Is Africa Incurably Religious?

Is Africa Incurably Religious? PDF Author: Bernard van den Toren
Publisher: Regnum Books International
ISBN: 9781506483917
Category : Christian life
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The contributions in the volume question the widespread thesis that Africa is 'incurably religious' by studying both the presence and meaning of secularization in sub-Saharan Africa and among the African diaspora. This exercise requires sustained interest in the notion of secularization itself. It explores whether the understanding of secularization will need to be challenged and enlarged to properly detect and understand the secularization processes in this continent that is known for its religious fervour. The essays in the first part focus on Africa's cultural and religious traditions. Thou.

Is Africa Incurably Religious?

Is Africa Incurably Religious? PDF Author: Bernard van den Toren
Publisher: Regnum Books International
ISBN: 9781506483917
Category : Christian life
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
The contributions in the volume question the widespread thesis that Africa is 'incurably religious' by studying both the presence and meaning of secularization in sub-Saharan Africa and among the African diaspora. This exercise requires sustained interest in the notion of secularization itself. It explores whether the understanding of secularization will need to be challenged and enlarged to properly detect and understand the secularization processes in this continent that is known for its religious fervour. The essays in the first part focus on Africa's cultural and religious traditions. Thou.

African Christian Ethics

African Christian Ethics PDF Author: Samuel Waje Kunhiyop
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310107083
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
This is an introduction to African Christian ethics for Christian colleges and Bible schools. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theory of ethics, while the second discusses practical issues. The issues are grouped into the following six sections: Socio-Political Issues, Financial Issues, Marriage Issues, Sexual Issues, Medical Issues, and Religious Issues. Each section begins with a brief general introduction, followed by the chapters dealing with specific issues in that area. Each chapter begins with an introduction, discusses traditional African thinking on the issue, presents an analysis of relevant biblical material, and concludes with some recommendations. There are questions at the end of each chapter for discussion or personal reflection, often asking students to reflect on how the discussion in the chapter applies to their ministry situation.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa PDF Author: Roy Richard Grinker
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119251486
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

Context and Catholicity in the Science and Religion Debate

Context and Catholicity in the Science and Religion Debate PDF Author: Klaas Bom
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004420290
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Based on a thorough study of the ‘lived theology’ of Christian students and university professors in Abidjan, Kinshasa and Yaoundé, this book proposes a theoretical framework that makes an intercultural and interdisciplinary debate on science and religion possible.

Religious Resurgence and Politics in the Contemporary World

Religious Resurgence and Politics in the Contemporary World PDF Author: Emile F. Sahliyeh
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791403815
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This book examines the highly politicized religious groups and movements that have surfaced since the late 1970s in the United States, Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, India, and the Middle East. Sahliyeh and others analyze this trend toward the politicization of religious conservatism and question a number of assumptions central to concepts of modernization. For example, it has been assumed by development theorists that the interrelated components of modernization would enhance the trend toward secularization of societies. This book shows that in many societies today religious revivalism and fundamentalism seem to be direct products of modernization. A global, comparative approach is utilized to formulate general explanations for religious revivalism and its implications for modernization, development, and politics.

Faith in African Lived Christianity

Faith in African Lived Christianity PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004412255
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
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.

African Christian Theology

African Christian Theology PDF Author: Samuel Waje Kunhiyop
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310107121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Christian theology evolves out of questions that are asked in a particular situation about how the Bible speaks to that situation. This book, African Christian Theology, is written to address questions that arise from the African context. It is intended to help students and others discover how theology affects our minds, our hearts, and our lives. As such, it speaks not only to Africans but to all who seek to understand and live out their faith in their own societies. Samuel Kunyihop understands both biblical theology and the African worldview and throws light on areas where they overlap, where they diverge, and why this matters. He explores traditional African understandings of God and how he reveals himself, the African understanding of sin and way the Bible sees sin, and how the work of Christ can be understood in African terms. The treatment of Christian living focuses on matters that are relevant to Christians in Africa and elsewhere, dealing with topics such as blessings and curses and the role of the church as a Christian community. The book concludes with a discussion of biblical thinking on death and the afterlife in which it also addresses the role traditionally ascribed to African ancestors.

The Language of Faith in Southern Africa: Spirit World, Power, Community, Holism

The Language of Faith in Southern Africa: Spirit World, Power, Community, Holism PDF Author: Hermen Kroesbergen
Publisher: AOSIS
ISBN: 1928396933
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to provide a way to do justice to an African language of faith. In systematic theology, anthropology and philosophy of religion, similar debates about how to interpret an African language of faith are ongoing. Trying to avoid the ‘othering’ discourses of past generations, scholars are careful to take seriously what people in Africa say without portraying people’s beliefs as weird or backward. Yet, in their desperate attempts to avoid othering, these theologians, anthropologists and philosophers often painfully misconstrue the language of faith in Africa. Understanding the language of faith in Southern Africa is not an easy task. How should we take seriously the form of language that often seems so strange and different? I argue that, after African inculturation theology and black liberation theology, a better way to make sense of being a Christian in Southern Africa is to pay close attention to people’s language of faith. The way in which people speak of the spirit world or powers in Africa appears strange to outsiders, and the sense of community and the holistic worldview differentiates the African way of life from its Euro-American counterparts. When proper attention is paid to the use of concepts like spirit world, power, community and holism, language of faith in Southern Africa is neither as strange as it may seem, nor as romantic. By investigating these distinguishing concepts that colour language of faith in Southern Africa, this book contributes to future projects of both fellow theologians who try to construct a contemporary African theology and those who are interested in theology in Africa given the well-known southward shift of the centre of gravity of Christianity.

Introduction to African Religion

Introduction to African Religion PDF Author: John S. Mbiti
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478628928
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In his widely acclaimed survey, John Mbiti sheds light on the survival and prosperity of African Religion in different historical, geographical, sociological, cultural, and physical environments. He presents a constellation of African worldviews, beliefs in God, use of symbols, valued traditions, and practices that have taken root with African peoples throughout the vast continent. Mbiti’s accessible writing style sympathetically portrays how African Religion manifests itself in ritual, festival, healing, the human life cycle, and interplay with the mystical and invisible world. The account embraces foundational traditions, while touching on elements that spawn transitions, including migration, the spread of Christianity and Islam, political-economic development, and modern communication. This popular introduction leaves readers with informed knowledge of the riches of African heritage.

Religious Indifference

Religious Indifference PDF Author: Johannes Quack
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319484761
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book provides a conceptually and empirically rich introduction to religious indifference on the basis of original anthropological, historical and sociological research. Religious indifference is a central category for understanding contemporary societies, and a controversial one. For some scholars, a growing religious indifference indicates a dramatic decline in religiosity and epitomizes the endpoint of secularization processes. Others view it as an indicator of moral apathy and philosophical nihilism, whilst yet others see it as paving the way for new forms of political tolerance and solidarity. This volume describes and analyses the symbolic power of religious indifference and the conceptual contestations surrounding it. Detailed case studies cover anthropological and qualitative data from the UK, Germany, Estonia, the USA, Canada, and India analyse large quantitative data sets, and provide philosophical-literary inquiries into the phenomenon. They highlight how, for different actors and agendas, religious indifference can constitute an objective or a challenge. Pursuing a relational approach to non-religion, the book conceptualizes religious indifference in its interrelatedness with religion as well as more avowed forms of non-religion.