The Shift of Gravity of the Church to Sub-Saharan Africa: Theological and Ecclesiological Implications for Women

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 290-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puleng LenkaBula
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Church

scholarly journals Demography of Anglicans in Sub-Saharan Africa: Estimating the Population of Anglicans in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Andrew McKinnon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Absolute Number ◽  
Statistical Estimate ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Church

AbstractThere is an emerging debate about the growth of Anglicanism in sub-Saharan Africa. With this debate in mind, this paper uses four statistically representative surveys of sub-Saharan Africa to estimate the relative and absolute number who identify as Anglican in five countries: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The results for Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania are broadly consistent with previous scholarly assessments. The findings on Nigeria and Uganda, the two largest provinces, are likely to be more controversial. The evidence from statistically representative surveys finds that the claims often made of the Church of Nigeria consisting of ‘over 18 million’ exceedingly unlikely; the best statistical estimate is that under 8 million Nigerians identify as Anglican. The evidence presented here shows that Uganda (rather than Nigeria) has the strongest claim to being the largest province in Africa in terms of those who identify as Anglican, and is larger than is usually assumed. Evidence from the Ugandan Census of Populations and Households, however, also suggests the proportion of Ugandans that identify as Anglican is in decline, even if absolute numbers have been growing, driven by population growth.

The Politics of Pentecostalism in Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. McCauley
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Spiritual Warfare ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Pentecostal Movement ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Church ◽  
Big Men

Charismatic Pentecostalism constitutes perhaps the most important contemporary movement in sub-Saharan Africa, combining extremely rapid growth with an informal political presence. The movement has expanded in Africa by bringing traditional spirituality into a modern setting, offering social and economic hope to both the upwardly mobile and the destitute. Despite having minority status, its messages of pending prosperity and spiritual warfare, and its astute exploitation of mass media, have positioned the Charismatic Pentecostal movement to exert important if informal influence on politics in the region. It is reshaping the channels through which resources flow from Big Men to their followers; it is implicating new and different international actors; and it is allowing followers to live fully within the church through the provision of social services. Perhaps most importantly, the movement has introduced language of national identity—of good and evil, and Christian nations—that captivates just as it divides. Its potential to influence the formal politics of institutions and parties is limited by the absence of organizational hierarchy and a central focus on remaking the individual rather than addressing social injustices. Nevertheless, by informal means, the movement has “Pentecostalized” politics in many African countries.

scholarly journals THE CHURCH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-179
Author(s):  
Komi Ahiatroga Hiagbe
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
The People ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Church

The snail-pace of social and economic development within sub-Saharan Africa is of major concern not only to the development community, but to all who have the continent’s well-being at heart. Various attempts (many rather elusive) at diagnosis and prescription of the right antidotes to the problem have been made for decades. This paper, however, shares Jeffrey Sachs’s optimism in End of Poverty with the point of departure being that organised religion holds the key to a reversal of the trend. The paper explores the impact of religious beliefs on the development of some communities in the past and the present before concluding that Christianity could unlock the prospects to sub-Saharan Africa’s economic fortunes. In the view of this researcher, African theological reflections, in response to the challenges of endemic corruption, nepotism, superstition, and bad work ethics on the continent, must be grounded in the language, traditional beliefs, values and practices (i.e. culture) of the people as grounds for integration with the modern scientific and technological advancement that confronts the continent. This underscores the need for Christianity itself to become that culture which is willing to accommodate a consciously reconstructed past as the pathway to a developed future.

scholarly journals Migration, Interfaith Engagement, and Mission among Somali Refugees in Kenya: Assessing the Cape Town Commitment from a Global South Perspective One Decade On

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Martin Munyao
Keyword(s):  
Cape Town ◽  
Global South ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Culturally Appropriate ◽  
Mission Theology ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Somali Refugee ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Church

In the last decade, since the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (2010) in Cape Town, South Africa, the world has significantly changed. The majority of the world’s Christians are located in the Global South. Globalization, conflict, and migration have catalyzed the emergence of multifaith communities. All these developments have in one way or another impacted missions in twenty-first-century sub-Saharan Africa. As both Christianity and Islam are spreading and expanding, new approaches to a peaceful and harmonious coexistence have been developed that seem to be hampering the mission of the Church as delineated in the Cape Town Commitment (2010). Hence a missiological assessment of the Cape Town Commitment is imperative for the new decade’s crosscutting developments and challenges. In this article, the author contends that the mission theology of the 2010 Lausanne Congress no longer addresses the contemporary complex reality of a multifaith context occasioned by refugee crises in Kenya. The article will also describe the Somali refugee situation in Nairobi, Kenya, occasioned by political instability and violence in Somalia. Finally, the article will propose a methodology for performing missions for interfaith engagement in Nairobi’s Eastleigh refugee centers in the post Cape Town Commitment era. The overall goal is to provide mainstream evangelical mission models that are biblically sound, culturally appropriate, and tolerant to the multifaith diversity in conflict areas.

A History of Development of Medical Missions and Catholic Evangelization in Sub-Saharan Africa From the Early Twentieth Century to the Present: Tracing Some Representative Founders and Orders in the Context of the Twentieth Century Church

2021 ◽  
pp. 002436392110245
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Dailor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Medical Missions ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
Catholic Health Care ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Church

Although the care of the sick has been a charism of Catholic community since the beginning, and hospitals as we know them have developed since the fourth century, religious orders began to develop hospitals as part of their mission work during the colonial expansion of the seventeenth century. These early efforts, however, were primarily a response to the needs of the colonists as well as recognition that the poor who were sick required care in these regions. It can be argued that medical missions developed during the twentieth century as a response to the outreach of Protestants as well as the exposure of physicians to the needs in mission territories, and that their advancement and success impacted the attitudes of the popes and bishops of the twentieth century. This article examines several individuals and organizations who have contributed to the development of medical missions in Africa in modern times and trace the approach of the Church toward medical missions by exploring missionary religious orders, especially women’s religious orders, and papal and council documents. It primarily considers the role of medical missions in areas that had only a limited Catholic presence prior to nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and where Catholic health care and the local Catholic Church essentially developed together, and considers ways in which the growth of medical missions and the thinking of the Church developed together.

‘To Suffer Grief in All Kinds of Trials’: Persecution and Martyrdom in the African Church in the Twentieth Century

1993 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 465-482
Author(s):  
David Killingray
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Good Case ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Church

There is a good case for regarding the twentieth century as the century of Christian persecution and martyrdom. Both individual Christians, as well as the Church as a whole, have suffered severely at the hands of authoritarian regimes in Europe and Asia and also from institutional and state hostility in all but a few areas of the world. The Church has invariably been divided and split in its reactions to these pressures. This paper focuses upon the experience of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa where the Church has grown very rapidly in size and significance this century, most notably since the 1940s.

HIV and AIDS, Stigma and Liberation in the Old Testament

Exchange ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezra Chitando ◽  
Masiiwa Gunda
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
People Living With Hiv ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Aids Stigma ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Living With Hiv ◽  
The Church

AbstractAs the HIV and AIDS pandemic continues to affect most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the church has attempted to mitigate its effects. Unfortunately, stigma has emerged as a major challenge. The church has been implicated in stigmatizing people living with HIV and AIDS. Some Christians have used the Bible to justify the exclusion of people living with HIV and AIDS. This article examines HIV and AIDS stigma. It highlights the various forms of stigma, alongside exploring the occurrence of stigma in the Hebrew Bible. The study calls for a re-reading of the Hebrew Bible in the context of HIV and AIDS stigma and discrimination. It argues that the theme of liberation that underpins the Hebrew Bible implies that stigma has no place in human relations. The paper draws attention to the need to bring liberation to the heart of mission in the light of HIV and AIDS in Africa.

scholarly journals Relationship between Worship Time and Attendance in Orthodox Church, Southern Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
O. C. Ezeanyim ◽  
C. O. Nwankwo ◽  
A. O. Umeozokwere
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Spearman Correlation ◽  
Correlation Methods ◽  
Research Outcome ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Development And Management ◽  
Nonparametric Correlation ◽  
The Church ◽  
Service Duration

The perturbation in members worship attendance data with respect to service duration and a general impression among members, that worship attendance recorded at sessional services, was due to the worship duration, gave rise to this investigative research. There has never been a study in this relation of worship time and members attendance in the church.  This study therefore seeks to clarify thinking, in the service time and attendance relationships among the worshipers. To satisfy the needs of the relationships, a correlation analysis was conducted using available data from 62weekly service observations for an orthodox church in south-south Nigeria, by applying parametric and nonparametric correlation methods. The correlations coefficient were obtained by using the Pearson, Kendall and Spearman correlation methods which showed 63, 53 and 66% correlations respectively as well as a significant value of 0.000 result for each individual methods. The results show that there is a significant relationship that exists between both variables under consideration.  This insightful and informative research outcome will disabuse or soothe the minds of these members as well as guide the church leadership’s poise in membership growth, development and management of gospel dissemination across sub-Saharan Africa.

scholarly journals Access to land in sub-Saharan Africa: the church as an unnoticed accomplice

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasebwe Timothee Luc Kabongo
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Local Churches ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Title Deed ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Individual Ownership ◽  
The Church ◽  
Interpretive Framework

Access to land is still ideal for the majority of sub-Saharan Africans. The colonisers of Africa created the problem of access to land that indigenous Africans are still at pains with. The post-colonial African elite is still perpetuating this problem. The church benefited from the creation of this problem and sit at the table of privileged owners of vast pieces of land. This article is written from the perspective of someone who lives and serves in a sub-Saharan community of poverty. He is been observing local churches with vast pieces of land, limiting access to members only. In the meantime, the population around the church is confined in small spaces of land as family units. This article uses a biblical interpretive framework of Jerimiah 29:7 to stress about the role of the church as a peace agent that creates a shalom community around it. Such as community will be a hybrid between a Eurocentric view on land which value ownership with a title deed, and an Afrocentric view which values access of land to all without the need for individual ownership.

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