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  • Christianity and Public Culture in Africa
  • Book
  • Harri Englund
  • 2011
  • Published by: Ohio University Press
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summary

Christianity and Public Culture in Africa takes the reader beyond Africa’s apparent exceptionalism. African Christians have created new publics, often in ways that offer fresh insights into the symbolic and practical boundaries separating the secular and the sacred, the private and the public, and the liberal and the illiberal. Critical reason and Christian convictions have combined in surprising ways when African Christians have engaged with vital public issues such as national constitutions and gender relations, and with literary imaginings and controversies over tradition and HIV/AIDS.

The contributors demonstrate how the public significance of Christianity varies across time and place. They explore rural Africa and the continent’s major cities, and colonial and missionary situations, as well as mass-mediated ideas and images in the twenty-first century. They also reveal the plurality of Pentecostalism in Africa and keep in view the continent’s continuing denominational diversity. Students and scholars will find these topical studies to be impressive in scope. 

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover Art
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  1. Frontmatter
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vii
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. ix
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  1. Introduction: Rethinking African Christianities
  2. pp. 1-24
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  1. Part 1: Missionary and Nationalist Encounters
  1. 1: Christian Mission Stations in South-Central Africa: Eddies in the Flow of Global Culture
  2. pp. 27-49
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  1. 2: Debating the Secular in Zambia: The Response of the Catholic Church to Scientific Socialism and Christian Nation, 1976–2006
  2. pp. 50-66
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  1. 3: Rejection or Reappropriation?: Christian Allegory and the Critique of Postcolonial Public Culture in the Early Novels of Ngugıwa Thiong'o
  2. pp. 67-85
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  1. Part 2: Patriarchy and Public Culture
  1. 4: The Implications of Reproductive Politics for Religious Competition in Niger
  2. pp. 89-108
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  1. 5: Public Debates about Luo Widow Inheritance: Christianity, Tradition, and AIDS in Western Kenya
  2. pp. 109-130
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  1. 6: “Arise, Oh Ye Daughters of Faith”: Women, Pentecostalism, and Public Culture in Kenya
  2. pp. 131-145
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  1. Part 3: A Plurality of Pentecostal Publics
  1. 7: Going and Making Public: Pentecostalism as Public Religion in Ghana
  2. pp. 149-166
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  1. 8: From Spiritual Warfare to Spiritual Kinship: Islamophobia and Evangelical Radio in Malawi
  2. pp. 167-188
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  1. 9: Believing Practically and Trusting Socially in Africa: The Contrary Case of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Durban, South Africa
  2. pp. 189-203
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  1. 10: The Gospel of Public Image in Ghana
  2. pp. 204-216
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  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 217-232
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  1. Contributors
  2. pp. 233-234
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 235-238
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