African Christian Theology Research Articles

Nicaea at 1700: Roots and Branches in African Christianity

Call for papers for a themed issue of African Christian Theology (September 2025).

God, Philosophers and Theologians in Africa

There is renewed interest in philosophical and theological investigations about God, religions and the implications of religious beliefs among philosophers and theologians in Africa. This development is itself profitable because the question or the problem of God is a relevant discourse in Africa where the majority of people are theists. However, unlike the exploration of the first-generation African scholars—philosophers and theologians—whose primary objective was to show the symmetry between Christianity and African Traditional Religions (ATR), contemporary discourses arise within the clamour for decoloniality. The investigations, with varied emphasis, advocate the decolonisation of the concept of God, epistemic decolonisation, decolonisation of Christianity and African Christian theology, etc. In this essay, I critically examine the contemporary decolonial discourse about God, divine attributes, religious belief, and the relationship between African Christian theology and ATR. I argue that most of the contemporary literature is entangled in conceptual convolution and as such, there is a lack of clarity about what needs to be decolonised. Put differently, most works do not clearly distinguish between reality (the person or phenomenon “God”), thought (the concept “God”), and conceptions of God (language, that is, the terms and images used in making assertions about God). Further, I argue that when conceptual clarifications are adequately attended to, there is no need for decolonisation of discourses about God, divine nature, divine attributes, and the relationship between Christianity and ATR.

Reincarnation Christology in African Christian Theology

The subject of reincarnation has been considered a reserve of primal (esoteric) religions or cultures. Therefore, it has not been thoroughly studied to decipher the philosophical and theological issues thereof. Notwithstanding, what seems to be the total neglect and lack of interest, the significance of christological parallelism that exists between reincarnation and resurrection as Christological parallels in both African Traditional Religion and African Christianity cannot be disregarded. Reincarnation Christology provides a paradigmatic christological framework that conceptualises Africa’s notion of life as a cycle of death, birth, and rebirth (reincarnation) similar to incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies of the missionary (Western) Christianity and provides a competitive context that defines the identity, and significance of Jesus in African Christianity and Theology. Even though reincarnation provides a good context for the Christology of Jesus in African traditional religion, Christianity, and Biblical Theology, theologians and biblical scholars such as Mbiti, Bediako, Nyamiti, Wiredu, and Gyekye failed to give it any attention. Nevertheless, the article argued that, like incarnation, death, and resurrection Christologies, reincarnation Christology provides very powerful and strong philosophical constructs for the inculturation of the Christology of Jesus in African Traditional Religion, African Christianity and African Christian Biblical scholarship. The article further argued that, there also exists a strong parallelism between resurrection and reincarnation Christologies which can provide complementing philosophical paradigmatic framework for the christological nomenclatures in Christianity and African traditional religions. Keywords: Christianity, Theology, Reincarnation, Christology, Resurrection, Inculturation, Ancestor, Decolonisation.

African Christian Theology: Past, Present, and Future

In this essay, Professor Mugambi reflects on the concepts behind the phrase “African Christian Theology.” Along the way he examines how forms of African Christianity arrived in their current state, highlighting African agency. As he seeks the conceptual core of this label, he promotes the value of theologizing in African vernaculars. After his retrospective musings on African Christian Theology, he turns to the future offerings which African Christianity may provide to the global Church.

In memory of those who went before, in honor of those who follow behind: Introducing African Christian Theology

Describing the shift of World Christianity from the Global North to the Global South, Mark Noll posited that “as much as the new shape of Christianity in the world affects general world history, much more does it influence matters of Christian belief and practice.”1 Given global Christianity’s shift to the South, Christian beliefs and practices in recent decades have not been driven by Western Christian theology. Nearly thirty years ago, western scholars recognized that the majority of Christians on the face of the earth are found in Africa, Asia, and Latin America — and that “the proportion . . . grows annually.”2 Therefore, in retrospect and prospect, global Christianity is increasingly envisioned to be highly influenced by non-Western Christian theologies. For example, diaspora missiologists are consistently reminding us that the global church is thriving because of the movement of Africans across the world.3 Africans migrating to North America and Europe are planting churches in areas where traditional Christianity has been declining.

The Increasing Breadth and Depth of African Christian Theology

Critical Review Essay of: Bongmba, Elias Kifon, ed. The Routledge Handbook of African Theology. Routledge Handbooks. London: Routledge, 2020, 2022. Pp. xvii + 535. £200.00 (hardback), £42.99 (paperback), £32.24 (paperback).

Tracking the Decolonial in African Christian Theology

AbstractDrawing on the framework and pluriversalist vision of decoloniality, this article offers a conceptual mapping of theoretical debates and trends in recent discourse on the decolonization of theology in the Southern African context with a view to outlining key missiological implications of such debates. It posits a view of African decolonial theology as the foregrounding of local, indigenous, contextual knowledge in discourse and as the praxis of faith rooted in contextual analysis of historical realities. This contribution articulates the notion of “mission from the margins,” derived from Together towards Life, as a decolonial mode of mission that gestures toward an epistemological shift in missional thinking. An initial version of this paper was presented at the seminar on decolonization organized by the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission and Evangelism that was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in June 2023.

Religious Hybridity: Opportunities and Challenges for African Christian Theology

Abstract Religious hybridity points to the religiosity of individuals who are anchored in one religious system while involved at various levels through affiliation, participation, belonging, or allegiance to other religious traditions. If religious hybridity presents some Christological challenges for African theology, it also brings some opportunities since the persistence of religious hybridity reflects particular aspects of Christian teachings or practices which need further reflections and/or actions. Some areas of the Christian teaching or rituals do not seem to provide sufficient or satisfactory answers to some African Christians who therefore feel the need to retain elements of their traditional religions. African Christian theology is compelled to respond to those unmet needs which are mainly the demands for a genuine inculturation of transitional rites, a more holistic approach to healing, and a proactive engagement with the social reality. The palaver model can be a useful tool to approach those issues.

African Christian Theology and Christology: A Study of the Contributions of Kwame Bediako, John S. Mbiti, Justin Ukpong and Charles Nyamiti

The article discusses the scholarship of Kwame Bediako, John Mbiti, Justin Ukpong and Charles Nyamiti to decipher their contributed to the development of a framework for theology, Christology and biblical scholarship in Africa and the development of the African context as an alternative to theology, Christology and biblical scholarship in Africa and beyond. The article used a combination of methods for data collection, interpretation and analysis. This included (a) the biographical with emphasis on intellectual scholarship. This enabled the researcher to assess the intellectual works of selected scholars. (b) there was also content analysis of primary and secondary sources across literature and scholars to evaluate the extent of the impact of the writings of the selected scholars. These works were evaluated in context with both contemporary and modern scholarship. The objective was to decipher how their scholarship has advanced the African context for Christian theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics in Africa. The study discovered that since the rise in the need to identify and make an African contribution to the continuous nomenclatures of Christian theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics that recognize the African experience as a critical necessity in the search for a more wholistic and comprehensive theoretical framework for theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics, these scholars made such a huge contribution not on methodology alone but also on conceptualisation. They contributed to a very large extent to the recovery of African dignity, and the establishment of a philosophy, theology, christology and that was authentically African, credible and viable for any academic scholarship. They were also able to explain how the African context contributes to existing scholarship on nomenclatures of normative Christian theology, Christology and biblical hermeneutics in Africa. Keywords: Christianity, Theology, Christology, Traditions and Culture

The Routledge Handbook of African Theology

The Routledge Handbook of African Theology

A Reflection on African Christian Theology

The African heritage and identity have been intensely religious. Africans carry along their religio-cultural background and tradition wherever they go and in whatever they find themselves doing. Africans embraced Christian theology while having already imbibed and appreciated African theology and identity. Being religious beings, African Christians have sought to appreciate Christian theology through the lens of African theology and heritage. This paper establishes that African Christian theology should go beyond championing African heritage and identity. It should rather be proactive and go a step further to address the challenges and ills of human society in the African setting. This will make it worthy as a source of hope for hopeless Africans in their religious existence. Using secondary data resources from the internet, and published and unpublished literature in the form of books and journal articles, this work discusses African Christian theology and the way forward. It is the ardent hope of the authors that African Christians and theologians develop the need to see theology beyond the lens of the African identity and rather contemplate how theology can be therapeutic to the ills and challenges of the African society. Keywords: Christian Theology, African Christianity, African Theology, African Heritage, African Identity

The contextuality of African methods of biblical interpretation with particular reference to post-colonial interpretation and African feminist hermeneutics: Issues and challenges

Today the Christian churches and Christianity are thriving in Africa as almost cannot be found elsewhere. There are at least 685 million Christians on the continent. While Christianity is traversing the multi-coloured cultures of Africa, points of departure from the old western classical interpretation of the Bible exist. The work employs the historical description of the Bible to analyse the post-colonial interpretation of the Bible and the African feminist hermeneutics. It highlights the strands, issues and challenges facing the interpretation of the Bible in African context. The work shows that such interpretation of the Bible are threatened by issues like syncretism, universalism, Christo-paganism, elitist and separatist tenor of feminist theology, and feminist liberation theology that is too far rooted in gender and sex issues without being sufficiently concerned with other issues that affect women which include: underdevelopment, hunger, disease, political, economic, and religious exploitation. The last twenty one years have witnessed more progress towards developing African Christian theology; interpreting the Bible in African context, than in the past century. Hence, the translation of the one faith of Jesus Christ to Africans being it's very nature and motif, and the terrain should be tread with caution.

Doing African Christian Theology: Some Non-negotiable Essentials

Missionary Christianity was introduced into Africa by Western and American missionaries whose theological framework shaped Christianity in Africa. Since theology is contextually informed, missionary theological formulations failed to meet Africa’s needs in many respects. In response, the African church began a quest for an African-brewed theology that is culturally sensitive and contextually relevant. For some time now this quest has engaged many African scholars; yet, no scholarly consensus has been reached regarding the nature and methodology for African Christian theology. This article contributes to the ongoing discourse by examining the emergence and development of African Christian theology and afterward, outlining some essential features that must characterize African Christian theology to make it accessible to and acceptable by the African Christian community. It is a literature research based on critical examination of related publications on African Christian theology. The article offers a model for contemporary Christians who are engaged in or desire to undertake theological research for the benefit of Christianity in Africa. Keywords: Africa, Christian, Pan-Africanism, Theology, Worldview

African Transition Rituals Celebrating Gender and Human Sexuality: Implications for African Christian Theology

Transition rituals are prominent practices among African traditional communities. Among the Gusii community of western Kenya the ritual is performed for both boys and girls. The boys are taken through circumcision while girls go through clitoridectomy. The ritual for girls is widely criticized and opposed by among others the Christian Church. The ritual for girls is resisted on several grounds, but it still persists. The question which many have asked is, why this persistence? This paper raises a number of arguments among them being that; in Africa, gender and human sexuality are celebrated through painful rituals. Men and women are made rather than born. In this discussion, I argue that opposition to clitoridectomy is ill informed, because it is the element of the pain that accompanies the ritual that is the reason why the ritual persists. The paper draws equivalents between the Gusii traditional transition ritual with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, namely that from a theological perspective, the rituals should be perceived constructively as preparatory for Christian evangelization as they point to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is suggested that the Church should view the rituals constructively instead of opposing them. This situation, among other factors, has over the years rendered ineffective the Church’s efforts at evangelization not only in Gusii community but also in other African communities where this ritual is upheld

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.

The spiritual world, Christ, ancestors, angels, and demons in Hlungwani's art and theology

Jackson Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem is shaped by his unique African Christian theology teachings. They are expressed through his wooden sculptures in an “independent African Church which would echo the wish to Africanize Christianity and represent a new cultural and spiritual phenomenon through his art” (Rankin, 1998: 46; Steyn, 2019: 184). It is through this vision and his artworks that Hlungwani prophesied the coming of an Apocalypse, which would result in man's salvation, and signify an ultimate victory over evil. This article concerns the New Jerusalem (the ‘imagined’ and the ‘built’) and reveals Hlungwani’s Christian and traditional ideas around the spiritual world, Christ, the ancestors, angels, and demons. Hlungwani’s vision of a New Jerusalem should therefore be understood in the context of a unique African Christian theology created from the perspective of an African cultural context. The two altars for the New Jerusalem site and a number of wooden artworks are selected for their connection with both the artist’s vision and the supernatural world, angels, ancestors, and earthly warriors. The selected sculptures are the Crucifix IV, the sculpture God and Christ, and the panel Cain and Abel. They are discussed and analyzed as I believe that they reflect profound visual metaphors derived from spiritual visions, the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel, and of the Apocalypse of Saint John from the final book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation.

No Condition Is Permanent: Time as Method in Contemporary African Christian Theology

Abstract This article argues that contemporary African Christian theology has largely understood time from a modern, linear perspective, which sees history as progress. Interestingly, the perception of history as progress is the straitjacket into which the story of Africa in the modern world has been told, often depicting the continent as needing to catch up with the progressive time of the modern world. This progressive, linear view of time is, however, quite problematic. This article argues that time is palimpsestic, rendering discourses of progress problematic but without nullifying the quest for improved overall well-being. The palimpsestic view of time fits the popular West African outlook that “no condition is permanent” and is demonstrated especially in the work of African women theologians such as Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Musa Dube, whose use of story as method challenges the linear view of time and is thus methodologically instructive for African theology.

Exploring the Theology of Selected Hymns: Towards an African Christian Theology of Mission

This paper explores the theological message embedded in the hymns: “The incarnate God appeared” and “Come Holy Spirit, come now”. Theological findings from these hymns are used to formulate an African Christian theology of mission based on thematic areas such as the trinitarian dimension of mission, the centrality of the cross in mission, mission as the core mandate of the Church and mission as incarnational agapaō. By this, the paper makes the message of the selected hymns accessible to the global Christian community, promotes the development of hymnody in the African church and at the same time provides a paradigm for Christian mission in the 21st century African society. This is a literature research that uses data from books, theses, journal articles, among others. The findings indicate that hymns constitute a great tool for the missionary enterprise of the church, therefore Christian hymns should be developed and promoted. It is recommended that, for Christian mission in Africa to be meaningful and relevant to Africans, it must endeavor to address the existential issue in African societies. Key Words: Africa, Hymns, Christology, Mission, Pneumatology, Theology

Towards an African Christian Theology of the Blood of Jesus Christ

This article proposes an African Christian theology of the blood of Jesus Christ which biblically explains and answers experiential questions raised in African historical and socio-cultural contexts. Through the process of conceptual analysis, articles on animal sacrifices in African Traditional Religions and articles in the theological fields of Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology are interrogated to propose an African Christian Theology of the blood of Jesus Christ. The proposed African Christian Theology of the blood of Jesus Christ posits that God acts on the basis of the vicarious shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ to incorporate believers into a Father-Child relationship that grants the believer access to a special divine benevolence. God’s benevolence is the means by which the believer experiences the transformative power of God that leads them to progressively experience improvements for their holistic well-being while anticipating the return of Jesus Christ to reinstate perfect holistic well-being for God’s people. Keywords: The blood of Jesus, Animal sacrifices, and African Christian Theology.