AFRICAN CONTEXTUAL REALITIES
By Rodney L. Reed (General Editor)
Langham Global Library. 290 pages. £14.99
ISBN 978 1 783 684 731
This is a collection of theological essays mostly written by Kenyan Christian scholars. The essays seek to analyse and to address various issues that are confronting and shaping the church in Africa and that arise from their context of African Tribal Religion, the history of colonialism and traditional missionary practice.
I would not recommend this book for the general Christian reader; it is written in a scholarly style and assumes a good grounding in missiology and a prior knowledge of the African church. However, for those who have such grounding and who are perhaps engaged in teaching the African church, this book provides illuminating and helpful insights that can shape both understanding and ministry into such a context.
It may be slightly misleading to call the book African contextual realities, as most contributors are Kenyans speaking from their experience of the church in Kenya. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that many of their observations would be broadly true of most of sub-Saharan Africa.
The essays are of mixed interest and quality and the authors, whilst all being distinctively evangelical, come from a wide range of church backgrounds. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see African scholars critiquing and addressing African issues with maturity and solid faithfulness to core gospel truths. Many of the essayists are adept at identifying how frequently African churches fall into syncretism; that is, in explaining how they have allowed local tribal religious understanding to shape and distort the Christian faith in very harmful ways. There is a clear call to discern where this is happening and to apply gospel truth in a corrective or reforming way. These essays alone provide excellent and thought-provoking insights for the specialist reader.
