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A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present
This unprecedented work is the first one-volume study of the history of Christianity in Africa. Written by Elizabeth Isichei, a leading scholar in this field, A History of Christianity in Africa examines the origins and development of Christianity in Africa from the early story of Egyptian Christianity to the spectacular growth, vitality, and diversity of the churches in Africa today. Isichei opens with the brilliance of Christianity in Africa in antiquity and shows how Christian Egypt and North Africa produced some of the most influential intellects of the time. She then discusses the churches founded in the wake of early contacts with Europe, from the late fifteenth century on, and the unbroken Christian witness of Coptic Egypt and of Ethiopia. Isichei also examines the different types of Christianity in modern Africa and shows how social factors have influenced its development and expression. With the explosive growth of Christianity now taking place in Africa and the increasingly recognized significance of African Christianity, this much-needed book fills the void in scholarly works on that continent's Christian past, also foreshadowing Christian Africa's influential future.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 23, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 10, 2026
I had high hopes for this book. I am disappointed.
I rarely watch TV documentaries on “the rise of Christianity “ on such venues like PBS or the History Channel. Why? Because most of the time, they feature some supposedly eminent academic who is touted as a subject matter “expert “ on Christianity, but who clearly thinks it’s nonsense and who in the documentary variously alternates between condescension, distaste, and outright disinformation that they got derivatively from some other past secular academic “expert.” You never see this in similar such series on, say, Islam, or Buddhism, or Judaism.
This is the book equivalent of this type of slanted documentary.
Because she clearly doesn’t believe a bit of anything in Christianity, she treats everything in Early Christianity the same. She makes no distinction between orthodox Christianity and heretical groups seeking to undermine it — portraying the Early Church fathers as being close-minded and according equal weight to gnostic fake Biblical books — like the so called “Gospel of Thomas” — as to canonical books clearly originating from the first decades of Christianity.
With the faltering of African Christian churches, she brushes off the reasons for their reduction and isolation — the Muslim jihad with its conquest, pillaging, extortion, and enslavement of those holding to their Christian beliefs.
With respect to later European introduction of Christianity, she consistently tries to portray this as motivated solely by missionaries’ desire to impose European culture upon native Africans or to enrich their home nations at Africans’ expense — even though those who did so lived in Africa in poverty and many, sometimes most in some areas, perished from tropical diseases or martyrdom.
That Africans converted often readily and massively to Christianity in many areas requires some explanation. And her usuals are either that Africans did so because they wanted to gain commercial benefits from Europeans or to gain access to new technologies.
In her way of telling, a European Christian can never win in her book. In some cases, an African ruler converts to Christianity — and she suggests that Africans simply converted to please the ruler. In other cases, Christian missionaries are only able to minister to the bottom castes of society — slaves, orphans, outcasts, the very poor, lepers, and then spreading Christianity from the bottom up— and she suggests that the Christians were just exploiting them — even though they were meeting their medical and educational needs.
She condemns those Christians who established schools, decrying them for establishing a “monopoly “ on education in Africa regions. Yet, where were her secular academics of those same times? They could have done the same things, yet they didn’t. If there was any such “monopoly “, it can only be because Christians cared for Africans, yet the academic “experts “ and scholars of her type did not and couldn’t be bothered to do so.
In some cases, these schools sought to teach Africans the latest in science and mathematics — she condemns them for changing African culture. Other Christian groups, sought to keep the current African pastoral and agrarian life undisturbed — and she suggests that the Christians were deliberately doing this to hold Africans back. Either way, she’s got it covered to smear Christians.
Then there is the way she portrays both European Christians and Africans in general. The Europeans are typically portrayed variously as self-righteous, condescending, and racist and elitist. Africans, on the other hand, are portrayed almost as childlike and simple — easily fooled and somewhat gullible — not really capable of digesting any spiritual beyond simple pagan nature gods.
She keeps on and on in this vein for several tedious chapters, and, just as I was thinking that she was going to do usual religious academic trope of portraying African Christianity as simply a European imposition, ignoring its presence within Africa for 2000 years , to her credit, she does shift gears to cover the history of Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia and Egypt which are as indigenous there every bit as much, if not more than in Europe. Unfortunately, she manages to get her dig in on them too — criticizing them for not being feminist enough.
Which I found amusing in the subsequent chapters. Because in later chapters, she condemns missionaries for working to end such practices as female genital mutilation, polygamy , African on African slavery— which are ok in Africa, by her way of thinking, because it’s part of their culture.
I could go on, but, suffice to say, I was not impressed by this book. Skewed, biased, and more an effort to push common tropes against Christianity in Africa than in fairly and objectively informing the reader on the topic. I do not recommend this book.
I rarely watch TV documentaries on “the rise of Christianity “ on such venues like PBS or the History Channel. Why? Because most of the time, they feature some supposedly eminent academic who is touted as a subject matter “expert “ on Christianity, but who clearly thinks it’s nonsense and who in the documentary variously alternates between condescension, distaste, and outright disinformation that they got derivatively from some other past secular academic “expert.” You never see this in similar such series on, say, Islam, or Buddhism, or Judaism.
This is the book equivalent of this type of slanted documentary.
Because she clearly doesn’t believe a bit of anything in Christianity, she treats everything in Early Christianity the same. She makes no distinction between orthodox Christianity and heretical groups seeking to undermine it — portraying the Early Church fathers as being close-minded and according equal weight to gnostic fake Biblical books — like the so called “Gospel of Thomas” — as to canonical books clearly originating from the first decades of Christianity.
With the faltering of African Christian churches, she brushes off the reasons for their reduction and isolation — the Muslim jihad with its conquest, pillaging, extortion, and enslavement of those holding to their Christian beliefs.
With respect to later European introduction of Christianity, she consistently tries to portray this as motivated solely by missionaries’ desire to impose European culture upon native Africans or to enrich their home nations at Africans’ expense — even though those who did so lived in Africa in poverty and many, sometimes most in some areas, perished from tropical diseases or martyrdom.
That Africans converted often readily and massively to Christianity in many areas requires some explanation. And her usuals are either that Africans did so because they wanted to gain commercial benefits from Europeans or to gain access to new technologies.
In her way of telling, a European Christian can never win in her book. In some cases, an African ruler converts to Christianity — and she suggests that Africans simply converted to please the ruler. In other cases, Christian missionaries are only able to minister to the bottom castes of society — slaves, orphans, outcasts, the very poor, lepers, and then spreading Christianity from the bottom up— and she suggests that the Christians were just exploiting them — even though they were meeting their medical and educational needs.
She condemns those Christians who established schools, decrying them for establishing a “monopoly “ on education in Africa regions. Yet, where were her secular academics of those same times? They could have done the same things, yet they didn’t. If there was any such “monopoly “, it can only be because Christians cared for Africans, yet the academic “experts “ and scholars of her type did not and couldn’t be bothered to do so.
In some cases, these schools sought to teach Africans the latest in science and mathematics — she condemns them for changing African culture. Other Christian groups, sought to keep the current African pastoral and agrarian life undisturbed — and she suggests that the Christians were deliberately doing this to hold Africans back. Either way, she’s got it covered to smear Christians.
Then there is the way she portrays both European Christians and Africans in general. The Europeans are typically portrayed variously as self-righteous, condescending, and racist and elitist. Africans, on the other hand, are portrayed almost as childlike and simple — easily fooled and somewhat gullible — not really capable of digesting any spiritual beyond simple pagan nature gods.
She keeps on and on in this vein for several tedious chapters, and, just as I was thinking that she was going to do usual religious academic trope of portraying African Christianity as simply a European imposition, ignoring its presence within Africa for 2000 years , to her credit, she does shift gears to cover the history of Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia and Egypt which are as indigenous there every bit as much, if not more than in Europe. Unfortunately, she manages to get her dig in on them too — criticizing them for not being feminist enough.
Which I found amusing in the subsequent chapters. Because in later chapters, she condemns missionaries for working to end such practices as female genital mutilation, polygamy , African on African slavery— which are ok in Africa, by her way of thinking, because it’s part of their culture.
I could go on, but, suffice to say, I was not impressed by this book. Skewed, biased, and more an effort to push common tropes against Christianity in Africa than in fairly and objectively informing the reader on the topic. I do not recommend this book.
February 27, 2020
Inaccuracies throughout the book--particularly in regards to the Igbo tribe. Outdated information and should not be considered as a reliable source.
January 11, 2021
Isichei conveys one of the most dramatic stories of recent history. It is a gigantic tale of passion and creativity, as African Christians claimed independence from colonial churches, launched a myriad of indiginized "new religions", and formed the largest movements of popular Christianity in the modern world.
March 6, 2024
I only read up to about the 12th century, because that was the part that was relevant to my research.
The text is grammatically well written, though it's tackling of such dense subject matter as 2,000 years of history within roughly 350 pages leads to very, very short explanations and lots of time jumps back and forth as certain ideas are followed. So within one paragraph you might trace one sect forward in time for 150 years, then find yourself going backwards a hundred years, then forward again. This was good for reading for a feel of things, but for in depth, I'm going to just use this text as a keyword folder of things to research and find dedicated specific texts on for more complete understanding.
It's published in 1995. I felt it was ever so slightly dated but appreciated the information. Would have been mostly lost without my history classes in college and other additional reading I've already done. Then again, I feel like the book may focus more on the last three hundred years of missionary work, etc, as I read the first 45 pages and we covered 1,100 years of history or more, so more than half of the time period. So if you're looking for details on early Christian African history, which is a fascinating subject, perhaps give this book a pass. If you're looking for the last three hundred years, perhaps this book has a lot more to offer. Meanwhile, my research calls, so I'm off to the next source, even though I remain curious.
The text is grammatically well written, though it's tackling of such dense subject matter as 2,000 years of history within roughly 350 pages leads to very, very short explanations and lots of time jumps back and forth as certain ideas are followed. So within one paragraph you might trace one sect forward in time for 150 years, then find yourself going backwards a hundred years, then forward again. This was good for reading for a feel of things, but for in depth, I'm going to just use this text as a keyword folder of things to research and find dedicated specific texts on for more complete understanding.
It's published in 1995. I felt it was ever so slightly dated but appreciated the information. Would have been mostly lost without my history classes in college and other additional reading I've already done. Then again, I feel like the book may focus more on the last three hundred years of missionary work, etc, as I read the first 45 pages and we covered 1,100 years of history or more, so more than half of the time period. So if you're looking for details on early Christian African history, which is a fascinating subject, perhaps give this book a pass. If you're looking for the last three hundred years, perhaps this book has a lot more to offer. Meanwhile, my research calls, so I'm off to the next source, even though I remain curious.
November 12, 2017
The information here is so important, but wow it needed editing and the occasional conclusion at the end of a chapter. Amazing stories and detail and perspective about local African churches and mainstream leaders—a useful corrective to the missionary-based history I have usually obtained. I appreciate it and the historiography it contains and will assign some chapters to my students.
August 15, 2025
I am not sure who this book was written for, but it was not me. I am new to the subject and far from a scholar. The book was very disjointed. In just a couple of pages you could jump between several different time periods, countries, sects, and people. There was a frequent use of just peoples' last names; I could remember if this person was talked about earlier in the book. There was no central driving story line to follow. I picked up a few facts about a few situations in this book but did not have the desired education I was looking for.
January 4, 2021
A good resource book for research. Did a lot of skimming but worth having in my library. I prefer information on early ancient church in Africa. Love the story of Perpetua and Felicity.
August 2, 2021
This book desperately needs a good edit. So much interesting material. Lots of connectivity. But it has no structure. Just tours of stuff
What's the point?
What's the point?
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews