The Rebirth of African Orthodoxy

The Rebirth of African Orthodoxy
Author: Thomas C. Oden
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2016-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501819100

African orthodoxy today reveals the same powerful faith that was confessed by Athanasius and Augustine seventeen centuries ago. Classic African Christian teaching in the patristic period (100–750 AD) preceded modern colonialism by over a thousand years. Many young African women and men are now reexamining these lost roots. They are hungry for accurate information about their Christian ancestors. Thomas C. Oden asks readers to recapture the resonance of a consensual orthodoxy, the harmony of voices celebrating the apostolic testimony to God’s saving work in Jesus Christ, witnessed to in scripture and understood best by African interpreters of the faith. In ten seminars, Oden invites discerning readers to reclaim and reaffirm Christian faith as it emerges from thoughtful conversations between contemporary and ancient African interpreters of orthodox faith. “This new book by Tom Oden is remarkable and historic. His words challenge the worldwide church to return to the true fountain of living water, Jesus Christ. He specifically encourages us Africans to continue to seek the treasures left to us by our early church fathers and mothers in order to reshape the Christian mind now as they did in the first millennium.” –The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, Archbishop of the Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa “A thought-provoking book with factual evidences emphasizing the continuity of global orthodoxy that emanated in Africa and has been nurtured by Africans from the time of Mark the evangelist to the present. People yearning to discover the intellectual and classical African Christian roots will find the book very helpful.” –Thomas A. Oduro, President, Good News Theological College & Seminary, Accra, Ghana “While Tom Oden writes about Africans for Africans, The Rebirth of African Orthodoxy: Return to Foundations is also addressed to all Christians everywhere who ask, ‘What is God doing in the world today?’ The author proposes that the clue to what God is doing in the present is to be found in what God has done in the past, for ‘the Holy Spirit has a history.’ Tom directs us to look to Africa, where the ancient African Christian orthodoxy is being reborn in the African church today, making it a witness to the whole church everywhere.” –Timothy W. Whitaker, retired bishop, Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church

How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind

How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind
Author: Thomas C. Oden
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2010-07-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830837051

Thomas C. Oden surveys the decisive role of African Christians and theologians in shaping the doctrines and practices of the church of the first five centuries, and makes an impassioned plea for the rediscovery of that heritage. Christians throughout the world will benefit from this reclaiming of an important heritage.

Pentecostal Orthodoxy

Pentecostal Orthodoxy
Author: Emilio Alvarez
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1514000911

In this manifesto of sorts, Bishop Emilio Alvarez introduces the phenomenon of Pentecostals returning to the ancient, creedal Christian faith, and extends the project of paleo-orthodox ressourcement to include orthodox expressions within Pentecostalism, particularly in his own Afro-Latino Pentecostal movement.

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent
Author: John Garrard
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2008-09-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780691125732

Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent is the first book to fully explore the expansive and ill-understood role that Russia's ancient Christian faith has played in the fall of Soviet Communism and in the rise of Russian nationalism today. John and Carol Garrard tell the story of how the Orthodox Church's moral weight helped defeat the 1991 coup against Gorbachev launched by Communist Party hardliners. The Soviet Union disintegrated, leaving Russians searching for a usable past. The Garrards reveal how Patriarch Aleksy II--a former KGB officer and the man behind the church's successful defeat of the coup--is reconstituting a new national idea in the church's own image. In the new Russia, the former KGB who run the country--Vladimir Putin among them--proclaim the cross, not the hammer and sickle. Meanwhile, a majority of Russians now embrace the Orthodox faith with unprecedented fervor. The Garrards trace how Aleksy orchestrated this transformation, positioning his church to inherit power once held by the Communist Party and to become the dominant ethos of the military and government. They show how the revived church under Aleksy prevented mass violence during the post-Soviet turmoil, and how Aleksy astutely linked the church with the army and melded Russian patriotism and faith. Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent argues that the West must come to grips with this complex and contradictory resurgence of the Orthodox faith, because it is the hidden force behind Russia's domestic and foreign policies today.

Byang Kato

Byang Kato
Author: Aiah Dorkuh Foday-Khabenje
Publisher: Langham Publishing
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2023-08-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1839738901

In this in-depth study of the legacy of Byang Kato, Dr. Foday-Khabenje traces his extraordinary life from a boyhood immersed in African traditional religion to his conversion to Christianity as a young man, his education in Nigeria and abroad, his global leadership within the evangelical church, his tragic, untimely death, and the long-lasting impact of his prophetic voice. In the realm of African theology, Kato is often remembered for the oppositional stance he took towards many of his contemporaries, arguing passionately for the dangers of universalism and syncretism and urging the church to place the Bible at the heart of African Christianity. Foday-Khabenje engages these debates while demonstrating that Kato’s contributions to the African church cannot be reduced to polemics. His biblical hermeneutics, perspectives on African Christian identity, and tireless work for the expansion of theological education in Africa are each explored and celebrated, along with their implications for the contemporary church in Africa and beyond. While nearly fifty years have passed since Kato’s death, his legacy is still as relevant as ever for a church facing the challenges of secularism and pluralism in the twenty-first century. In an age that seeks to de-emphasize the uniqueness of Christ, Kato’s testimony of the radical transformation offered by authentic biblical Christianity is good news for us all.

Handbook of African Catholicism

Handbook of African Catholicism
Author: Ilo, Stan Chu
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 1003
Release: 2022-07-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 160833936X

"A disciplinary map for understanding African Catholicism today by engaging some of the most pressing and pertinent issues, topics, and conversations in diverse fields of studies in African Catholicism"--

Apologetics in Africa

Apologetics in Africa
Author: Kevin Muriithi Ndereba
Publisher: Langham Publishing
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2024-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1839739673

Divided into four major sections, this textbook provides an in-depth exploration of the biblical, philosophical, cultural, and practical concerns facing African Christians as they proclaim and defend the gospel in Africa. Written by a diverse group of pastors and scholars, it provides a much needed interdisciplinary and contextualized approach to apologetics. It also seeks to bridge the gap between academic research and ministry practice, touching on such topics as hermeneutics, biblical criticism, church history, the nature of evil, religious inclusivism, Muslim-Christian engagement, eldership rites, domestic violence, cults, and the digital age. Biblically robust, contextually relevant, ministry-oriented, and accessible, this is a remarkable resource for enriching the life and ministry of Christians in Africa and beyond.

Stories from the Fireplace

Stories from the Fireplace
Author: Tekletsadik Belachew
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2020-12-22
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9956552046

This book is an interdisciplinary theological exploration of Haile Gerima's cinema, an Ethiopian filmmaker and storyteller who successfully translated African folkloric orality and wove other indigenous art forms into the language of cinema. Gerima's five decades legacy of Pan-African cinema embodies 'symbolic resistance' against Afro-pessimistic and stereotypical mis/disrepresentations, both manifestations of neo-colonialism. In response, he uses "camera as a weapon" to resist exotic otherness and alienation invented by conventional cinema. Through an alternative moving pictures, he depicted dignified images of Africa towards decolonising cinema and liberating the mind. His memory-films achieves archiving the stories of the people of African descent. Gerima, who stands in par with great African film griots such as Ousmane Sembène - 'the father of African cinema' and Med Hondo, deserves further interdisciplinary reflections. Gerima's 'Triangular cinema' and 'imperfect cinema' are inspired from indigenous values and cultural products such as holy icons and fireplace stories. His works foster asserting identity of the self, maintaining the right to difference and embracing ubuntu-like human personhood. They are essential acts in the 21st century. Like theology, cinema alters a way of life - human experiences, imaginations, and narrative identity. This book engages with the works and thoughts of Gerima towards re-imaging Africa through cinematic narratives in being and becoming an African.