Church State Relations In Africa In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This edited collection examines church-state relations in the European colonies in Africa during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The chapters focus on the period stretching from the most agitated stages of the ‘scramble for Africa’ during the 1870s and 1880s, to the great wave of independence of African colonies in the 1950s and 60s, and culminates in a discussion of colonial legacies during its aftermath. The Church and the State, although often having conflicting goals and agendas, walked hand-in-hand throughout the entire colonial period, with ‘imperialism of the spirit’ being inconceivable without the groundwork of Catholic missionaries. Exploring the major domains that determined the course of church-state relations in the colonies, the authors analyse relations between the Holy See and the colonial powers, and between national Catholic authorities and secular authorities, as well as the international order and socio-political developments in the metropoles. They argue that interactions between state and church in Africa’s European colonies were contingent upon the complex dynamics of interests that both secular and ecclesiastical entities endeavoured to preserve or promote. With a particular focus on the Belgian and Portuguese colonies in Africa, this book provides useful reading for scholars of European imperial history and ecclesiastical history.

Proceedings from the conference "Changing relationships between churches in Africa and Europe in the 20th century: Christian identity in the times of political crises," which took place October 8-12, 2005 at Makumira University College of Tumaini University in Tanzania.

"I can merely admire his courage in tackling so complex and difficult a subject; he should succeed in stimulating a fresh generation of research... this well-written, intelligent and lively study will greatly stimulate anyone fortunate enough to read it." Christianity provided the constitutive identity of historic Ethiopia. From the sixteenth century, and increasingly from the nineteenth, it entered decisively into the life and culture of an increasing number of other African peoples. In the course of the twentieth century, African Christians have become a major part of the world Church, and arguably modern African history as a whole is not intelligible without its powerful Christian element. Yet despite the great advance in African historiography over the last forty years, this is the first major volume to consider the historical development and character of the Christian Church in Africa as a whole, linking together Ehtiopia Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and the numerousm 'Independent' churches of modern times. The book focuses throughout on the role of coversion, the shaping of Church life and its relationship to traditional values, and the impact of political power. Professor Hastings also compares the relation of Christian history to the comprable development of Islam in Africa.

Since 2017, Mozambique has been confronted with a jihadi insurgency. This book looks at the origins of that insurgency, and the broader and longer history of the relationship between Islam and politics in the country. Did Mozambique's Muslim politics always point towards jihad? Eric Morier-Genoud examines the period immediately after independence, when the state engaged in anticlericalism; he then moves across the decades to the 2000s, when the ruling party and the opposition alike courted Muslims for electoral purposes, before reaching the 2010s, when tensions between 'mosque and state' returned. Along the way, he explores a wide variety of phenomena, including the rise of Wahhabism, religious competition, state mediation, secularism, the alleged growth and radicalisation of Islam, and the origins of the ongoing insurgency. What emerges is a rich history, attentive to different branches and elements of the Muslim community, looking far beyond the narrow perspective of jihad. Taking a socio-historical perspective, Towards Jihad? unpacks a complex dynamic, which the jihadi insurgency is in fact now disrupting. Understanding the long history of Muslims' engagement with politics in Mozambique sheds light on where the country has come from, where it stands now amidst violent unrest, and where it might go next.

Missions, States, and European Expansion in Africa aims to explore the ways Christianity and colonialism acted as hegemonic or counter hegemonic forces in the making of African societies. As Western interventionist forces, Christianity and colonialism were crucial in establishing and maintaining political, cultural, and economic domination. Indeed, both elements of Africa's encounter with the West played pivotal roles in shaping African societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume uses a wide range of perspectives to address the intersection between missions, evangelism, and colonial expansion across Africa. The contributors address several issues, including missionary collaboration with the colonizing effort of European powers; disagreements between missionaries and colonizing agents; the ways in which missionaries and colonial officials used language, imagery, and European epistemology to legitimize relations of inequality with Africans; and the ways in which both groups collaborated to transform African societies. Thus, Missions, States, and European Expansion in Africa transcends the narrow boundaries that often separate the role of these two elements of European encounter to argue that missionary endeavours and official colonial actions could all be conceptualized as hegemonic institutions, in which both pursued the same civilizing mission, even if they adopted different strategies in their encounter with African societies.

Exploring the relationship between gender and law in Europe from the nineteenth century to present, this collection examines the recent feminisation of justice, its historical beginnings and the impact of gendered constructions on jurisprudence. It looks at what influenced the breakthrough of women in the judicial world and what gender factors determine the position of women at the various levels of the legal system. Every chapter in this book addresses these issues either from the point of view of women's legal history, or from that of gendered legal cultures. With contributions from scholars with expertise in the major regions of Europe, this book demonstrates a commitment to a methodological framework that is sensitive to the intersection of gender theory, legal studies and public policy, and that is based on historical methodologies. As such the collection offers a valuable contribution both to women's history research, and the wider development of European legal history.

Despite its many crises, especially in Western Europe, there are 1.3 billion Catholics in the world today. The Church remains a powerful but controversial institution. In Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World, Ambrogio A. Caiani explores the epic history of the Roman Catholic Church. Throughout the early modern period, the Pope was a secular prince in central Italy. Catholicism was not merely a religion but also a political force to be reckoned with. After the French Revolution, the Church retreated into a fortress of unreason and denounced almost every aspect of modern life. The Pope proclaimed his infallibility; the cult of the Virgin Mary and her apparitions became articles of faith; the Vatican refused all accommodation with the modern state, until a disastrous series of concordats with fascist states in the 1930s. These dark days threatened the very existence of the Church. But as Catholicism lost its temporal power, it made significant spiritual strides and expanded across continents. Between 1700 and 1903, it lost a kingdom but gained the world. Ambitious and authoritative, this is an account of the Church's fraught encounter with modernity in all its forms: from liberalism, socialism and democracy, to science, literature and the rise of secular culture.