African Initiatives
Boston University hosts the second oldest African Studies Center in the United States, and is recognized by the federal government for its excellence in the study of African languages and cultures. The School of Theology is a vital component of African Studies at Boston University, beginning with the sending of graduates to Africa as missionaries over a century ago. Important African alumni include Bishop Josiah Kibira (1964 graduate), the first African head of the Lutheran World Federation; Dr. Kenaleone Ketshabile, Head of the Mission Desk, Methodist Church of Southern Africa; Yusufu Turaki, Professor and former General Secretary of the Evangelical Church of West Africa; and Professor Emmanuel Anyambod, Rector of the Protestant University of Central Africa.
Africa research in the CGCM grows from the work of retired Professor M.L. “Inus” Daneel. His over forty-year presence among African Initiated Churches in Zimbabwe culminated in the 1990s with the largest tree-planting movement in southern Africa, and a program in Theological Education by Extension. The son of missionary parents, Daneel served as a missionary of the Dutch Mission Councils, and then as professor of African theology and missiology at the University of South Africa. He and Professor Robert co-edit the African Initiatives in Christian Mission Series, published by the University of South Africa Press. The goal of the series is to reflect upon contemporary African Christianity, and to document its expansion. Other Africa projects include the digitization of Daneel’s photography and publications on the multimedia site Old & New In Shona Religion, and ongoing research into southern African traditions of earth-care.
See also the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB) listed under Digital Projects.
Dr. Marthinus Daneel, Africa Research Director
Alumnus Appointed Executive Coordinator of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission
Dr. Bruce Yoder ('16) has recently been appointed one of the two Executive Coordinators of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission (AIMM), alongside John Fumana of the Mennonite Bretheren Church of the Congo. Presently a member of Listowel Mennonite Church in Ontario, Yoder has spent 26 years in mission work in West Africa and Latin America, most recently serving as a missiologist in seminaries in Burkina Faso and Benin. He will begin to take up this new work for AIMM in January 2021.
In response to his appointment, Yoder says, “With over a century of missionary engagement, AIMM’s work has been instrumental in the development of multiple African Mennonite/Anabaptist churches; intercultural relationships between African, North American, and European partners; and transnational Anabaptist networks. Time and again I am amazed and inspired by the vitality and resilience of the African Church and am pleased for the opportunity to engage partners on the continent and around the world to advance their collaborative mission initiatives. I’m humbled and honored to be able to contribute to this tradition of mission engagement in Africa and beyond."
Read the full report from Twila Albrecht, AIMM Search Committee Secretary, here.
Zimbabwean Gospel Music: Upcoming Presentation with Filmmaker Dr. Jim Ault
We are pleased to welcome award-winning documentary filmmaker Dr. Jim Ault, who will visit BU virtually to give a presentation on his new film, Machanic Manyeruke: The Life of Zimbabwe's Gospel Music Legend, on November 24. The presentation will take place from 12:30pm-1:45pm EST.
If you would like to attend Dr. Ault's presentation, please email Morgan Crago (mcrago@bu.edu) to request the Zoom link.
See a preview of the work below!
Andrew Barnes to Speak on the Christian Black Atlantic & Ethiopianism
Dr. Andrew Barnes, Professor of History at Arizona State University, will give a virtual lecture entitled "The Christian Black Atlantic: Orishatukeh Faduma and the Ethiopianist Appropriation of Evangelization through Poor Relief." The lecture will take place on Tuesday, October 20, from 2pm-3:15pm. If you would like to attend, please contact mcrago@bu.edu to request the Zoom link.
Dr. Barnes argues that many Europeans saw Africa's colonization as an exhibition of European racial ascendancy. African Christians saw Africa's subjugation as a demonstration of European technological superiority. If the latter was the case, then the path to Africa's liberation ran through the development of a competitive African technology.
Barnes will chronicle African Christians' turn to American-style industrial education, particularly the model developed by Booker T. Washington at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, as a vehicle for Christian regeneration in Africa. Over the period 1880-1920, African Christians, motivated by Ethiopianism and its conviction that Africans should be saved by other Africans, founded schools based upon the Tuskegee model.
Though the attempts by African Christians to create industrial education schools ultimately failed, Barnes will highlight the success of transatlantic black identity and Christian resurgence in Africa.
See the flier here.
Former Missionary in Residence Laments Severe Flooding in Niger
Joel Gray, a former Missionary in Residence with the CGCM, describes devastating flooding in Niamey, Niger. Joel and his wife Karen evacuated their home at the end of August, and had to evacuate again at the beginning of September. They write,
Thousands of people in Niamey have lost their houses and their food. Our places of ministry, Sahel Academy and ESPriT Bible School, are completely under water. Some city streets are impassable and traffic for many people has become an increasing challenge....For two weeks we worked in teams to salvage furniture and equipment. Teams wadded into sometimes neck-high water...other teams drive the furniture and school equipment to dry places around town to wash, dry, and fight back mold.
Michele Sigg Named DACB Executive Director
Congratulations to Dr. Michèle Sigg, who has recently been appointed the Executive Director of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography (DACB). Formerly, she had been serving as Associate Director of the DACB, and she also serves as Editor of the Journal of African Christian Biography (JACB).
Dr. Sigg has written several articles on women in African Christianity. She is also contributing a chapter on women’s spirituality in Sixteenth-Century Mission: Global Mission in the Age of Reformations (2021), and an entry on “Christianity in Lesotho” in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2020). She is also working on a monograph on French Protestant women and mission (2021).
Read her full biography here, and visit the DACB to see some of the most recent stories, which include biographies of several Angolan Protestant ministers, the Ghanaian oral theologian Afua Kuma, and the Catholic theologian Charles Nyamiti.