Valentin Dedji
Reconstruction and Renewal in African Christian Theology
Nairobi: Acton, 2003. 284 pp, pb, c. $10

This path-breaking study of contemporary African Christian theology is the revision of a doctoral dissertation completed at the University of Cambridge. Dedji, a Methodist scholar from Benin. offers an in-depth comparative assessment of four prominent figures in modern African theological discussion, namely: Jesse Mugambi of Kenya; Kä Mana of Congo (DRC), Kwame Bediako of Ghana, and Jean-Marc Ela of Cameroon. Dedji’s central thesis is that the cultural identity stream in African theology represented by Bediako, and the liberationist stream represented by Ela, need now to be superseded by the reconstructionist emphasis first launched by Mugambi in the early 1990s, and now best exemplified by Kä Mana. The main body of the book is a presentation and assessment of each of these four theologians. What distinguishes Dedji’s project is his attempt to expound each person’s contributions complexly, with measured, courteous assessment. Here is an impressive and attractive example of African theology maturely comparing, evaluating, and critiquing itself. The exposition begins with Mugambi, and his 1991 call for a new direction in African theological reflection, away from liberation themes derived from the Exodus motif toward reconstruction themes drawn from Nehemiah. Mugambi argues that addressing Africa’s desperate need for social reconstruction should become the defining mission of the African church and of African theology. But in Dedji’s view it is Kä Mana who now represents the most promising version of this reconstructionist agenda, in part because Kä Mana is utterly realistic about the crises gripping Africa and about Africa’s own accountability in that crises, and in part because Kä Mana deploys a complexly nuanced multi-disciplinary interpretation of these realities and how they may be addressed. Dedji expounds Bediako with much sympathy, but Bediako’s preeminent concern with contextual identity both Kä Mana and Dedji himself judge as no longer appropriate amidst the continent’s harrowing cultural, economic and political disintegration. In such an Africa a dignified African Christian identity will only become achievable when African Christianity gives full priority to societal transformation. Also Ela’s powerful cry for liberating justice is exemplary, but Dedji wants a turn away from a justice always projected in terms of oppressed/oppressor, towards a justice that makes full space for accountability, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. It must be admitted that Dedji’s exposition sometimes seems overwhelmed by the data, and his obvious rhetorical skills are sometimes allowed to do duty for interpretive skills. Dedji has made a distinguished contribution that merits close attention. Nevertheless, it is nothing less than extraordinary and sobering that the biblical perception of the core human predicament and the Divine initiative in remedy is virtually undetectable either within the varied theological views expounded or within Dedji’s assessments. Here is seemingly a critical challenge to African evangelical Christianity, an absent voice yet needing to be heard.

Keith Ferdinando
The Triumph of Christ in African Perspective
Carlisle UK: Paternoster, 1999. 450 pages, paperback, £30

This magisterially composed book addresses a complex of topics that are of utmost relevance to African Christianity. And it does so in a manner that displays the best of evangelical biblical scholarship. Ferdinando has served for many years in Africa, first in Congo/Zaire and most recently in Uganda. The book's unifying theme is the all-encompassing "triumph of Christ" as a manifestation of the universal sovereignty of God. Written from the perspective of Africa, it seeks to transform a traditional pessimistic religious perspective by focusing on the significance of Christ's sinless life and sacrificial work of redemption on the Cross. In light of the Lord's overwhelming victory over all the forces of wickedness, both biblical demonology and African occult are revealed for what they are, and relegated to their temporary, subordinate and subdued place in this world, as they await their ultimate destiny in God's final judgement. Ferdinando supports this fundamentally optimistic and encouraging message through a detailed study of the relevant materials of Scripture for the proper biblical response to an ever-threatening dominion of darkness. No controversial issues are ignored. Ferdinando shows that syncretism or accommodation to ancestral beliefs, practices, values, and/or perspectives is not the answer. Only an ever-deeper, personally applied understanding of what God has already done and will do for us in and through Jesus the Christ will do. Ferdinando's biblically-based optimism is as spiritually educative as it is personally contagious. This should be one of the very first books that Christians in Africa read in the new year.

Ogbu Kalu, editor
African Christianity: An African Story
Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007. 522 pp, pb, $35

This is an important book, because it is the first attempt by African historians and theologians to tell the whole story of African Christianity themselves. The editor is a widely respected scholar who, before his recent death, was a professor at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. Before that he was for more than 25 years professor of church history at the University of Nsukka in Nigeria. The perspective of the book is mainstream ecumenical, and is designed as a response to the African nationalist accusations of the 1960s and 1970s that Christianity is a foreign intrusion into Africa that has only had a destructive and oppressive effect on the continent. It attempts to answer this characterisation by showing that there exists a uniquely “African” Christianity that is rooted in African traditional culture and that can transform Africa. The presentation does this by “intentionally privileging the patterns of African agency” in the African Christian story, and by emphasizing the social and political role of Christianity in Africa. The privileging of African initiatives results in an over-emphasis on African Independent Churches (Ethiopian, Zionist, Aladura, Roho, etc.), creating considerable duplication of material and the impression that these churches rather than the “mission” churches have constituted the vast bulk of African Christianity. A sociological rather than a theological interpretation of Christianity pervades the book. As an example of current ecumenical African historiography, it is absolutely indispensable, and every theologian and historian interested in African religion should expect to benefit from it. However, as a textbook for theological colleges and seminaries it would have some serious drawbacks. The first is that because the book is a cooperative effort of 19 different authors, the quality of writing varies enormously from chapter to chapter. Furthermore, most of the writers presuppose that the reader is already familiar with African church history. In some cases the contributor writes like a specialist writing for other specialists, not as an educator writing for students. As a result the text is not suitable for students in undergraduate programmes, and even graduate students might struggle with it unless they had strong backgrounds in African history and theology. Also the topical and thematic arrangement of the book (it is only very broadly chronological) leaves the reader with only a vague notion of the events and chronology of African church history. The book includes a 26-page “Select Reading List”. Oddly enough, no information is provided about any of the contributors apart from the editor; a brief biographical sketch of each would have been helpful. Scholars and lecturers will find this a significant resource, and it should be considered a necessary acquisition by theological libraries.

Byang H.Kato
Perspectives of an African Theologian. The Writings of Byang H. Kato, Th.D.
Ndola, Zambia: Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA), 2007. CD format, 20 MB [ordering information available at: www.theoledafrica.org]

This exceptional new resource on CD contains virtually all the papers, articles and books written by that statesman of African evangelicalism of a past generation, the Nigerian Byang Kato (1936-1975). At Kato’s untimely death at age 39, he was General Secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa (AEA), and Chair of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Commission. Much of the material on this CD has never previously been publicly accessible. The collection is based on the research of the Dutch scholar Christine Breman for her doctoral dissertation on the AEA (see BookNotes 03.08). Following Breman’s early death, the Canadian George Foxall, ACTEA’s first coordinator, devoted several years of his retirement to scanning all this material onto CD on ACTEA’s behalf. Presented are altogether 93 documents, filling nearly 20 MB, from brief articles and typescripts to the entire text of Kato’s masters and doctoral theses, all in PDF format. The collection begins with Breman’s comprehensive Kato bibliography, which references both his own writings and selected materials about Kato up until 1996. The CD also includes the 1986 biography of Kato by Sophie de la Haye, Byang Kato: Ambassador for Christ. Biography of Dr Byang H. Kato, as well as the invaluable 1996 article by Breman herself, titled “A Portrait of Dr. Byang H. Kato.” Not only is Kato’s well-known Theological Pitfalls in Africa presented, but also several of his less accessible books or booklets, namely: Biblical Christianity in Africa; The Spirits. What the Bible Teaches; and African Cultural Revolution and the Christian Faith. Not included are the French version of Pitfalls (1981), and those of Kato’s articles that appeared in the French edition of AEA’s Perception. The CD is of interest not least because at multiple points the content plainly invalidates misrepresentations of Kato that persist in some current academic literature, for example that he rejected the relevance of African culture. This remarkable contribution will now prove an essential resource for all research into the history and thought of modern African evangelical Christianity, and deserves to be available in theological libraries throughout the continent.

Terence Ranger, editor
Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa
Oxford: OUP, 2008. 304 pp, pb, £18

It is rare to see evangelicals acknowledged for playing any type of roles in developing and sustaining democracy in the Global South, let alone substantive analysis of those roles. And when evangelicals are acknowledged, they are usually the subject of sharp critique, especially for their apolitical orientation. This is the book on Africa in a four-book series Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in the Global South. The fact that this series offers a more tempered set of perspectives on evangelicals and democracy should be encouraging. A fairly broad sense of who is evangelical is deployed. After the excellent introduction by Ranger, the wide variety of roles played by evangelicals in the development of democracy in Africa is explored in case studies of six nations: Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa. Ranger acknowledges the limitations of having only six case studies (e.g., no francophone countries are included). Also in at least two case studies the criteria used for determining who are evangelicals are stretched in ways that render them too plastic. In the Kenyan study literally all Protestant Christians are considered evangelical, so that the usefulness of the term is lost. Further, the author’s clear disdain for the Evangelical Fellowship of Kenya ("a feeble Luo-Kalenjin alliance"), and in particular the dismissing of the Africa Inland Church (with a membership of 3 million—almost ten percent of Kenya’s population), results in a less than balanced perspective. Likewise, in the Zimbabwe study the Masowe Apostles are included as evangelicals, even though the majority of evangelicals in Zimbabwe would not consider them such. This is nevertheless a ground-breaking book that deserves inclusion in theological libraries across the continent. Evangelical readers in Africa will benefit in particular from seeing the diversity of responses within their communities to significant political issues. One would hope that greater ongoing and constructive engagement would be one result. At the very least, the authors have largely managed to portray evangelicals even-handedly, making it easier for evangelicals to understand themselves as others see them, and to gain a clearer picture of ways they can be more constructively engaged in the process of building their nations.

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