This volume is concerned with the problematic nature of African Christian identity. By adopting various cultural, historical, national, and educational perspectives, its contributors explore issues surrounding the nature of being “Christian” and at the same time fully “African.” They analyse constructs either created in the West, such as the concept of culture, or those imposed from the West, particularly education systems and national boundaries, reflecting on the problem of African identity, or perhaps better, “identities,” in a world dominated by Western ideological and religious systems. They do this by raising and dealing directly or indirectly with some aspects of a series of questions:

1) Can specifically African identities be defined and clarified?

2) If so, what forms would such identities take in the light of Western cultural, educational and national constructs, especially in their Christian composition?

3) How could African identities be translated into Western modes of communication to promote an understanding of the “African” outside the African continent?

4) What effects would African identities produce on concepts of culture, educational systems and the idea of nationhood?

5) How could innovative African self-understandings interact with traditional Western conceptions of “the African”?

6) What would uniquely African identities suggest for a new interpretation of African Christianity and its relationships with other religions, particularly Islam and traditional patterns of social and religious practices?

ABOUT THE EDITORS
JAMES L. COX is Reader in Religious Studies and Convener of the Religious Studies Subject Group at the University of Edinburgh. He specializes in theory and method in the study of religions, African indigenous religions, and world shamanism. He is general secretary and treasurer of the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) and president-elect of the British Association for the Study of Religions.GERRIE TER HAAR is professor of religion, human rights, and social change at the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague. She is founding member of the African Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) and AASR Regional Representative for Europe. She is also the deputy secretary-general of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) and Academic Programme Director of the next IAHR World Congress.

CATEGORY
Theology, Social Anthropology, History/AFRICA