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.

This book is about African Pentecostalism and its relationship to religious beliefs about a pervading spirit world. It argues that Pentecostalism keeps both a continuous and a discontinuous relationship in tension. Based on field research in a South African township, including qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, the study explores the context of African Pentecostalism as a whole and how it interacts with the concepts of ancestors, divination, and various types of spirit. Themes discussed include the reasons for the popularity of healing, exorcism, the “prosperity gospel,” the experience of the Holy Spirit, Spirit manifestations and practices resembling both traditional and biblical precedents, as well as scholarly discussions on African Pentecostalism from theological and social scientific disciplines. The book suggests that the focus on a spirit-filled world affects all kinds of events and explains the rapid growth of Pentecostalism outside the western world.

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. Daneel records the religio-ecological motivation and endeavour of the African Earthkeeping Movement and its impact on Shona peasant society.

Ideas like the "preferential option for the poor"-arguing that people marginalized by the economy have a claim to "special consideration"-have been among the most significant insights in twentieth-century Christian theology. Arising out of various theologies of liberation, options for the poor and for people at the margins of society have provided major new impulses for biblical studies, systematic theology, church history, ecclesial practice, and the academic study of religion. Opting for the margins continues to be an important issue at a time when the gap between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate both in the United States and in many other parts of the world, and when other gaps (based, for example, on differences in gender or race) continue to linger. Recently, however, options for the margins have been challenged by postmodern shifts in intellectual, social, political, and economic realities that often replace preferential options with other emphases, such as general concerns for pluralism, otherness, and difference. Options for the margins are therefore (at best) reduced to the special interests of certain minority groups, or (at worst) rejected as antiquated and irrelevant for the twenty-first century. The essays in this volume show how some forms of postmodern thought and theology can mask patterns of oppression and provide an excuse for deafness to voices from the margins. The authors, writing from a wide variety of national, ethnic, and theological perspectives, seek to revive the preferential option for the poor for the postmodern world, showing how options for the margins can engage postmodernity in new ways and break new ground in religious, theological, and ethical, as well as social, political, and economic thinking. The essays connect philosophical and theological arguments to the concrete realities of the postmodern world and to uncover new sources of energy in the life and death struggles of people across the globe.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions brings together a team of international scholars to create a single-volume resource on the religious beliefs and practices of the peoples in Africa. Offers broad coverage of issues relating to African religions, considering experiences in indigenous, Christian, and Islamic traditions across the continent Contributors are from a variety of fields, ensuring the volume offers multidisciplinary perspectives Explores methodological approaches to religion from anthropological, philosophical, and historical perspectives Provides insights into the historical developments in African religions, as well as contemporary issues such as the development of African-initiated churches, neo traditional religions, and Pentecostalism Discusses important topics at the intersection of culture and religion in Africa, including the arts, health, politics, globalization, gender relations, and the economy

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.

As Christianity has boomed in the non-Western world, several significant questions have emerged regarding how worship and culture relate. Charles Farhadian here presents a timely investigation of the interaction between culture and worship. Leading scholars -- experts in history, mission, culture, and liturgy -- offer diverse essays addressing worship in the context of worldwide Christianity. At the heart of Christian Worship Worldwide are several case studies from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific that explore the contours of particular nations, cultures, and liturgical actions. These essays show how Christian plurality is most vividly exemplified in the context of worship, where language, song, culture, and indigenous theology come together. Contributors: M. L. Daneel Samuel Escobar Charles E. Farhadian C. Michael Hawn Seung Joong Joo Ogbu U. Kalu Thomas A. Kane Miguel A. Palomino Robert J. Priest Dana L. Robert Lamin Sanneh Bryan D. Spinks Andrew F. Walls Philip L. Wickeri John D. Witvliet

This important book is needed today. The challenges that Christian churches face have changed immensely in the last quarter-century. One of the central issues facing the churches everywhere in the world is their missionary presence in their nations and societies. The authors of this volume are among the world’s leading missiological thinkers and represent major Christian traditions in Europe, Africa, and North America. In this new century, the Christian church faces new situations that include, for example, the fall of communism; the globalization of culture; cultural and religious minorities and multiple religious majorities in nearly every country; ethnic and interreligious tensions; relativism and individualism in Western culture; the rise of a global impact of a postmodern world view; poverty in poor countries and in urban areas in wealthy countries; and the decline of Western cultural authority and, with notable exceptions, of religious authority generally. This book speaks of ways in which Christian churches are seeking to respond to these challenges. The purpose of this book is to describe some of the main challenges facing the churches in mission today, particularly with reference to inter-religious conversations all over the world. The title of this volume has been derived from the theme of the 24th General Assembly of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) at Accra in August, 2004 whose theme is, “That All May Have Life in Fullness.”