Exchange 53.2 consists of three academic articles and eight book reviews. In the first article of the issue, Dana L. Robert brings postcolonial studies into conversation with the field of World Christianity. She shows that while European Christianity in the colonial era was often presented as a unified force to justify European missions, today, it instead often comes embedded in a grand narrative about failure, and serves as a foil to a vibrant and dynamic Christian South. Provincializing European Christianity, she argues, is to place it on the “same footing as the rest of the world” and to study it “neither as a hegemonic imperialist force, nor as a secularizing demographic and cultural failure, but as a subject worthy of investigation in its own multiple contexts.” Doing so opens up new and interesting research agendas in the fields of mission studies and World Christianity.
The next article, written by Erica Meijers, explores the topic of church, theology, and racism, particularly in the context of the public debate on reparations for colonial enslavement in the Netherlands. The author recognizes both the World Council of Churches’ Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) and the ecumenical discussions on this theme in the 1970s provide as a good point of departure for theological reflection today. After giving a background on the PCR, the article discusses three theological positions in relation to reconciliation that have shaped the discussions around racism. Drawing on their insights, Meijers formulates what she sees as relevant for the contemporary conversation on church, diaconia, and racism. Her main thesis is that commitment, the transfer of power, and the value of discomfort provide important theological and practical orientation points for discussion today.
The author of the final academic article in this issue, Francis Ethelbert Kwabena Benyah, examines how Akan traditional healing approaches are appropriated at prayer camps in Ghana. Prayer camps serve as platforms for healing rituals in Ghana and may be situated within the context of the growth and expansion of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. Benyah’s analysis highlights parallels between traditional healing shrines and prayer camps concerning worldviews, the mode of diagnostic methods, treatment practices, and the role of the prophet/traditional priest as diviners. However, that is not to say that prayer camps are the same as the traditional healing shrines, nor that they are engaged in a form of syncretism. The self-understanding of the personnel at the prayer camps is that their healing rituals are distinct from traditional shrines following from their rejection of traditional notions, beliefs, and practices. Nevertheless, Benyah argues that their approach to healing can be located within a traditional understanding of and approach to healing.
In the remaining pages of the issue you will find a number of book reviews.
The Editors
