Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of Non-Western Religion

by Kwame Bediako

Christianity's centre of gravity has shifted in the modern world from the Northern continents to the South, with Africa playing a dominant role in the resurgence of the faith. This work examines this global transformation of the faith from an African perspective and surveys the new role of African Christianity. Beginning with the intellectual legacy of the 19th-century "Black Spokesman", Edward Wilmot Blyden, who questioned the suitability of Western Christianity to Africa, and its resurgence in the 20th century in the Afrikania Movement of the late Ghanaian ex-Roman Catholic priest, Kwabena Damuah, the author examines the deep mother-tongue roots of large portions of African Christianity and shows how the faith has remained a vital and influential force in the continent even after the waning of Western dominance. He then goes on to discuss the prospects of this modern African experience of the faith, in the future shape of Christian theological discourse, in the understanding of the nature of Christian history and in Christianity's continuing social and cultural impact in the world, as well as in a reassessment of the place of the African continent itself in world history.

Genres: Nonfiction

276 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 1995

About the author

Kwame Bediako (1945-2008), from Ghana, was an outstanding African theologian and Christian interpreter of Africa and African Christianity during the late twentieth/early twenty-first centuries. He was the founding rector of Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture, Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana.

Reviews

[Jay Risner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this guy.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has changed the way I see the non-Western world and has allowed me to truly perceive Christianity as a worldwide universal faith.

[John Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good nuggets of thought and insight in the text, however, too much to wade through to find them and an overuse of secondary authors integrated into the body of the work.