rest of the world.
With contributions from:
Opoku Onyinah Harvey C. Kwiyani Kirsteen Kim Craig S. Keener Charles Prempeh Kenneth R. Ross Trevor H. G. Smith Vivian Dzokoto Chammah J. Kaunda Felix Kang Esoh Patrick Kofi Amissah Caleb Nyanni Marleen de Witte Oluwaseun Abimbola Philomena Njeru Nwaura Faith Lugazia Dietrich Werner Allan H. Anderson

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The position and treatment of women in every religion, culture, and society have been subjects of concern for a long time. In every society, women fight for their emancipation from exploitive and oppressive patriarchal structures. The most contentious issues include domestic violence, gender discrimination and inequality in the areas of employment, leadership, and marriage. Domestic violence tops the list and is the worst enemy of any progressive and democratic society. It dehumanizes, disfigures, and demeans its victims and survivors. Shona Women in Zimbabwe–a Purchased People? explores the causes of domestic violence–the cultural practice of bridewealth, in particular–and assesses the extent to which it contributes to the proliferation of domestic violence among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It then explores the Christian traditions, particularly, the Roman Catholic Church, in search of resources that can be used to emancipate Shona women from patriarchal subjugation. Finally, the book offers a pastoral response that is informed by the experiences of the Shona women, their cultural resources, and the Roman Catholic religious tradition.

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In a departure from current theologically-focused scholarship on Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako, this book places him within the wider historical continuum of twentieth-century Ghana and reads him as a leading Christian scholar within the African study of African religions. The book traces a variety of influences and figures within this emerging African discourse in Ghana, including aspects of missions and colonial history and the voices of poets, politicians, prophets, and priests. Locating Bediako within this complex twentieth-century matrix, this intellectual history draws upon his published and key unpublished works, including his first masters and doctoral dissertations on Negritude literature, an abiding influence on his later Christian thought and an essential foundation for interpreting this scholar. This book also «reads» the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture as «text» by Bediako, revealing essential components of his intellectual and spiritual itinerary revealed in the Institute's community and curriculum. This approach challenges narrowly-focused theological scholarship on Bediako, while highlighting critical methodological divisions between African, Western, confessional, and non-confessional approaches to the study of religion in Africa. In doing so, it highlights the rich complexity of this emerging African discourse and identifies Bediako as a pioneering African Christian intellectual within this wider field.

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The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-65) was distinctly different from other councils in one significant aspect. In all the areas it discussed, this council did not see itself as the end of a process, but rather as a beginning. It opened, not closed, doors–whether doctrinal or disciplinary–for ongoing reflection, for possibilities of ever-improving knowledge and understanding. Laurenti Magesa offers this book as a stimulus for African (Catholic) Christians to continue digging deeper into and benefiting from the spiritual treasures that the Council still contains. For the theologian or historian of Vatican II, some of the information may be quite familiar, but all of it is important if one is to grasp the scope, meaning, and implications of the Council for the Church and people of Africa.

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An exploration of the development of a contextualized Roman Catholic moral theology in an African context is warranted in our day. This book is a study of the work of Benezet Bujo, an African moral theologian. An analysis of Bujo's work shows the various aspects of an African Catholic moral theology. Bujo's work is viewed here as critically bridging African moral theology and the development of moral theology in the Catholic Church, especially in the West. An African moral theology in this work builds on the elements of the renewal of moral theology after the Second Vatican Council. The renewal elements reflected in Bujo's work and other African Catholic theologians include, among others, the use of Scripture, the relevance of history, the debate on moral norms, the relevance of social sciences to moral discourse, the theory of natural moral law, and the relation between the theologian and the magisterium. This work, therefore, locates the theology of Bujo in the development of moral theology after the Second Vatican Council. The author establishes a relation between African traditional religions, African history, Christology, natural moral law, moral autonomy debate, the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, and political-liberation theological ethics.

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How would ordinary African Christians interpret the figure and book of Job–the quintessential biblical book on suffering–from contexts of extreme poverty, tropical disease, and rampant suffering? How do African Christians culturally understand issues of theodicy and the nature of evil? What role does the devil play in African Pentecostalism? How does the biblical lament empower faith and foster hope for people living with HIV/AIDS? In what way does a theology of (eschatological) hope inform the spirituality and prayers of ordinary African believers in the midst of suffering? Inside the Whirlwind offers insight on these fascinating questions. Based upon the perspectives of Fang Christians in Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea (Central Africa), the thematic and theological reflections on evil, suffering, and hope emerging from sermons and Bible studies on the book of Job offer a remarkable window to view the main theological issues shaping grassroots African Christianity in the twenty-first century.

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Human hostility is not the narrative of a selected few. Since the fall of the grandparents of the human family, Adam and Eve, all humans have continued to participate in the reality of evil. Accordingly, the question is no longer whether evil will strike, but rather, when evil strikes, how should humans, particularly Christians, respond to it? This book offers a relevant and effective theology and ethics for addressing the issue of Christian response to violence in Nigeria and beyond. It situates the whole gamut of the reign of human hostility in its various manifestations: self-interest and greed for power, deception and social injustices, governmental official corruption, terrorism and so on. It encourages humans to take seriously both the fact of God creating humans good and the fall serving as the gateway of evil into the human race. It recognizes the complexity of human problems. Yet it offers possibility for just peacemaking. In spite of the horrific violence across the globe, humans are still able to do tremendous good. Thus the book recognizes the paradox of humanity: humans are capable of doing tremendous good and equally capable of doing tremendous evil.

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What is post-colonial theology? How does it relate to theology that emerged in historically colonial situations? These are two questions that get to the heart of Robert S. Heaney's work as he considers the extent to which theologians predating the emergence of post-colonial theology might be considered as precursory to this theological movement. Heaney argues that the work of innovative theologians John S. Mbiti and Jesse N. K. Mugambi, important in their own right, must now also be considered in relation to the continued emergence of post-colonial theology. When this is done, fresh perspectives on both the nature of post-colonial theology and contextual theology emerge. Through a sympathetic and critical reading of Mbiti and Mugambi, Heaney offers a series of constructive moves that counter the ongoing temptation toward acontextualism that continues to haunt theology both in the North and in the South.

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In this book, Stan Chu Ilo offers an integral theology of development and a critical social analysis of different development theories and practices in the world, especially in Africa. Ilo offers a comprehensive biblical, anthropological, and theological foundation of the principles and praxis of Catholic social ethics from the Second Vatican Council to Pope Francis. Drawing from the social encyclical Charity in Truth, Ilo shows how Catholic social teaching responds to some of the challenging questions and concerns of our times in relation to human rights, ecology, globalization, international cooperation, development and aid, human and cultural development, business ethics, social justice, and the challenges of poverty eradication. He creatively applies these principles to the social context of Africa, and lays a groundwork for sustainable Christian humanitarian and social justice initiatives in Africa.

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This book is an attempt at a critical, constructive, and creative theological praxis of social transformation in Africa. The authors apply a multi-disciplinary approach to examining how Christianity in Africa is engaging the problems of Africa's challenging social context.
This is a prophetic work that applies the symbols of «salt» and «light» as ecclesiological images for reenvisioning the path towards procuring abundant life for God's people in the African continent through the agency of African Christianity.
The contributors to this volume ask these fundamental questions: What is the face of Jesus in African Christianity? What is the face and identity of the Church in Africa? How can one evaluate the relevance of the Church in Africa to African Christians who enthusiastically embrace and celebrate their Christian faith? In other words, what positive imprint is Christianity leaving on the lives and societies of African Christians? Does the Christian message have the potential of positively affecting African civilization as it once did in Europe? What is the relevance and place of African Christianity as a significant voice in shaping both the future of Africa and that of world Christianity?

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