Wealth, Health, and Hope in African Christian Religion: The Search for Abundant Life

by Stan Chu Ilo (Editor), Esther Acolatse (Foreword by), Obaji M. Agbiji (Contribution by), Michael Barkowski (Contribution by), Peter Clark (Contribution by)

Overview

Wealth, Health, and Hope in African Christian Religion offers a portrait of how contending narratives of modernity in both church and society play out in Africa today through the agency of African Christian religion. It explores the identity and features of African Christian religion and the cultural forces driving the momentum of Christian expansion in Africa, as well as how these factors are shaping a new African social imagination, especially in providing answers to the most challenging questions about poverty, wealth, health, human, and cosmic flourishing. It offers the academy a good road map for interpreting African Christian religious beliefs and practices today and into the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498561280
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/22/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	338
File size:	621 KB

About the Author

Stan Chu Ilo is research professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University and president of Canadian Samaritans for Africa.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Esther Acolatse
Introduction: “The Search for Abundant Life in African Christian Religion: Historical Reinterpretation of Christian Mission in Africa”—Stan Chu Ilo

African Christian Religions and the Quest for Health, Healing and Wholeness

1. “African Christian Religion: Its Scope in the Global Context”—Caleb O. Oladipo
2. “In Quest of Wholeness: African Christians in the New Christianity” —David Tonghou Ngong
3. “Searching for Healing in a Miraculous Stream: The Fate of God’s People in Africa” — Stan Chu Ilo

African Pentecostalism and the Ecology of Sickness and Evil

4. “Eradicating Evil in the Search for Practices of Hope in Africa: Witchcraft Beliefs and Accusations in Contemporary Ghanaian Christianity”—Cyril G. K. Fayose
5. “Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal as a Socio-Religious Phenomenon for Transformation in Africa”— Clement Majawa
6. “Taking Africa out of the African: Eco-Community, the Christian Heritage of Empire and Neo-Pentecostalism in Africa”—Ben-Willie Kwaku Golo

Mission, Money, Wealth, and the Search for Abundant Life

7. “The African Peoples and Money: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”—Nathanaël Soede
8. “The Place of Money in Mission Between Africa and the West: A Personal Narrative”—Jim Harries
9. “Nigeria, Europe and Christian Mission: Models of Economic Collaboration in the 21st Century”—Felix Enegho
10. “The African Church and the Impact of Contemporary Fundraising and Sustainability”—Levi Nkwocha
11. “To Recycle or Not to Recycle: An Ethical Question in Africa's Relation with the West”—Aloysius Ochasi, Peter Clark, and Michael Barkowski
12. “In the Wake of Overt Religiosity: A Critical and Appreciative Perspective on Religion as a Force for Social Transformation and Development in African society”—Obaji M. Agbiji and Ignatius Swart

Editorial Reviews

This book is a multifaceted and interdisciplinary, self-critical tapestry and interpretation of the historical and contemporary reality of Africa's paradox—poor and suffering and yet teeming with immense experiences and opportunities of and for abundant life. It explores Africa's indelible and unique contribution to world Christianity and other global dynamics.

Mary N. Getui

This book offers an engaging story of African Christianity, a subtle analysis of its logic and dynamic, and a robust discourse of its quest for abundant life. It is a teachable book that expresses the vibrancy of the depth, diversity, and relevance of the Christian vision, practice, and moment in Africa.

Nimi Wariboko

This volume is a rich repository of fresh research on African Christianity. It offers valuable new readings of religion in Africa, missions history, and the relationship between Africa and the West. More than this, the volume invites a reinterpretation of global Christianity that restores Africa to its rightfully prominent role in the historical narrative. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Africa or global Christianity.

Candy Gunther Brown

Under the general theme of abundant life in Africa, an impressive group of African scholars here address the reality of life in Africa today, and how it might be enhanced from building on Africa’s own cultural and Christian resources. Their agenda is at the same time ambitious and optimistic, yet realistic and self-critical. They deserve a wide readership in Africa and beyond.

Paul Gifford