David Ngong

I am going to focus on just two of the insights I find most remarkable and then raise one question which I think is central to the narrative of the book. The first of the insights concerns the place of translation in creating or
solidifying ethnic identity. The second deals with the possibility of religion, in this case Christianity, to create a people. The question is about the relationship between providence and history in the context of empire.

The study of Africana religiosity has often focused on African influences on African diaspora religiosity but rarely the other way round, that is, on African diaspora influences on African religiosity. The rare instance when the focus was on African diaspora influence on African religiosity was the case of Black theology. However, when Black theology came to the continent, it was mired in the debate of its relevance to Africans. This debate was prosecuted by John Mbiti and James Cone in the 1970s. While the debate centered on Christian theology, this essay reads it as raising the larger question of the relevance of African diaspora religiosity in Africa. It argues for the need to seriously study African diaspora religiosity in Africa, noting that such study may provide theoretical tools with which to understand the development of African religiosity in the continent and the African predicament in the modern world.

This article provides a broad overview of key issues that have animated theology in Africa. It thinks of theology in Africa as African Christian theology and engages the key issues from a historical and continental perspective. It shows how Christian theology in Africa has engaged key issues such as martyrdom, missions, culture, politics, sex and gender, and the place of the Bible in theology. It demonstrates that contemporary theology in Africa may also be understood as including theology in the African diaspora. In fact, theology in Africa has been stamped with global theological, political, and cultural dynamics, and so it may also be understood as a global theology.

In this chapter, I argue for the continued relevance of liberation theology in Africa, noting that African theology does not have to move from liberation to reconstruction; rather, liberation should be regarded as the very expression of reconstruction. In other words, liberation is reconstruction.  It is in the process of seeking liberation from all forces that seek to undermine our well-being that we achieve reconstruction. Liberation is here understood as achieving the freedom to live dignified and flourishing life in a world that constantly undermines our humanity.  In this context, liberation is freedom that enables individuals, groups, and in fact, the whole planet to flourish. Because the ability to live flourishing lives constantly elude Africans because of their entrapment in multiple dynamics of oppression, the quest for liberation needs to be central to African Christian theology.

This book argues that a primary purpose of theological discourses is to construct piety or spirituality. If this is the case, theologians need to constantly inquire into the kind of piety or spirituality which their work may construct. Drawing from some important moments in the development of Christian theology, such as the development of the Christian doctrine of God in the early church, the role of material things in the Christianity of medieval Europe, some elements of contemporary postliberal theology, and the theology of inculturation in Africa, the book argues that theological discourses that appear to be orthodox and innocuous may actually construct forms of piety that may diminish human flourishing. The book therefore calls for an ethics of theology intended to ensure that the theologies we construct help in developing a piety that is conducive to human flourishing in the modern world, especially for Africans, who have suffered and continue to suffer unspeakable dehumanization. The book proposes that a theology that may contribute to the flourishing of Africans in the modern world is one that constructs an interdisciplinary spirituality that takes both the spiritual and the scientific seriously.

This article is a Christian theological interrogation of the war in the Anglophone region of Cameroon between Cameroon's army and Anglophone separatists who seek separation from Francophone Cameroon. It problematizes a facile understanding of Anglophone identity that places Anglophones on the one side and Francophones on the other, arguing that these identities are complex. It critiques theologies that appear to defend Anglophone separation arguing that these theologies are rooted in an inadequate understanding of liberation theology and a limited doctrine of providence. It proposes an African political theology that calls into question the theological legitimacy of the nation-state and seeks to transcend the binaries that often otherize and separate. This political theology, it is suggested, should have a pan-African and cosmopolitan vision.

This article argues that contemporary African Christian theology has largely understood time from a modern, linear perspective, which sees history as progress. Interestingly, the perception of history as progress is the straitjacket into which the story of Africa in the modern world has been told, often depicting the continent as needing to catch up with the progressive time of the modern world. This progressive, linear view of time is however quite problematic. This article argues that time is palimpsestic, rendering discourses of progress problematic but without nullifying the quest for improved overall well-being. The palimpsestic view of time fits the popular West African outlook that "no condition is permanent" and is demonstrated especially in the work of African women theologians such as Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Musa Dube, whose use of story as method challenges the linear view of time and is thus methodologically instructive for African theology.

Focusing on African Christian theology, this paper builds on the taxonomy of African political theology provided by Emmanuel Katongole whose conception of African political theology locates it within the context of the nation state. The paper however goes beyond Katongole's taxonomy to discuss other forms of political theology that are important in Africa today. It proposes a new form of political theology that goes beyond the nation state to encompass the planet and argues that the different forms of political theology in Africa should not be seen as mutually exclusive but rather as interconnected and mutually enriching.

This study follows theological ethnography on Cameroon Pentecostalism to offer a pastoral theological reflection on questions of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. This method is common in contemporary African Christian theology, especially in African feminist theologies which draw from intimate stories to meditate on the theology of marriage and procreation in Africa. Specifically, this study draws from the story of the author's sister-in-law, to reflect on the question of marriage, divorce, and remarriage in contemporary African Pentecostalism.

Taxonomies of Salvation Discourses on salvation in African Christian theology have often focused on the various understandings of salvation in sub-Saharan Africa, as African theology is often understood as sub-Saharan African theology. Thus, in his insightful classification of perspectives of salvation in African theology, the South African theologian, Gerrit Brand, focuses on sub-Saharan African theology to argue that, from an African perspective, Western discourses on salvation have mostly paid attention to the means and how of salvation rather than on the content of salvation. The focus on the means and how of salvation has led Western Christian theology to emphasize the various theories of atonement and debates on the question of who is saved. In Africa, however, the focus on the content of salvation has led many to seek to see evidence of salvation. They seek to see evidence of salvation not in the Calvinistic or puritanical sense of transformed morality and church life but in the sense of the overall transformation of human life-spiritual, personal, social, political, economic, ecological. This focus on the evidence of salvation has led some to see the Christian view of salvation as elusive. To them, the Christian understanding of salvation is like "a fabulous ghost," which constantly evades people as they try to grasp it. The typology of African theology of salvation which Brand presents therefore focuses on the content or nature of salvation and thus suggests an African Christian contribution to the idea of salvation in world Christianity. In other words, for Brand, an African contribution to the understanding of salvation in world Christian theology is the view that salvation must be made tangible and verifiable in this life rather than perpetually remaining an unfulfilled dream or postponed. Brand classifies African theology of salvation into five types: anthropological, social, cultural, ontological, and vitalistic.1 Anthropological understandings of salvation are those that see salvation as the restoration of the person to full humanity. In this case, the loss of full humanity is not often orchestrated by individual sins but rather by the sins of others and other impediments, such as sickness and lack of opportunity. Examples of this view of salvation include the understanding of salvation in black theology, the concepts of ubuntu and ujamaa, the view of salvation in African religions as including elements such as healing, and the prosperity gospel. These views of salvation aim to see the overall transformation of the human person (individual) for the better. The social vision of salvation sees salvation as communal good, that is, salvation is not just about the betterment of the individual person but that of the community. This view of salvation is connected to the first in that it includes the concepts of ubuntu and ujamaa but the focus is on the community rather than the individual. The goal is therefore to seek communal well-being rather than mainly the well-being of the individual. An example of this view of salvation is the understanding of salvation as societal reconciliation, especially seen in countries like South Africa and Rwanda, and represented in the recent theology of Desmond Tutu and Emmanuel Katongole, among

This article engages the work of two prominent but recently deceased scholars of African Christianity-the Gambian Lamin Sanneh and the Cameroonian Fabien Eboussi Boulaga. It argues that their reinterpretation of Christianity is designed to develop an imagination of resistance in the context of western domination in Africa. Sanneh approaches the matter from a historical perspective through which he narrates the emergence of a new form of Christianity, leading to his important distinction between "world Christianity" and "global Christianity." Boulaga approaches the issue from the perspective of philosophical theology, through which he developed the "Christic model" as central to appropriating the Christian faith in Africa. The paper argues that one can hardly understand why Sanneh distinguishes between global and world Christianity and why Boulaga develops the radical Christic model, if one fails to locate their work within the framework of problematizing dynamics of western domination in Africa.

This article argues that Emmanuel Katongole's theology focuses on contesting conversions in African Christianity. To him, conversions that have so far taken place in much of African Christianity, especially those informed by the theology of inculturation, have not adequately emphasized the formation of critical Christian social imagination that would challenge the violent politics of the postcolonial nation-state in Africa. The article engages Katongole's theology by showing how his understanding of conversion aligns him with a form of African Christianity which he criticizes-the neo-Pentecostal and Charismatic variety of African Christianity. It critiques Katongole's proposal by suggesting that the social and political transformation he seeks may be enhanced by forms of conversion rooted in the theology of inculturation which he minimizes. The question of conversion has been central to the study of religions in Africa, especially with respect to conversions from indigenous religions to Christianity and Islam. Even though such studies have been done mostly from the perspective of religious studies and anthropology rather than theology, it could be argued that a significant part of African Christian theology is usually about the nature of conversion, to the extent that it addresses the ways in which Africans are performing or ought to perform the Christian faith (Horton 1971,

Fertility religions are based on the birth, rebirth or rejuvenation of creation, especially the fertility of the land, which guarantees bountiful harvest and human fertility, ensuring the continuation of community. However, the emphasis on fertility, especially in Africa, has not only contributed in ruining marriages; it has also marginalized childless couples in church and community. This essay argues that there is an urgent pastoral need for the African church to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of fertility that goes beyond the biological and immanent view of the subject which I think dominates the understanding of marriage in both African Christianity and a significant document of Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution of the Church, 46-50). It argues that Christianity is not a fertility religion that is immanent and anthropocentric but is rather a theocentric religion that is transcendent in character, especially as demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. My original intention for this paper was to critique the immanent understanding of fertility that has come to characterize much of African Christianity. I intended to appropriate the debate on the difference between Baalism and Yahwism in twentieth century German biblical, and theological studies and the recent consensus on the perception of God as a fertile God, to call for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of fertility. This deeper and more nuanced understanding of fertility went beyond the biological and immanent view of the subject. This biological and immanent view of fertility, I think, dominates the understanding of marriage in both African Christianity and a significant document of Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution of the Church, 46-50). It seems to me that this immanent understanding of fertility and fruitfulness has negatively affected married life in Africa, especially for those couples who have not been able to bear children. The point of the paper was to argue that there is a crying

"There is a new thing," we are told, A new thing in the midst of the old, We know and do not know the new reality, We live in hope in paradox and incongruity, We worry about the now, Because the now does not exist for us. With tattered garments and flat bellies Our now constantly shifts into tomorrow A tomorrow yet deferred to another tomorrow.

The issue of Afriean identity is one that has not only interested African Christian theologians but also Africans from all walks of life (politics, philosophy, the arts, and others) who have endeavored to grapplewhla Africa’s encounter with non-African cultures and religions.

The decline of Christianity in the West has not meant the demise of that faith as some overzealous sociologists in the last century predicted, but has been compensated by the phenomenal growth of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. Southern Christianity comes with plenty of local color that makes it different from what was or is practiced in the West. In some cases those marks are so different that Western Christians may not even recognize certain elements of the faith. This component of newness in the expression of Christianity in the South has led some to speak of a w new Christianity." This article focuses on how this new Christianity manifests itself in Africa and explains how its explosive growth there is partly empowered by the African understanding that religion is crucial in the human quest for wholeness. This is why the new Christianity focuses on those aspects of African tradition and culture that are perceived as impediments to achieving wholeness. It describes the background that gave birth to the new Christianity in Africa, and then critically examines some of its focal elements. The article concludes with observations concerning how the new Christianity in Africa can influence world, and especially Western, Christianity. In recent years numerous observers of contemporary Christianity have called our attention to the remarkable growth of the Christian religion, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. They have observed how the decline of Christianity in the West (Northern Hemisphere), especially in Europe,

Tinyiko Sam Maluleke is a prolific South African theologian whose work mounts a thoroughgoing critique 6 of the status of Christianity in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Situating his work within its archival 7 context, this article argues that the work of Maluleke emphasizes the vocation of the theologian as critic. 8 The essay looks at some key themes in his work and suggests that Maluleke’s critique of African 9 Christianity is soteriological in nature, that is, he questions the role the Christian faith may play in the sal- 10 vation of (South) Africa.

In describing the nature of Christian ethics in America before and after some recent interventions, Stanley Hauerwas notes that the subject of Christian ethics in America was and is America rather than the Church. He finds this disturbing because it seems to marginalize distinctively Christian moral formations. This critique raises the question of the nature of Christian identity. What should Christian identity in America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, etc. look like? This question becomes especially urgent with the rise of world Christianity which takes for granted the idea that Christians who live in different contexts perform the Christian faith differently because of said context. This paper argues that while the variety of Christian identities that exist in world Christianity is made necessary by the context in which world Christianity developed, when taken to extremes, it may, among other things, lead to ecclesial apartheid.

This article argues that African Penteccstal sotenology has not neglected the cross, as A^moah-Gyadu charges m a recent book, but IS rather a protest against the suffering for which the cross seems to stand in some soteriological constructs The article eonstructs a theology in which salvation does not reside only m the cross or suffering o f Christ, as seems to be the case in some versions o f Evangelical theology, but IS rather found in the life, death, resuirection and ascension ofChrist It argues that the cross does not validate suffering but rather demonstrates that suffering IS an aberration

This essay argues that an important task of theology is the construction of piety. It draws from a few critical moments in the development of Christianity, such as the development of the doctrine of God and Christology in the early church and the rejection of materialistic Christianity in early modern Europe, to argue that these moments reflect the theological struggle to shape Christian piety. The idea that theology is concerned with the shaping of piety is then used to evaluate African theology of inculturation, which has now flowered in the Pentecostalization of African Christianity. It argues that although the theology of incul-turation may be helpful in constructing a viable African theology, uncritically embracing the spiritualized cosmology of African traditional societies in salvific discourses promotes a form of piety that is ill-equipped to overcome the marginalization of the continent in the modern world.

This article is a preliminary look at the theological and missiological legacy of one of the foremost African theologians, the Cameroonian Jean-Marc Eia (1936-2008). It argues that, for Èia, the theologian is a missionary because it is the missiological context that frames the language of theology. This is especially the case because, born among the forest people of southern Cameroon, Éla's theology was honed among the Kirdis, a despised and exploited people in northern Cameroon. Reflecting on this missiological context led him to be one of the first to see that there should be no conflict between the theology of inculturation and liberation in Africa, as had appeared to be the case. It also led him to stress that theology should be done under the "shade-tree" in enduring missional communities. The article also argues that in spite of some weaknesses in his theology, Éla's influence can be seen especially in recent African theology.

Recent anthropological and religious, especially Christian, discourses on African witchcraft normalize the witchcraft imagination on the continent by failing to show how damaging the imagination has been to Africa's move toward modernization. While anthropologists normalize it by studying the phenomenon ahistorically and by rationalizing and reinterpreting it, scholars and preachers of African Christianity see it as the context necessary for the growth of Christianity on the continent. However, this normalization of the witchcraft imagination stifles the African imagination because it does not encourage Africans to think in scientifijic ways that may be more helpful in the transformation of the continent in our modern world. This article is an attempt to liberate the African imagination by critiquing the witchcraft imagination from a rational and theological perspective. It also proposes policies that need to be taken in order to overcome this ruinous imagination and facilitate Africa's dignifijied participation in the modern world.

This paper describes inculturation biblical reading in a narrow way to include mainly that reading of the Bible that takes for granted what is believed to be a peculiarly African spiritualistic cosmology. A central element of this method includes pitting a supposedly African spiritualized cosmology against a supposedly Western rationalistic and disenchanted cosmology. Proponents of this method claim that a relevant biblical interpretation in the African context should enable Africans to deal with issues arising from their belief in an enchanted world. This essay problematizes the focus on this enchanted cosmology and argues that the African condition can be effectively addressed through interpreting the Bible in ways that encourage the development of the scientific imagination, which could lead to the development of science and technology and an improved standard of living for the people. Keywords Bible – inculturation hermeneutics – scientific imagination – Pentecostalization – well-being – spiritualized/enchanted cosmology

While many African theologians have appropriated the thought of Stanley Hauerwas in their work, this article focuses on two theologians whose work demonstrates the influence of post-Enlightenment or postliberal ethics in general and Hauerwasian influence in particular. The article argues that elements of Hauerwasian Christian ethics, such as its insistence on virtue or character development in the context of a community (the church) and the embodied nature of Christian ethics made manifest through witness, provide a significant reminder to what African Christian ethics should be about. It also argues, however, that Hauerwasian ethics, if not critically engaged, has the potential to replicate some of the unsalutary moves that Western missionary Christianity made, and some contemporary forms of African Christianity still make, against African thought, such as the attempt to erase African cultural memory. In order to overcome this tendency to divorce African Christians from their cultural contexts, the complex nature of their moral formation, that is, their being morally formed by both the village and the church, needs to be taken seriously.

This book argues that a primary purpose of theological discourses is to construct piety or spirituality. If this is the case, theologians need to constantly inquire into the kind of piety or spirituality which their work may construct. Drawing from some important moments in the development of Christian theology, such as the development of the Christian doctrine of God in the early church, the role of material things in the Christianity of medieval Europe, some elements of contemporary postliberal theology, and the theology of inculturation in Africa, the book argues that theological discourses that may appear orthodox and innocuous may actually construct forms of piety that may diminish human flourishing. The book therefore calls for an ethics of theology intended to ensure that the theologies we construct help in developing a piety that is conducive to human flourishing in the modern world, especially for Africans, who have suffered and continue to suffer unspeakable dehumanization. Theology as Construction of Piety proposes that a theology that may contribute to the flourishing of Africans in the modern world is one that constructs an interdisciplinary spirituality that takes both the spiritual and the scientific seriously.

Our prices are recommended retail prices and are exclusive of shipping costs. We reserve the right to alter prices. We supply to libraries at a discount of 5%. * incl. VAT-only applies to Germany and EU customers without VAT Reg No ** incl. VAT – only applies to Austria The Holy Spirit and Salvation in African Christian Theology challenges the dominant understanding of the Holy Spirit in African Christian salvific discourse. The most prevalent approach in reflections on the Holy Spirit and salvation in African Christian theology insists that these doctrines be made to address the spiritualized African traditional religious cosmology. This dominant approach to the Holy Spirit and salvation have therefore led to the baptism of African traditional religious cosmology in African Christian theology. Baptizing the African cosmology has, in turn, brought about the emphasis on the miraculous in African pneumatology and soteriology. The Holy Spirit and Salvation in African Christian Theology further argues that such stress on the miraculous blocks other ways by which the Holy Spirit might be understood in African soteriological discourse. In addition, this study proposes that the Holy Spirit be perceived as enabling critical philosophical rationality and the development of science and technology in Africa, features that are crucial to enhancing the well-being of the continent and its peoples.

This massive book on the question of decolonizing African studies appears to be the first of its kind from a single author. It is only fitting that it is written by a scholar of Professor Falola's stature, who has spent several decades reflecting on these issues. Comprised of an introduction, 20 chapters of about 30 pages each, a lengthy bibliography (623-664), and an index (665-678),

Theology in context emerges from local insight. All three authors will agree to this statement; but the viewpoint is very strongly argued by Clifton Clarke. Following the thesis of Robert Schreiter, Clarke understands local theology as a "dynamic interaction among gospel, church, and culture" (p. 68, note 4): Theology embraces the faith of the local community. African Initiated Churches (AIC), in their traditional and, recently, more charismatic forms, are the focus of Clarke's study. He argues throughout African Christology that researchers (historians of AICs and theologians) fail to take full account of the local. They therefore overstate the Spirit-dimension of the so-called "spirit-churches", ignoring AICs' rich oral Christology. Clarke contends that patient work and life among the. Akan Ales reveal how profoundly they anchor Christological reflection on the Bible, "re-oralized"; i.e. the Bible accessed through reading, preaching, prayers and testimonies.