African Political Theology Issues and Perspectives

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Simeon O. Ilesanmi and Ross Kane

1. Legacies and Horizons of African Political Theology

Elias Kifon Bongmba

2. Being Apolitically Political: Kimbanguism as a Political Theology

Mika Vähäkangas

3. “Nothing About Us Without Us”: Gendering Political Theology in 21st Century Africa

Mary Nyangweso

4. Christian Realism as Political Theology in the African Context

Simeon O. Ilesanmi

5. “Run and Tweet That”: Religion, Digital Social Movements, and Civic Momentum in Kenyan Electoral Politics

Sheila Otieno

6. Black African Neo/Pentecostal Political Subjectivity

Siphiwe Ignatius Dube

7. Defying the Conservative Norm: Prophetic Theology and Political Action in African Churches

Timothy Longman

8. The Church as a Mirror: Deploying Political Theology to State Politics in the DR Congo

Evelyn Birabwa M. Namakula

9. Decolonizing through Retrieval: The Enduring Power of Compositional Politics

Ross Kane

10. Doing the “Right” Thing: A Very Brief History of the Public Theology of Evangelicals in South Africa

Daluxolo Mbebe

11. Women and Pentecostalism: The Evolution of New Spaces for Political Empowerment

Damilola Taiye Agbalajobi

12. African Political Theology and Post-Nationalist Nationalism: The Case of the Cameroon Anglophone Conflict

David Ngong

Index

Biography

Simeon O. Ilesanmi is University Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Wake Forest University, USA.

Ross Kane is Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Culture at Virginia Theological Seminary, USA, where he also directs the doctoral programs.

“Ilesanmi and Kane bring into conversation an impressive group of scholars. The result is a volume that offers significant insights and compelling conclusions concerning what African Political Theology, at its best, is and can be. Anyone interested in the nature and meaning of Political Theology in Africa, during this historical moment, should pick up this volume and read it carefully.”

- Anthony B. Pinn, Agnes Cullen Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Rice University

“This edited volume showcases a wealth of scholarship on religion's functional and dysfunctional nature and accurately portrays religious-political relations in Africa as ‘a study in contrasts.’ By offering critical insights into the intersection of religion and politics in African nation-states and addressing a gap in existing research, the volume examines how Africa’s political-theological discourses encompass a diverse array of issues, including liberation theology, civil society, civil theology, ethics, and moral discourses. As it compares political theologies in the Global South and European continental theology in the West, the book will appeal to African and international seminarians, theologians, and comparative theology and politics experts.”

- Jacob K. Olupona, Hugh K. Foster Professor of African and African American Studies and Professor of African Religious Traditions, Harvard University

“African Political Theology resists offering another position within an established debate, rather reconsiders the field at its foundations by exposing and reconfiguring its core assumptions while opening up new conceptual directions. It is a pioneering work that reorients the reader’s understanding of African political theology through engaging critically with its prevailing frameworks and suggesting fresh ways of thinking about its future. Careful, lucid and demanding in its argumentation, the book rewards slow and attentive reading, repaying close engagement with clarity of insight and depth of analysis. I am certain that, after this book, African political theology will not be read in the same way again.”

- Chammah J. Kaunda, Extraordinary Professor at the University of South Africa