Marthinus L. Daneel profiles an African instituted interfaith earthkeeping mission that illustrates the transformation of the religious landscape now underway in the sub-Saharan world. Part One introduces the African initiated churches, showing how their earthkeeping movement in Zimbabwe gives voice to African religious convictions as the people struggle with drought and moribund political structures. In Part Two, Daneel reflects theologically on the independent church movement, helping the reader understand the meaning and challenge of these churches. This book is the single best study of the African Independent Church movement available today.

Author Professor Inus Daneel grew up in Zimbabwe and has extensively researched the traditional and Christian religions of the Shona people. Appalled at the environmental devastation caused by war Daneel initiated and became the driving force behind an unusual partnership in 'the war of the trees'. His intimate knowledge of traditional Shona culture and religion and the friendships he established with various Shona tribesmen enabled Daneel to share with traditional chiefs and spirit mediums (traditionally custodians of the land) the urgency of restoring the land. Thus the partnership between Daneel, the Christian missionary and academic, and Shona traditionalist religious leaders began in a tree-planting venture that overcame religious differences. Daneel records the religio-ecological motivation and endeavour of the African Earthkeeping Movement and its impact on Shona peasant society.

Author Professor Inus Daneel grew up in Zimbabwe and has extensively researched the traditional and Christian religions of the Shona people. Daneel records the religio-ecological motivation and endeavour of the African Earthkeeping Movement and its impact on Shona peasant society.

This volume, Mother Earth, Mother Africa: World Religions and Environmental Imagination, explores the interface of religio-cultural traditions and ecological conservation practices in different African contexts. The authors also reflect on the entwinement between the violation of women’s rights and the degradation of the Earth which is usually described using feminine terms, hence the designation, “Mother Earth.” The three major religious traditions in Africa – Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religions (ATR) – are the lenses through which the authors discuss the interconnections between religion, culture and ecological traditions. Peering through African eco-feminist, gender justice and gender inclusive lenses, the authors foreground the importance of tapping into Africa’s rich religio-cultural resources as vital tools that can be utilised to address the ravaging ecological crisis.

This book is a collection of essays that explore the intersection of Earth, Gender and Religion in African literary texts. It examines cultural, religious, theological and philosophical traditions, and their construction of perspectives and attitudes about Earth-keeping and gender. This publication is critical given the current global environmental crisis and its impact on African and global communities. The book is multidisciplinary in approach (literary, environmental, theological and sociological), exploring the intersection of African creative work, religion and the environment in their construction of Earth and gender. It presents how the gendered interconnectedness of the natural environment, with its broad spirituality and deep identification with the woman, features prominently in the myths, folklores, legends, rituals, sacred songs and incantations that are explored in this collection. Both male and female writers in the collection laud and accept woman’s enduring motif as worker, symbol and guardian of the environment. This interconnectedness mirrors the importance of the environment for the survival of both human and non-human components of Mother Earth. The ideology of women’s agency is emphasised and reinforced by ecofeminist theologians; namely those viewing African women as active agents working closely with the environment and not as subordinates. In the context of the environmental crisis the nurturing role of women should be bolstered and the rich African traditions that conserved the environment preserved. The book advocates the re-engagement of women, particularly their knowledge and conservation techniques and how these can become reservoirs of dying traditions. This volume offers recorded traditions in African literary texts, thereby connecting gender, religion and the environment and helpful perspectives in Earth-keeping.

There is probably no set of issues of greater importance in the contemporary world than those that are to do with the Earth on which we live and depend. The more alienated we become from it the more we contribute to our own destruction. Christianity’s complicity in this destruction is well-documented and hotly debated. Africa can ill afford to fall into the same trap that Western Christianity has in this regard. One senses the urgency of these concerns in Blasu’s African Theocology: Studies in African Religious Creation Care. Extremely well-informed in the field, Blasu not only draws on the three major religions in Africa—Christianity, Islam, and African traditional religion—but demonstrates familiarity with the most important recent contributions in the field from Western scholarship. With its emphasis on pedagogics, African Theocology will play a seminal role in the construction of curricula for an African Christian theology of the environment and is sure to be an essential contribution to all libraries in institutions of higher learning.

Author Professor Inus Daneel grew up in Zimbabwe and has extensively researched the traditional and Christian religions of the Shona people. Daneel records the religio-ecological motivation and endeavour of the African Earthkeeping Movement and its impact on Shona peasant society.

Africans embrace all of life, the humanity of each person, the world, and the creation of God. Consequently, African indigenous education reflects the completeness of life itself. The various chapters in this volume recount religious events and experiences from individual perspectives as they are unfolding on the continent. The different voices show how modernity, colonisation, urbanisation, Christianity, and technology have sidelined beliefs and practices of African traditional religions (ATRs) to the detriment of the environment. This volume brings together voices from leading proponents of ATRs and African religious heritage to help us appreciate how values are richly entrenched in African religious life. It demonstrates the detailed richness of ATRs and culture and showcases how far the academic study of ATRs in Africa has come, and calls for a concerted effort through partnership between various actors to ensure environmental sustainability.

The emergence of an indigenous African theology, especially since the 1960s is well-documented. A wealth of literature has been published in the context of African theology, especially over the last two or three decades. This indexed bibliography contains a number of publications in and for the African context specifically relevant to the fields of systematic theology and ethics.

world-making political agenda that far exceeds interest group politics applied to forests and toxic incinerators. Rather, religious environmentalism offers an all-inclusive vision of what human beings are and how we should treat each other and the rest of life. Gottlieb analyzes the growing synthesis of the movement's religious, social, and political aspects, as well as the challenges it faces in consumerism, fundamentalism, and globalization.