How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity

by Thomas C. Oden

Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe. If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed, how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage? Theologian Thomas C. Oden offers a portrait that challenges prevailing notions of the intellectual development of Christianity from its early roots to its modern expressions. The pattern, he suggests, is not from north to south from Europe to Africa, but the other way around. He then makes an impassioned plea to uncover the hard data and study in depth the vital role that early African Christians played in developing the modern university, maturing Christian exegesis of Scripture, shaping early Christian dogma, modeling conciliar patterns of ecumenical decision-making, stimulating early monasticism, developing Neoplatonism, and refining rhetorical and dialectical skills. He calls for a wide-ranging research project to fill out the picture he sketches. It will require, he says, a generation of disciplined investigation, combining intensive language study with a risk-taking commitment to uncover the truth in potentially unreceptive environments. Oden envisions a dedicated consortium of scholars linked by computer technology and a common commitment that will seek to shape not only the scholar's understanding but the ordinary African Christian's self-perception.

Genres: History, Theology, Church History, Christian, Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction

204 pages, Hardcover

First published December 26, 2007

About the author

Thomas C. Oden was Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology and Ethics at Drew University in New Jersey from 1980 until his retirement in 2004. He remained faculty emeritus until his death. He was the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and the Ancient Christian Doctrine series as well as the author of Classic Christianity, a revision of his three-volume systematic theology.

Reviews

[Samuel G. Parkison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is legitimately life-changing. I’m confident the Lord providentially brought it on my map at a strategic time. Two months ago, I moved my family to the United Arab Emirates, where I’m serving as a site director and theology professor at Gulf Theological Seminary, the first seminary in the Arabian Peninsula. Our student body is very diverse, with many students hailing from Africa, who will eventually return there to plant and pastor churches. This puts us in a strategic spot to present the winsome and compelling vision of Oden in this book. I was so moved by this presentation—to the point of indignant tears—of Africa’s great and forgotten contribution to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I’m determined to introduce our African students to their God-ordained heritage, and to undermine wherever I find it the notion that Christianity is a “white man’s” religion imposed unnaturally upon the continent. Christianity is more African than any other formal contending religion there. It’s high time Westerners acknowledge with gratitude that the orthodox faith we cherish today, which we rightly consider an integral aspect of our culture, is indebted to an early African generosity, and its high time Africans shake off the post-enlightenment European lie that Christianity is a western imposition at odds with a true African heritage.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Much of the early church was African. The west has largely forgotten its African character and misremembered the importance and reach of the African church. 

One of the important points here is very similar to the one made in this article about the rise of the Nation of Islam that it has been the misuse of Christianity that has led to African (or African American) rejections of Christianity as a White religion. European Christians, especially post Hegalian, viewed the early church fathers as necessarily being European in character because they were essential to the development of Christianity. This ignores the reality that most of the early church fathers were ethnically and culturally African. Most of them spoke Greek and/or Latin, but that is because those were common trade languages. Today we would not say that Bishop Desmond Tutu was European in character because he speaks and writes in English. And that also ignores those that were not writing in Latin or Gre,ek such as St Anthony, who was illiterate, but the only surviving letters we have from him (that were dictated) were in Coptic.

A point which I had not heard before was that the consular format of the early church councils, which are today the basis of what is and is not considered orthodoxy and heresy, were developed by African Christians for use in Africa before they were used in the broader ecumenical councils.

Where I think that Oden gets into a problem is evaluating modern movements. He is a good theologian and historian but tends to paint modern movements too broadly to be helpful. In his section on ecumenicism, there are people that fit into his critique, but many that do not. And because he is not nuanced enough in that critique (and I want to be clear that this would be very difficult), I suspect there are people that will dismiss the clearer theological and historical work as also suspect.

Oden makes a very good case for the diversity of the continent and the need to account for all of the continent when discussing history, but I think he then becomes much more narrow when discussing the modern church, which has an equally diverse and messy origin. I want to affirm the historical work of the church in Africa, but modern Christian movements that have been influenced by Europe or the United States do not cease to be African. I want to affirm his point that many of these modern movements would benefit from a rediscovery of ancient African Christianity, but it does become paternalistic to argue against a modern African post-colonial or post-modernist approach as less African than historical African Christianity.

And I think this is where his initial inclination that he should not be the one writing this book matters. Where he is most helpful is the historical work. Where he is the least helpful I think, is the modern evaluation and suggestions. Where White outsiders should help is equipping more  Africans for language and cultural studies. And writing books about history and cultural studies may be appropriate. But I do think that Oden was right to be hesitant as a scholar from the US to enter into this area of research. That being said, this is worth reading. There is very much that is good here and only small portions that I think verge into unhelpful.

There is a helpful section (really about 1/4 of the book) at the end that is a brief timeline that helps walk the reader through the African contributions to Christian history. Several reviews complain that this is just a bare introduction, and that is right. There needs to be much more, but I don't think that Oden was the one to do that (he has since passed away). He provided much leadership in getting the western White mainline and evangelical church to pay attention to the ancient church, which is what led to his work on the early African church. It is interesting to me that this is a path that I have seen many others follow as well. The church is far more diverse, and that history and content really does matter more, than what many US Christians believe. It matters that many protestants view church history as the early church through the age of the apostles and then skips to the reformation. It also matters that even those that want to understand broader Christian history tend to only want to look at the Western church. And it also matters that even those that do want to read Augustine or the Desert Fathers or others want to make them into proto-Protestant Europeans instead of African Christians that existed before the east/west split or the Catholic/Protestant split. The work Oden is doing here is essential, but this book isn't written for the average Christian but the scholar. That isn't to say the average person cannot read it, I certainly did, but it is not targeted at me.

[Joost Nixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may have been my favorite book so far for 2020. What a rich contribution Africa has made to Christian theology and practice, but it is largely unstudied and unexplored. This books really inspired me also (as I often teach in Africa), to encourage my students with such great examples.

To me, this is a must read.

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

Oden states what How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind is about in the introduction. "This is what this book is about: to state the African seedbed hypothesis in a measured way and being to sort out the facts that support it." Oden splits the books up into nine chapters that cover topics from defining Africa to the reconciliation of Christianity and Islam Through Historical Insight. The book was informative but repetitive. I was about 30-40% into the book when I realized that Oden was sounding like a student that needs to make their essay longer so they repeat the same thing ten different ways. I did appreciative Oden's love for the subject and the fact that he kept advocating for African historians/theologians to be leading the way for this topic and the research that comes with it (Oden is a white American).

I think the thing that I appreciated the most from How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind was how Oden clearly shows that how Christianity was shaped by Africa because most of the early church was African. As one Goodreads reviewer put it - "Summary: Much of the early church was African. The west has largely forgotten its African character and misremembered the importance and reach of the African church." To say the modern western church has forgotten its roots and switched up is about right. As Oden says there's much to be still studied on the topic and I would love to see it come to pass. I won't lie and say some of what Oden was talking about didn't pass over my head, so I may re-read this in the future (or at least some parts of it) but it is an interesting read about a serious topic.

[Noah Senthil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phenomenal scholarship. A legitimate call to arms for young African scholars (and others) to recover the Christian heritage of Africa. The foolish notion that Europe brought Christianity to Africa should be long dead and buried, along with the idea that North Africa isn’t *really* Africa. Many of the most important church fathers—Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Clement, Augustine—were Africans, and some of the oldest Christian traditions have their roots in that soil, e.g., Coptic and Ethiopian. According to Oden, there’s a multi-generational project ahead of scholars who desire to recover the primary sources (ad fontes!) in the original languages (e.g. Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Greek). Now’s the time!

This book was really inspiring, and it increased the deep appreciation I have for the Christian tradition. I’m excited to talk to my African friends about it!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit, when I've thought of African Christianity I've viewed it largely a result of modern, western missionaries. This book does a solid job of emphasizing the African roots of the early church and highlighting 7 ways Africa shaped the Christian mind:
1. The Western idea of a university was born in the crucible of Africa
2. Christian exegesis of scripture first matured in Africa
3. African sources shaped early Christian dogma
4. Early ecumenical decision making followed African conciliar patterns
5. The African desert gave birth to worldwide monasticism
6. Christian Neoplatonism emerged in Africa
7. Rhetorical and Dialectical Skills were honed in African for Europe's use
Early, influential, Christian leaders from Africa include, Mark the Apostle (oral tradition places his birth in Libya as well as Mark founding the church of Alexandria), Origen, Lactantius, Augustine, Clement, Athanasius, Tertullian, Cyril, and many others.

This book is rather academic and I found it quite repetitive in places yet it was informative and will hopefully spawn a generation of additional research.

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book introduces an important topic, and for that I am grateful. I was not aware of the African influence on scriptural study and analysis. However, I found the book extremely repetitive and not very deep. The author continued to say that additional study was necessary to truly appreciate the full extent of the influence. While making that statement is to be commended, I still expected there to be more substance to the book than what was provided. I enjoyed learning about true location of historical Ethiopia as it shed light on what's happening today in modern day Sudan.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Africa's foundational contributions to Christianity are criminally underrated. My favorite part was the appendix - Literary Chronology of Christianity in Africa in the First Millennium. After laying out his arguments, Oden drops the mic by providing the reader with nearly 40 pages of necessarily truncated chronological historical events showing that much of the early Church was African. A good intro to the history of the African church - it definitely whet my appetite.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had an interesting topic and some helpful information, but overall it lacked depth on the actual material. Oden clearly loved African patristics and wanted others to see the debt orthodox Christianity owes to Africa; however, he also knew that he wasn't the right man for the job of demonstrating the in depth data. He repeatedly appeals to African scholars to do this research, and he simply wants to point them in the right direction.

So, it is a good premise, but much of the actual book was repetitive and painted in large strokes. I would love to see a fuller treatment of this topic at some point.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have had this book on my to-read list for some time and was looking forward to reading it to learn about Africa's role in the development of early Christianity. However, I was disappointed that the first three-quarters of the book repeatedly stated Africa's importance in developing the religion in general terms with little detail.

The last part includes a chronology of events and people associated with the early church in Africa. But, it did not describe or discuss in any depth the impact of these events on the development of the religion.

I was expecting more from "How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind", and I cannot recommend it.

[Ciara Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in a trilogy which traces the history of a "western" religion to its strong roots on the African continent. Intended to give a taste of such scholarship and to encourage others to continue and develop on this understudied area.

[Greg Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems a bit like a 155 page introduction to a substance filled book that never quite comes

[Baylor Heath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine my surprise when I hit the beginning of the appendix on the audiobook and there was still 2 1/2 hours left! Needless to say, I did not listen to that. I’ll leave it to the scholars.

It’s easy to see what a monumental book this is in breaking the ground on early African Christianity. It’s a high level view with many caveats about what there’s left to discover and reclaim. While it may not have been strictly enjoyable, I can tell it has paved the way for future books on this topic I will enjoy more.

[Mariah Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating. I would recommend brushing up on your church history and reading with a dictionary and a map nearby.

Also, if you’re an AO Mom, you will find it interesting that Bede included a lot of Christian African names in his work, whereas in the rest of medieval literature, they disappear.

[Adam Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing, fascinating book that gives an eye-opening perspective into the roots of our Christian heritage. I probably should have read this with a dictionary and a historical map next to me, because there were many references to languages, people and places that I was not aware of.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Inspiring. Enlightening. I went way down the rabbit hole. Oden even set up a plan for much-needed future research. He passed in 2016. I’m now checking in on what’s happened in the field since then on the website he helped start.

[Nderitu Pius · Rating 5 out of 5]

With n understanding of catholicity then I understand that this book is a gem. GOD has spoken to different people without color preference. Makes sure sense. It is men such as Origen and Tertullian and Athanasius who among many GOD has used to bring glory to HIMSELF. It is not an African thing, it's a GOD thing!!!

[Dave Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can always tell when a good book when you come away from it with most of it highlighted and marked and noted (thank you Kindle for the ease of tracking).

To start off with, some possible drawbacks to this book:
1. I noticed a few remarking that although the content is good, the it's fairly basic. More of an introduction to a grand idea that begs a deeper dive. I can see some readers wanting more dialogue with the scholarship that clearly informs his writing.

2. There are portions in the book where the author veers ever so slightly into the pastoral. This is also where you get some of his more conservative (or orthodox) leaning positions come to the surface. Not necessarily "conservative" in the common evangelical sense, rather conservative in the orthodox sense, similar to someone like Wright, but with a bit less of a modern dialogue. I could see some readers that are not orthodox or not Christian (or religious for that matter) being frustrated with these portions.

A word on both of these fronts. The book is basic, yes. It acts more as an introduction to an idea. But one of the reasons for this, which the author makes clear and goes to great lengths to demonstrate through an impressive plan of action that occupies the final chapters, is that one of the claims he is making from his own researched position is that the idea is under researched in general, and needs research in the future if we are to address the problem and strengthen the book's conviction.

In this sense, the author is simply starting to pave new ground, charting a way forward. I think the book certainly succeeds on this front, as I would say, much like Wright's work was for me when I first started reading his body of work, this was transformative and pardigm shifting for me personally.

On the second front, this was my introduction to Oden. A quick peruse into his story and what becomes clear is a bit of a storied evolution in terms of his thought process, his beliefs and his writings. He started off in the liberal camp, and over time began to gravitate towards a greater orthodoxy. So, in this book alone you get hints of a more generous orthodoxy mixed in with some growing convictions. It's worth being said that these orthodox positions are present because of a life long struggle and a wealth of research. I think this gives his convictions a certain color and vibrancy, that is clear in the book.

Oden is also known as the father of paleo-orthodoxy, an tradition that played a vital role in reshaping how people understood Christian Tradition. His interest has been in reawakening people to the world in which the traditions of the Christian faith (and the Muslim faith) were formed, helping move us from a Western centric view to a more faithful reading of history. That this necessarily shifts us to Africa and challenges some of our preconceptions about Orthodoxy is what this book is interested in tabling and exploring.

As for the context of the book, although he writes in a very accessible way, it would be impossible for a summary to give his writing a fair representation. I'll give it a shot anyways:
We often think of Christianities development as a move from east to west, with the west laying claim to its intellectual development. Only years later do we think of a Western Christianity moving into Africa to introduce the Gospel. Oden argues that history, especially the development of Christianity int the West, has gotten this wrong. Africa was the seedbed of the Christian tradition and development.

This sounds obvious considering what we know about history. Of course it developed in Africa. But what Oden reveals is that we rarely think about it this way, and this reality has had devastating affect not just on our understanding of Orthodoxy, but on our understanding of Africa, and even more so African's understanding of itself.

As the seedbed for Christianities development, the movement of the faith is actually a south-north one. The reason we don't think of it this way has a lot to do with Paul. We have a lot of writings from Paul, whereas the movement in Africa was largely a Markean tradition, which we don't have a lot of writing on and which represented itself orally. Paul on the other hand took the Gospel northward to Spain, and eventually it shifted Westward. What happened in its Western development is that African voices were coopted as Western voices, being drawn into that narrative and repositioned as Western ideals and progressions. On the other side of this coin, Africa was given to subsequent years of oppression in which a vibrant African Christian Tradition got buried in the process.

Thus, years later when the West begins to infiltrate Africa with the Christian Gospel, this Gospel is assuming a lack of tradition, a modern and untouched mission field, and an environment that is not yet intellectual (leading to a stereotyping of African culture, a demonizing and skeptisism of their tradition by labeling it charisma and superstition, and a burdening of the people as ones who need to be informed by Western ideals). All of which could not be further from the truth.

The work that needs to be done, Oden argues, is that we need those from the African Christian tradition to find the freedom to reaffirm, reclaim and recapture their roots. It is these roots that can not only help reestablish their identity and find their voice (and the voice of God in their midst), but it can also help those in the West make sense of the Western tradition, as it owes its ideas to the African Christian Tradition.

Now here is what is important. Oden is not arguing for an afro-centric position. That would be counter intuitive. The whole basis of paleo-orthodoxy is that uncovering the true roots of Orthodoxy, all the varied traditions can find a way to coexist together under a common foundation. The reason we have so many splits and schisms in the West (they have them in the East, but nowhere near as many as in the West) is because the West detached themselves from their roots in an effort to lay claim to an "intellectual" faith married to modern ideals. True orthodoxy was lost along the way. What we find on African soil is an orthodoxy that can return us to that Markean tradition that helped give it shape, a tradition that is in fact even more centered than Paul's writings, even though he is demonstrated in written form.

When I sat down to think about it a few chapters in, it was shocking to realize how much I myself had fallen into the trap the book was describing. I have always seen the central conflict of Christianity to be an East-West divide, with the East being the truer Orthodoxy and the West being the necessary Schism. Even in my growing interest of Eastern Orthodoxy and skeptism of the West over the last number of years, not once did I consider the Orthodox tradition an African Christian Tradition. And why not is a very good question, one Oden asks a lot. Because it seems obvious that it would be, reaching all the way back to the "out of Egypt" generation. It is because I have been trained to see it this way. I grew up seeing Africa as a modern mission field where Christianity is just beginning to get planted and to grow. This film really humbled me in uncovering my ignorance, and I'm grateful for that. This ignorance has played a role in perpetuating Africa's oppression, dividing it (between North and South), burying and spreading fear about it's great Tradition and Culture as dangerous or less than intellectual and therefore needing full reform, perpetuating racism on Western soil (consider America), and it goes on and on. And yet everything that the West is owes itself to the African Christian Tradition. So much of the foundation of Western Christendom and theology was developed on African soil. Thankfully, the final chapters of the book deal with an absolutely incredible and impressive plan of action for helping to change the landscape and reconnect Africans with their great Christian Tradition, a tradition that can also help shed light for Muslims on Islam's own Tradition in Africa, as the Christian Tradition also informed its development (which was part of the oppression of their culture) on African soil.

This is the first book in a trilogy, and I can't wait to dive in to the other two. I also am looking forward to reading Oden's biography and his works on Wesley. I'm a fairly big Wesley fan and that represents my own roots. In fact, in describing my discovery of Oden to someone, I described him as Wright for Weslyans. I have no idea how good that descriptive is, but it worked in the moment.

[Jennifer V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Oden’s motivation for writing How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind is two-fold. First, he hopes to present an African tradition of Christianity that will both encourage the growing African Christian population today and counter claims that Islam naturally has stronger ties with the African people. Second, he hopes to convince Western Christians of the important contributions that African theologians made to the development of Western Christianity. On the second point, I believe he makes a convincing case, although another more in-depth analysis is needed. On the first point, he’s extremely weak…not on combating Islam, since that’s easy enough to show that it’s not an indigenous religion, but on giving Africans their own ancient Christian heritage. Oden dismisses race as irrelevant and bemoans the schism between the Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox traditions of North Africa and the Western traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa, presenting it more as an accident of Westernization rather than anything tied to the realities of the ancient past. He prefers geographical identification based on the modern definition of “continent” rather than actual social contact. Were Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, and others “African”? Sure, if you want to define it that way. Should Christians study the works and lives (martyrdoms) of these “Africans”? Of course! But is there a special meaning for Christians of “Negro,” “black African,” “Niger-Congo,” or Sub-Saharan heritage? No. And that was Oden’s central claim.

[Daniel Edwards]

I chose to read this book as a small tribute to Thomas Oden in light of his passing late in the year.

This book was not, as I expected, a historical analysis of how African patristic authors shaped the thinking of early Christians and beyond. While Oden did explain some of the key ways in which Africa had an impact on the wider church from the early centuries of Christianity on, the majority of the book is dedicated to casting a vision for how this neglected area of church history can be further studied and explored. In this way, Oden offers a compelling challenge to budding scholars throughout the world and especially in Africa to bolster the assertions that he makes. While I suspect that Oden is right in many of these assertions, I would love to see evidence in their support. I am curious how much research has been done in the areas Oden identifies in the ten or so years since Oden released this book.

In addition to the misleading title of the book, I found much of the content repetitive and somewhat scattered. It seems that an editor could have encouraged some heavy reorganization and condensing of the material. Even so, I look forward to reading Oden's other works on African patristics in the future and I do hope that his vision for a renewed interest in early African patristic history is carried out.

[Robin Rader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this the same year I watched Hidden Figures. The tragedy of forgotten history is that we don't even know that we are missing part of our own story. Thomas Oden seeks to reclaim the African roots of early Christian history for African children, and for African scholars and Westerners looking for a better understanding of the development of both Christianity and Islam. During his work on the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Thomas Oden was impressed again and again that early Christianity had deep roots in Africa. He challenges the idea that the African coast of the Mediterranean is not truly African, and shows how in Africa Christianity engaged with indigenous religion. He identifies seven ways Africa shaped the Christian mind: the idea of a university, exegesis, dogma, councils, monasticism, neoplatonism, and rhetorical and dialetical skills. I was raised in Zambia, and his discussion of the Africanness of the ways of dialogue and decision making that set the pattern for the church councils made a lot of sense.
This is not a new message, but Oden proclaims it with urgency and vision, proposing a specific plan for research.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a call to global Christians to recognize our debt to early African Christianity. With that as its purpose, it is not going to appeal to most Christians, for the author constantly returns to the refrain that more research is needed, this is a place for future scholars (especially young African Christian scholars), etc. There are points here that must be heard. For example, how many Christians realize that the most vibrant early Christianity was African, not European? What could this realization do for the growing African church today, putting them in touch with their Christian legacy? What exactly is the story of early African Christianity, including Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicitas, Cyprian, and more? But the average Christian will probably want to look elsewhere for these points to be made in more depth. I recommend the work of Philip Jenkins (or any church history book, as long as it is remembered that Alexandria and Carthage were African cities representing numerous African churches).

[Paul Dubuc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting survey of the passionate work and plans of Thomas Oden and others to bring to light the largely neglected early contributions of Christians in Northern and Eastern Africa to the establishment of the Church in the first centuries of its existence. The timeline in the back of the book is a very nice feature. Oden and others have pulled together a large team of scholars and translators to restore the memory of these ancient Christians to the modern mind for the benefit of Africans across the whole continent and for Christians around the world. They are publishing their work on the Center for Early African Christianity (CEAC) website and in many books and periodicals. May God bless and prosper their efforts. It's a daunting project, fraught with many difficulties, but with a huge potential for good in the world.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so pumped to read about how Africa shaped the Christian mind...

...I am still so pumped to read about how Africa shaped the Christian mind. The author does start to get into it about 20 pages until the end, but only just.

The title is more of a misnomer, unfortunately. Had it been titled instead How Africa Has Been Ignored in Christian Studies and Please, Oh Please, Understand How Important Such Studies Are, I would have come to the book with more appropriate expectations.

On one hand, I understand why the author needs to spend so much time convincing the reader that this study is important. On the other, I do not need such convincing. That's why I picked up the book; I wanted the titular thesis explored!

The book would have made more sense if it served as an introduction to the Ancient Christian Commentary series, leading you in to further exploration of the thesis.

[Glenn Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Oden’s research, he reveals that Africa was not only one of the early voices of Christianity and that it was indigenous, but that the ancient African theology of the first millennium played a key role in the formation of Christian culture and provided a critical interface for people in Africa and Asia who’s religious beliefs were rooted in Judaism and Christianity. Because it played such a decisive role in shaping European and Asian theology Oden encourages African scholars to rediscover their heritage and appreciate it for its value rather than see intellectual Christian development as predominantly Western or European. This is at the core of Oden’s hypothesis: that much intellectual history flowed south to north, something that is rarely acknowledged.

[Dayo Adewoye · Rating 5 out of 5]

A passionate call to recover the rich theological heritage of early african christianity. Much of this treasure has lain buried and ignored for centuries, and Africans themselves have trudged along under the assumption that Christianity was a part of the Colonial package foisted under them. This book argues that Africa has had a rich Christian tradition right from the era of the apostles, and this gospel witness has existed for centuries till today. It only needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated for today.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a rather dry theological treatise, but I kind of like such things. This particular book and it's compelling argument kept me turning the pages. Christendom has traditionally thought of Africa as a new step-child, but according to Oden, it seems that the continent played more of a mothering role afterall. I think this is an important work for Westerners to read, but I hope that my African sisters and brothers will consider it as well.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the author makes some interesting points and unveils fascinating history, his conclusions are simplistic at best. He lays the brunt of this undiscussed history at the feet of Euro-centrism and racism; while completely ignoring doctrinal differences that have led to this dichotomy of unity in the first place.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great perspective on how much of Christian theology was rooted in Africa. Very repetitive, but still a worthy read to grasp the core concepts. Would love to do an African Theology of Suffering because of this book!

[Радостин Марчев · Rating 3 out of 5]

Много добра идея, в която има много "хляб." Въпреки това книгата ми се видя слабо написана - липсва навлизане в конкретика, а повторенията на няколко едни и същи неща са прекалено много.