St. Martin de Porres

St. Martin de Porres PDF

Author: Alex Garcia-Rivera

Publisher: Faith and Cultures Series

Published: 1995-09

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 9780883440339

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The little stories and the traditions that grew up around Saint Martin de Porres of Peru are fascinating and every bit as charming as the stories told of Saint Francis of Assisi. But as Garcia-Rivera shows, these deceptively simple stories reveal much more. For the first time Garcia-Rivera unpacks these stories, using the semiotic method and insights garnered from the works of Robert Schreiter, Eugene Genovese, and Antonio Gramsci.To build this method of theological reflection Garcia-Rivera addresses such questions as: does an authentic Latin American theology exist? If it exists, where and how can it be expounded? What does Saint Martin de Porres beatification process tell us? How do the little stories reflect and extend the great theological debate of Valladolid in 1550, with BartolomA de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda arguing whether the Indians were even human beings? Using the semiotics of culture to delve into these stories, the author provides rich and astonishing insights into the power of the little story, told and retold over time by ordinary folk, that make possible the Big Story of universal principles of human reality.

The Bible and African Culture

The Bible and African Culture PDF

Author: Humphrey Waweru

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2012-03-25

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9966040099

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

How can African theology survive the self-repetition of mere cultural apologia or contextualization-stereotypes, and mature into a critical theoretical discipline responding to the challenges of the postmodern world-order? Dr. Humphrey M. Wawe contributes here a sound theological reflection using the hitherto unused methodological paradigm of mapping the inroads in the transaction between the Bible and African culture.

Engaging Religions and Worldviews in Africa

Engaging Religions and Worldviews in Africa PDF

Author: Yusufu Turaki

Publisher: Langham Publishing

Published: 2020-04-30

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 1783688416

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In a world of increasing globalization, we live amidst a clash of cultures, religions, and worldviews – each battling for the human heart and mind. In this in-depth study, Yusufu Turaki offers a theological framework for engaging this clash of perspectives in Africa, where traditional African religions, colonialism, and exposure to Christianity have each had a lasting impact on contemporary African worldviews. Professor Turaki undertakes a systematic analysis of the nature of African Traditional Religion, its complex history with Christianity, and the need for African Christian theology to address its cultural and historical roots effectively. He provides both a conceptual framework and practical guide for engaging African cultures and religions with compassion, understanding, and a firm foundation rooted in scriptural truth. This book is an excellent resource for students of religion and theology, as well as those interested in Africa’s traditional heritage or drawn to the important work of cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue.

Kimbanguism

Kimbanguism PDF

Author: Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2017-03-20

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0271079703

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.