Jesse Zink has written a must-read for all interested in the ongoing crises in Africa and, in particular, the vexed relationship between civil war and religion.--Joel Cabrita, University Lecturer in World Christianity, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge

Syncretism has been a part of Christianity from its very beginning, when early Christians expressed Jesus' Aramaic teachings in the Greek language. Defined as the phenomena of religious mixture, syncretism carries a range of connotations. In Christian theology, use of syncretism shifted from a compliment during the Reformation to an outright insult in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The term has a history of being used as a neutral descriptor, a pejorative marker, and even a celebration of indigenous agency. Its differing uses indicate the challenges of interpreting religious mixture, challenges which today relate primarily to race and revelation. Despite its pervasiveness across religious traditions, syncretism is poorly understood and often misconceived. Ross Kane argues that the history of syncretism's use accentuates wider interpretive problems, drawing attention to attempts by Christian theologians to protect the category of divine revelation from perceived human interference. Kane shows how the fields of religious studies and theology have approached syncretism with a racialized imagination still suffering the legacies of European colonialism. Syncretism and Christian Tradition examines how the concept of race figures into dominant religious traditions associated with imperialism, and reveals how syncretism can act a vital means of the Holy Spirit's continuing revelation of Jesus.

Excerpt from St. Besse : a study of an Alpine cult / Robert Hertz -- Excerpt from Tarantism and Catholicism / Ernesto de Martino -- Excerpt from The place of grace in anthropology / Julian Pitt-Rivers -- Excerpt from The Dinka and Catholicism / Godfrey Lienhardt -- Excerpt from Iconophily and iconoclasm in Marian pilgrimage / Victor Turner and Edith Turner -- Excerpt from Person and God / William Christian -- Excerpt from The priest as agent of secularization in rural Spain / Stanley Brandes -- Excerpt from Women mystics and Eucharistic devotion in the thirteenth century / Caroline Walker Bynum -- "Complexio oppositorum?" : religion, society, and power in the making of Catholicism in rural south India / David Mosse -- Marking memory : heritage work and devotional labour at Quebec's Croix de Chemin / Hillary Kaell -- Failure and contagion : the gender of sin in contemporary Catholicism / Maya Mayblin -- Opulence and simplicity : the question of tension in Syrian Catholicism / Andreas Bandak -- The paradox of charismatic Catholicism : rupture and continuity in a Q'eqchi'-Maya parish / Eric Hoenes del Pinal -- The Virgin of Guadalupe and the spectacle of Catholic evangelism in Mexico / Kristin Norget -- The rosary as a meditation on death at a Marian apparition shrine / Ellen Badone -- A Catholic body? : miracles, secularity, and the porous self in Malta / Jon P. Mitchell -- Experiments of inculturation in a Catholic charismatic movement in Cameroon / Ludovic Lado -- On a political economy of political theology : El Señor de los Milagros / Valentina Napolitano -- Phenomenology and religion : making a home in an unfortunate place / Michelle Molina -- "We're all Catholics now" / Simon Coleman -- The problem of healing among survivors of clerical sexual abuse / Robert Orsi -- Possession and psychopathology, faith and reason / Thomas Csordas -- Catholicism and the study of religion / Birgit Meyer -- The media of sensation / Niklaus Largier

Named one of the top religion books of 2002 by USA Today, Philip Jenkins's phenomenally successful The Next Christendom permanently changed the way people think about the future of Christianity. In that volume, Jenkins called the world's attention to the little noticed fact that Christianity's center of gravity was moving inexorably southward, to the point that Africa may soon be home to the world's largest Christian populations. Now, in this brilliant sequel, Jenkins takes a much closer look at Christianity in the global South, revealing what it is like, and what it means for the future. The faith of the South, Jenkins finds, is first and foremost a biblical faith. Indeed, in the global South, many Christians identify powerfully with the world portrayed in the New Testament--an agricultural world very much like their own, marked by famine and plague, poverty and exile, until very recently a society of peasants, farmers, and small craftsmen. In the global South, as in the biblical world, belief in spirits and witchcraft are commonplace, and in many places--such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Sudan--Christians are persecuted just as early Christians were. Thus the Bible speaks to the global South with a vividness and authenticity simply unavailable to most believers in the industrialized North. More important, Jenkins shows that throughout the global South, believers are reading the Bible with fresh eyes, and coming away with new and sometimes startling interpretations. Some of their conclusions are distinctly fundamentalist, but Jenkins finds an intriguing paradox, for they are also finding ideas in the Bible that are socially liberating, especially with respect to women's rights. Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, such Christians are social activists in the forefront of a wide range of liberation movements. It's hard to overstate how interesting, how eye-opening, how frequently surprising (and sometimes disturbing) Jenkins' findings are. Anyone interested in the implications of these trends for the major denominations, for Muslim-Christian conflict, and for global politics will find The New Faces of Christianity provocative and incisive--and indispensable.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Animism as a religion and a culture of the Nilotic peoples of the Upper River Nile in modern "Southern Sudan". It gives an account of how the animistic ritual performances of the divine chief-priests are strategies in conflict management and resolution. For centuries, the Nilotic peoples have been resisting changes to new religious identities and conservatively remained Animists. Their current interactions with the external world, however, have transformed their religious identities. At present, the Nilotics are Animist-Christians or Animist-Muslims. This does not mean that the converted Nilotics relinquish Animism and become completely assimilated to the new religious prophetic dogmas, instead, they develop compatible religious practices of Animism, Christianity and Islam. New Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan which is sweeping Africa into Islamic religious orthodoxy, where Sharia (Islamic law) is the law of the land, rejects this compatibility and categorises the Nilotics as "heathens" and "apostates". Such characterisation engenders opposing religious categories, with one side urging Sharia and the other for what this study calls "gradable" culture. Kuel Jok is a researcher at the Department of World Cultures at the University of Helsinki. In Sudan, Jok obtained a degree in English Linguistics and Literature and diplomas in Philosophy and Translation. He also studied International Law in Egypt. In Europe, Jok acquired an MA in Sociology from the University of Joensuu, Finland and a PhD in the same field from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

The map of global Christianity continues to undergo dramatic changes, and on this map Africa comes to the fore. The proceedings of the Third International Conference at Munich-Freising on the History of Christianity in the Non-Western World seek to respond to the growing importance of Africa in the context of World Christianity. Prominent scholars from Africa and Europe deal with the manifold manifestations of African Christianity in the 20th century and the various ways in which "African" and "Christian" identities were formulated and interacted with each other. The negotiation of the local and the global in the process of forming African churches is discussed, as is the question of the impact of internal African debates and developments on global ecumenical discussions. From the table of contents (16 contributions): O.U. Kalu, A Trail of Ferment in African Christianity. Ethiopianism, Prophetism, PentecostalismK. Ward, African identities in the historic 'Mainline Churches'. A case study of the negotiation of local and global within African AnglicanismA. Anderson, African Independent Churches and Global Pentecostalism. Historical Connections and Common IdentitiesE. Kamphausen, 'African Cry'. Anmerkungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte einer kontextuellen Befreiungstheologie in AfrikaA. Adamavi-Aho Ekue, Troubled but not destroyed. The development of African Theologies and the paradigm of the 'Theology of reconstruction'K. Hock, Appropriated Vibrancy. 'Immediacy' as a Formative Element in African Theologies

As a missionary in the Sudan, amid unrest and war following Sudanese independence, Nikkel wrote these quasi-public letters -- missionary epistles --to his friends and supporters back home in the USA. These letters present a vivid picture of daily struggle in an impoverished, war-torn, but lavishly beautiful country.

An analysis of the growth of global Christianity.

Sudan’s conflicts are rooted in the creation of the state. During Sudan’s Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule, the Arabic Muslim north and Christian and animist south were ruled as two distinct entities. The north was modernized but the south neglected, creating parallel entities which overlooked the diversity and historical interrelations between the areas. Sudan's conflicts are rooted in the creation of the state. A 1947 policy change to unify them meant that when the country was granted independence in 1956, Sudan was left with a heavily unified and centralized state, ruled from the north. The south, which already had social and political grievances, feared it would be dominated by the Arabic and Islamist North. Promises to create a federal system were soon broken. In 1955, tensions flared up and led to the outbreak of the first Sudanese civil war. The conflict, which featured successive coups and regime changes, ended with the 1972 Addis Abeba agreement and another promise of political autonomy for the South. Disputes over the discovery of oil in the south in 1979, together with President Nimeiry’s decision to implement Islamic Sharia law for the whole of Sudan and end southern autonomy, led to a new surge in civil violence in 1983. Charity website: www.adongor.org Name of the Foundation: Adongor Foundation Founded by Martin Bol Deng Aleu MA in 2018. Founded on 2018 and officially with the ministry of justice in Poland and can have activities and branches around the global. And Euro African Foundation founded by Mr Adil Abdel Aati, and is a charity a working in partnership with ADONGOR FOUNDATION. (100% of proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to humanitarian efforts and projects of ADONGOR and Euro-African Foundations, NGOs registered in Poland working for African people at home and in Diaspora.)