Church And State In Tanzania

This book looks at the relationship between religion and state in Tanzania as a feature of the Tanzanian social scene, from pre-colonial/colonial times to post-colonial times. It examines the changes in the character of religion and state relations, especially after independence, and the way these changes are experienced in different communities - particularly by African traditionalists, Muslims, and Christians. The book studies the nature of the relationship between religion and state, the way it is conceptualized and experienced, and the implications for the democratic aspirations of pluralist Tanzania. (Series: Interreligious Studies - Vol. 7) [Subject: History, African Studies, Religious Studies, Politics]

Based on interviews and archival material, this volume examines the different periods in the relationship between church and state in Tanzania from independence to 1994.

Based on interviews and archival material, this volume examines the different periods in the relationship between church and state in Tanzania from independence to 1994.

Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka’s Life and Work examines the operations and organization of the Tanzanian Lutheran church through the life and times of its longest serving diocesan bishop, Erasto N. Kweka. Amy Stambach and Aikande Kwayu develop the concept of pragmatic faith, belief-in-practice, to analyze the integration of religious experience, institutionalism, and doctrine or orthodoxy. Pragmatic faith breaks down the lingering binary found in anthropological studies of Christianity between transcendental experience and pragmatic struggle, and between religious revival as rupture or continuity. Stambach and Kwayu analyze the instrumental use of religion in practice, as well as its socially mobilized potential for revelation and transformation. A key analytic agenda of this book is to illuminate how a church that retains the organizational and ritual forms of a European mission church "became" culturally localized over time and yet, paradoxically, also existed pre-colonially. Accordingly, this book offers detailed and ethnographically-grounded perspective on how leaders and laypeople affiliated with the Tanzanian Lutheran church connect the church with other significant institutions, not only the state and the government, but also descent groups, extended families, self-help groups, and existing civic organizations, in order to live meaningfully.

In Jesus for Zanzibar Hans Olsson offers an ethnographic account of the lived experience and socio-political significance of Pentecostal Christians in Muslim Zanzibar, and religious agents’ relation to contestations over the islands place in the Tanzanian nation.