'Hope for the Earth' explores the viability of an eschatological approach to an ecological theology, spirituality, and praxis in the South African context. The basic intuition of such an eschatological approach is that an environmental praxis can only be empowered on the basis of an adequate understanding of Christian hope. Despair in the face of environmental destruction will inevitably lead to a spirit of resignation. Where, then, can a vision of hope that includes hope for the earth be found? The author proposes a Òroad mapÓ for eschatology based on the observation that eschatology has traditionally responded to three aspects of the human predicament, namely 1) the evil effects of sin; 2) the problem of finitude and transience; and 3) the limitations of human power and knowledge in space (Part A). This analysis is used to fathom the depths of despair as a result of environmental destruction (Part B). The Biblical roots and subsequent history of Christian eschatology are discussed briefly (Part C). Recent contributions in Christian eschatology, ecological theology, cosmology, and South African expressions of hope are explored in depth in search of a vision of hope that includes hope for the earth itself (Part D). The eschatological road map is used to develop a vision of hope for the earth on the basis of a theology of life: life amidst death and destruction, life beyond death and eternal life in the presence of God (Part E). Finally the implications of this vision for an ecological ethos, spirituality, and praxis in the South African context are indicated (Part F).

An essential companion to both research and scholarship upon which undergraduates, postgraduates, lecturers and researchers can all be expected to draw.

Bourdieu in Africa: Exploring the Dynamics of Religious Fields offers a view of religions as social games played by interested actors. Analyzing practices as strategic moves, this critical approach conceptualizes the religious field as relations of exchange and competition between experts and laity, and explores how the actors’ habitus, including religious beliefs, serve to misrecognize and thus legitimize relations of power within the religious sphere and beyond. The authors discuss the volatile religious fields of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and South Africa, with their variably configured tensions between African traditions, Christianity and Islam, but also consider the interrelations of religion with other social fields, with politics, economy, education and law. Contributors are: Ulrich Berner, Chikas Danfulani, Jonathan Draper, Magnus Echtler, Gemechu Jemal Geda, Magnus Treiber, Asonzeh Ukah, Dale Wallace, Halkano Abdi Wario.

In this volume, Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot, a sociologist and son of a Kimbanguist pastor, provides a fresh and insightful perspective on African Kimbanguism and its traditions. The largest of the African-initiated churches, Kimbanguism claims seventeen million followers worldwide. Like other such churches, it originated out of black African resistance to colonization in the early twentieth century and advocates reconstructing blackness by appropriating the parameters of Christian identity. Mokoko Gampiot provides a contextual history of the religion’s origins and development, compares Kimbanguism with other African-initiated churches and with earlier movements of political and spiritual liberation, and explores the implicit and explicit racial dynamics of Christian identity that inform church leaders and lay practitioners. He explains how Kimbanguists understand their own blackness as both a curse and a mission and how that underlying belief continuously spurs them to reinterpret the Bible through their own prisms. Drawing from an unprecedented investigation into Kimbanguism’s massive body of oral traditions—recorded sermons, participant observations of church services and healing sessions, and translations of hymns—and informed throughout by Mokoko Gampiot’s intimate knowledge of the customs and language of Kimbanguism, this is an unparalleled theological and sociological analysis of a unique African Christian movement.

The Christian axis has shifted dramatically southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, so much so that today there are more Christians living in these southern regions than among their northern counterparts. In the case of Africa, the African Initiated Churches-founded by Africans and primarily for Africans-has largely contributed to the exponential growth and proliferation of the Christian faith in the continent. Yet, even more profoundly, these churches espouse a brand of Christianity that is indigenized and thoroughly contextual. Further, the power and popularity of the AICs, beyond the unprecedented numbers joining these churches, are attributed to their relevance to the existential everyday needs and concerns of their adherents in the context of a postcolonial Africa. At the heart of Christian theology is Christology-the confessed uniqueness of Christ in history and among world religions. Yet this key feature of Christianity, as with other important elements of the Christian faith, may be variously understood and re-interpreted in these indigenous churches. The focus of this study is the amaNazaretha Church, an influential religious group founded by the African charismatic prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1911 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The movement today claims a following of some two million adherents and has proliferated beyond the borders of South Africa to neighboring countries in Southern Africa. The book addresses the complex and at times ambivalent understanding of the person and work of Christ in the amaNazaretha Church, presenting the genesis, history, beliefs, and practices of this significant religious movement in South Africa, with broader implications for similar movements across the continent of Africa and beyond.