Historical And Social Dimensions In African Christian Theology

African Christian theology has been developing for the last four decades. The trend has been to focus on traditional African religions as a foundation for Christian theology. While acknowledging the importance of African traditional religions to Christian theology in Africa, this study argues that African history progressively changes, and it is these changed and changing circumstances that theology is to address. This work analyzes issues affecting Africa today and shows the social and political role that Christianity has to play in an African context. This study views enculturation as a dialogue among African Christians, their history and culture, and Christian teachings. Theological approaches such as anthropological, liberation, and historical are analyzed from the perspective of Small Christian Communities (SCCs), which are a recent development in African Christianity. SCCs are presented as a concrete hermeneutical tool in theological analyses. Further, this work acknowledges the indispensable need for an authentic African Christology in an African Christian theology. While critical of contemporary African Christology, the study also suggests issues to be considered in the development of African Christology.

African Christian theology has been developing for the last four decades. The trend has been to focus on traditional African religions as a foundation for Christian theology. While acknowledging the importance of African traditional religions to Christian theology in Africa, this study argues that African history progressively changes, and it is these changed and changing circumstances that theology is to address. This work analyzes issues affecting Africa today and shows the social and political role that Christianity has to play in an African context. This study views enculturation as a dialogue among African Christians, their history and culture, and Christian teachings. Theological approaches such as anthropological, liberation, and historical are analyzed from the perspective of Small Christian Communities (SCCs), which are a recent development in African Christianity. SCCs are presented as a concrete hermeneutical tool in theological analyses. Further, this work acknowledges the indispensable need for an authentic African Christology in an African Christian theology. While critical of contemporary African Christology, the study also suggests issues to be considered in the development of African Christology.

Increasingly, theologians from non-Western lands demand that theology be done in a new, non-eurocentric way. First published in German, 'African Theology in Its Social Context', by one of Africa's most respected theologians, meets this challenge. Bujo takes traditional African values to the horizon of contemporary social issues: extreme poverty, mass unemployment, rapid urbanization, changing family life. His underlying concern is for the African people and for the models they will choose for their society, their economy, their church. Bujo begins with Jesus. Asking how Christ can be seen as an African among Africans, Bujo identifies Jesus as Ancestor -- the One from Whom all life flows. He goes on to define distinctively African roles for the church, clergy, and lay people alike. From the standpoint of African legal and religious traditions -- many far older than those of the Western church -- Bujo describes pastoral approaches to such issues as death and marriage in Africa. This original and challenging work shows how Africans need not change culture to be called children of God; and how, indeed, Christianity can become a source of fullness of life for Africans.

In a world of increasing globalization, we live amidst a clash of cultures, religions, and worldviews – each battling for the human heart and mind. In this in-depth study, Yusufu Turaki offers a theological framework for engaging this clash of perspectives in Africa, where traditional African religions, colonialism, and exposure to Christianity have each had a lasting impact on contemporary African worldviews. Professor Turaki undertakes a systematic analysis of the nature of African Traditional Religion, its complex history with Christianity, and the need for African Christian theology to address its cultural and historical roots effectively. He provides both a conceptual framework and practical guide for engaging African cultures and religions with compassion, understanding, and a firm foundation rooted in scriptural truth. This book is an excellent resource for students of religion and theology, as well as those interested in Africa’s traditional heritage or drawn to the important work of cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue.

David Tonghou Ngong offers a comprehensive view of African Christian thought that includes North Africa in antiquity as well as Sub-Saharan Africa from the period of colonial missionary activity to the present. Challenging conventional colonial divisions of Africa, A New History of African Christian Thought demonstrates that important continuities exist across the continent. Chapters written by specialists in African Christian thought reflect the issues—both ancient and modern—in which Christian Africa has impacted the shape of Christian belief from the beginning of the movement up to the present day.

Faith in African Lived Christianity – Bridging Anthropological and Theological Perspectives offers a comprehensive, empirically rich and interdisciplinary approach to the study of faith in African Christianity. The book brings together anthropology and theology in the study of how faith and religious experiences shape the understanding of social life in Africa. The volume is a collection of chapters by prominent Africanist theologians, anthropologists and social scientists, who take people’s faith as their starting point and analyze it in a contextually sensitive way. It covers discussions of positionality in the study of African Christianity, interdisciplinary methods and approaches and a number of case studies on political, social and ecological aspects of African Christian spirituality.

In this critical study, Dr Turbi Luka uses historical-theological methodology to engage in detail with Christologies of key African theologians and conventional theological sources for Christology, including the church fathers Tertullian and Athanasius as well as modern theologians. Turbi argues that existing African Christologies, specifically ancestor Christologies, are inadequate in expressing the person of Christ as Messiah and saviour, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophesies. Providing a new approach, Turbi proposes an African Linguistic Affinity Christology that explicitly portrays Jesus as Christ in a contextually relevant way for Africans in everyday life. This crucial study highlights the need for biblically rooted Christology and for sound theological understanding and naming of Jesus at every level. This book also warns the church in Africa, and elsewhere, to avoid repeating the dangerous christological heresies of the ancient church by remaining faithful to a biblical interpretation and orthodox theology of Christ.

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.