In this overview of the historiography of Christianity in Africa a number of desiderata and considerations for future research are reviewed. The first issue considered relates to the practice of historiography. The second issue relates to African identity/-ies and its relationship to global cultural movements. The third desideratum is the pursuit of new disciplinary practices in the study of African Christianity, especially interdisciplinarity as scholarly ethos. Finally, a number of themes that should become foci in historiography of African Christianity are explored, among these are: concentration on local and regional narratives, the gendered character of Christianity in Africa, attention to the material conditions and needs of African religious communities and the various cultural innovations adopted to cope with these conditions, as well as the role of Christian communities in development in Africa and the wider encompassing question of ethics and morality.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Jean François Bayart, “The Historicity of African Societies,” Journal of International Affairs 46, no. 1, Sub-Saharan Africa: Dilemmas in Political and Economic Development (Summer 1992): 55–79.
See David Maxwell, “Writing the History of African Christianity: Reflections of an Editor,” Journal of Religion in Africa 36, no. 3–4 (2006): 381–399.
See William Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions on the Western Coast of Africa (London: Ayllot and Jones, 1851); William Ellis, The Martyr Church: A Narrative of the Introduction, Progress and Triumph of Christianity in Madagascar (London: Snow, 1870); W. Clifford Holden, A Brief History of Methodism, and of Methodist Missions in South Africa (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1877); Edward Wilmot Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (London: W.B. Whittingham, 1888); Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1890); John Brown Myers, The Congo for Christ (London: Partridge, 1895); Holman H. Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, 2 vols. (London: Religious Tract Society, 1900); A.E.M. Anderson-Morshead, The History of the Universities Mission to Central Africa 1859–1909 (London: Universities Mission, 1909); J. du Plessis, A History of Christian Missions in South Africa (New York: Longmans, 1911); J. Taylor Hamilton, Twenty-Five Years of Pioneer Missions in Nyasaland: A History of Moravian Missions in German East Africa (Bethlehem: Society for Propagating the Gospel, 1912); J. du Plessis, The Evangelization of the Pagan Africa: A History of Christian Missions to the Pagan Tribes of Central Africa (Johannesburg: J.C. Juta Press, 1930); G.G. Findley and W.S. Holdsworth, The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, vols. 1–5 (London: Epworth, 1921–1922); J. Lowry Maxwell, Nigeria, the Land, the People and Christian Progress (London: World Dominion, 1927); Alfred Bonn, Ein Jahrhundert Rheinische Mission (Bremen: Missionhaus, 1928); Charles Pelham Groves, The Planting of Christianity in Africa, Vol. 1 (From Early Church to 1840); Vol. 2 (1840 to 1878); Vol. 3 (1878 to 1914); Vol. 4 (1914 to 1954) (London: Lutterworth, 1954–1964); L.K. Anderson, Bridge to Africa (New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in U.S.A., 1952); E.A. Ayendele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914 (London: Longmans, 1966).
Adrian Hastings, African Christianity: An Essay in Interpretation (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1976); Peter Falk, The Growth of the Church in Africa (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979); Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present (London: SPCK, 1995); Bengt Sundkler and C. Steed, A History of the Church in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Thomas Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the Africa Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008); John Baur, 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa: An African Church History (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 1994).
Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London: Lutterworth, 1948); Efraim Anderson, Messianic Popular Movements in Lower Congo, Studia ethnographica Upsaliensia 14 (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells, 1958); Harold Walter Turner, History of an African Independent Church: The Church of the Lord Aladura, Vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961); S.G. Baeta, Prophetism in Ghana: A Study of Some Spiritual Churches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962); F.B. Welbourn, East African Rebels (London: SCM Press, 1962); David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); G.C. Oosthuizen, Post-Christianity in Africa. A Theological and Anthropological Study (London: Hurst, 1968); Johannes Fabian, JAMAA: A Charismatic Movement in Katanga (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971); Sheila S. Walker, The Religious Revolution in the Ivory Coast: The Prophet Harris and the Harrist Church (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983); Willy de Craemer, The JAMAA and the Church: A Bantu Catholic Movement in Zaire (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1977); Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985); Absolom Vilakazi with Bongani Mthethwa and Mthembeni Mpanza, Shembe: The Revitalization of African Society (Johannesburg: Scotaville Publishers, 1986).
M.L. Daneel, African Earthkeepers: Wholistic Interfaith Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2001); Allan Anderson, African Reformation (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000); J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, African Charismatics: Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana, Studies of Religion in Africa 27 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2005); Birgit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999); Matthews A. Ojo, The End Time Army: Charismatic Movements in Modern Nigeria (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2006); Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1946).
François Simiand, “Historical Method and Social Science,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 10, no. 2 (Fall 1985): 163–213.; here 164.
Jan Vansina, Living with Africa (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994).
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Tanzanian Publishing House, 1972).
Steven Feierman, “African Histories and the Dissolution of World History” in Africa and the Disciplines: Contributions of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities, eds. Robert H. Bates, V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 169.
Gerhard van den Heever, “Early Christian Discourses in North African Christianities in the Context of Hellenistic Judaism and Graeco-Roman Culture,” in The Routledge Companion to Christianity in Africa, ed. Elias Kifon Bongmba (New York: Routledge, 2016), 61–78.
Elias Kifon Bongmba, “Studying African Christianity: Future Trajectories” in The Routledge Companion to Christianity in Africa, ed. Elias Kifon Bongmba (New York: Routledge, 2016), 555–563, here 556.
Jehu Hanciles, Euthanasia of a Mission: African Church Autonomy in a Colonial Context (Westport: Praeger, 2002); Marianne Gullestadt, Picturing Pity: Pitfalls and Pleasures in Cross-Cultural Communication. Image and Word in a North Cameroon Mission (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007); Thomas Beidelman, Colonial Evangelism: A Socio-Historical Study of an East African Mission at the Grassroots (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
John W. de Gruchy, The Church Struggle in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979); Jean Mar Ela, African Cry, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1980); F. Eboussi Boulaga, Christianity Without Fetishes: An African Critique and Recapture of Christianity, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1981); Kwesi A. Dickson, Theology in Africa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1984); Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing: Theological Reflections on Christianity in Africa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1986).
Lamin Sanneh, West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983).
Edward E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956).
Thomas Benson, “Five Arguments against Interdisciplinary Studies,” in Interdisciplinarity: Essays from the Literature, ed. W.H. Newell (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1998), 103–108.
A.F. Repko, Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008), 12.
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, “The Disciplinary, Interdisciplinary and Global Dimensions of African Studies,” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 1, no. 2 (2006): 6.
L. Hunt, “The Virtues of Interdisciplinarity” Eighteenth Century Studies 28, no. 1 (1994): 1–7.
J.D.Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).
Birgit Meyer, “Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions, Blackwell Companions to Religion, ed. Elias Kifon Bongmba (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 153–170.
Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1998); See his Christianity and Politics in Doe’s Liberia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Elias Kifon Bongmba, “From Medical Missions to Church Health Services,” in The Routledge Companion to Christianity in Africa, 502–523; James R. Cochrane, Barbara Schmid and Teresa Cutts, eds., When Religion and Health Align: Mobilising Religious Health Assets for Transformation (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2011); Charles M. Good Jr. The Steamer Parish: The Rise and Fall of Medical Medicine on an African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Cochrane, Schmid, Cutts, eds., When Religion and Health Align, xxiv.
Kent Maynard, Making Kedjom Medicine: A History of Health and Well-Being in Cameroon (Westport: Praeger, 2004), 225.
Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967); Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London: Academic Press, 1977); John M. Janzen, The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Steven Feierman and John Janzen eds. The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); John Janzen, Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Megan Vaughan, Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); Robert Pool, Dialogue and Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a Cameroon Village (Oxford: Berg, 1994); Maynard, Making Kedjom Medicine.
Stan Chu Ilo, The Church and Development in Africa: Aid and Development from the Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 2013), 45.
Gerrie ter Haar, “The Mbuliuli Principle: What is in a Name?” in Development and Politics from Below: Exploring Religious Spaces in the African State, eds. Barbara Bompani and Maria Frahm-Arp (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 40–55.
See Steve de Gruchy, “Of Agency, Assets and Appreciation: Seeking Some Commonalities Between theology and Development,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 117 (November 2003): 20–39.
de Gruchy, “Of Agency, Assets and Appreciation,” 32. De Gruchy argues that “the approach has received widespread support and use amongst development organizations such as the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex University, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the British government’s Department For International Development (DFID), the International Institute for Sustainable Development (USD), the People Centered Development Forum (PCD Forum), Oxfam, and importantly, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),” de Gruchy, “Of Agency, Assets and Appreciation,” 32. De Gruchy also argues that for Sustainable Life Framework to work, one needs to take into consideration five important livelihood assets which people have: human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital, and financial capital. I am indebted to De Gruchy for the literature on Sustainable Life Framework: see United Nations Development Programme, Sustainable Livelihoods Unit Home Page, www.undp.org/sl/Overview/an_overview.htm; Rob Fincham, Susse Georg, Eskil Holm Nielsen, eds., Beyond the Summit: The Role of Universities in the Search for Sustainable Futures Proceedings from Linked University Consortium for Environment and Development, LUCEDs Pre-Summmit Conference, Kasane, Botswana, August 2002 (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2003); Mark Butler and Ran Greenstein, Sustainable Livelihoods: Towards a Research Agenda for the Church Land Programme (Johannesburg: Community Agency for Social Enquiry, 1999), 46; Robert Chambers and Gordon Conway, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century, Institute of Development Studies Discussion Paper 296 (Brighton: IDS Publications, 1992); Czech Conroy, “Preface” and “Introduction” in The Greening of Aid: Sustainable Livelihoods in Practice, eds. C. Conroy and M. Litvinoff (London: Earthscan Publications, 1988), x–xiv; Robert Chambers, “Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Key Strategy for People, Environment and Development” in The Greening of Aid: Sustainable Livelihoods in Practice, eds. C. Conroy and M. Litvinoff (London: Earthscan Publications, 1988), 1–17; Koos Neefjes, Environments and Livelihoods: Strategies for Sustainability (Oxford: Oxfam, 2000), 58–112; People-Centered Development Forum, “Principles of Sustainable Livelihoods,” http://iisd.ca/pcdf/1995/ princsl.htm.
Laurenti Magesa, Christian Ethics in Africa (Nairobi: Acton Press, 2002).
Bénézét Bujo, The Ethical Dimension of Community: The African Model and The Dialogue Between North and South (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 1998).
Augustine Shutte, Ubuntu: An Ethic for a New South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2001), 23.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 566 | 172 | 12 |
Full Text Views | 186 | 6 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 59 | 8 | 2 |
In this overview of the historiography of Christianity in Africa a number of desiderata and considerations for future research are reviewed. The first issue considered relates to the practice of historiography. The second issue relates to African identity/-ies and its relationship to global cultural movements. The third desideratum is the pursuit of new disciplinary practices in the study of African Christianity, especially interdisciplinarity as scholarly ethos. Finally, a number of themes that should become foci in historiography of African Christianity are explored, among these are: concentration on local and regional narratives, the gendered character of Christianity in Africa, attention to the material conditions and needs of African religious communities and the various cultural innovations adopted to cope with these conditions, as well as the role of Christian communities in development in Africa and the wider encompassing question of ethics and morality.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 566 | 172 | 12 |
Full Text Views | 186 | 6 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 59 | 8 | 2 |