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
American Academy of Arts & Sciences Elects Two More CGCM Faculty
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected seven historians to become members in 2020. Two of them, Linda Heywood and John Thornton, are faculty associates at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission. They join Dana Robert, as the second and third professors in the CGCM given this high honor.
New Book: Handbook of African Social Ethics
This handbook, edited by Nimi Wariboko and Toyin Falola, provides a robust collection of vibrant discourses on African social ethics and ethical practices. It focuses on how the ethical thoughts of Africans are forged within the context of everyday life, and how in turn ethical and philosophical thoughts inform day-to-day living. The essays frame ethics as a historical phenomenon best examined as a historical movement, the dynamic ethos of a people, rather than as a theoretical construct. It thereby offers a bold, incisive, and fresh interpretation of Africa’s ethical life and thought.
Call for Papers: COVID-19, Disease, and the World Church
In the midst of a pandemic that is shaking the globe we call for papers for a special issue of Studies in World Christianity that analyse immediate responses to COVID-19 and that give some historical perspective on pandemics or epidemics. We do this in order to resource further response to pandemic whose effects will be with us for some years to come.
The papers may interrogate worldwide Christian responses to the outbreak of COVID-19 around the world by examining how churches have responded theologically and practically as the disease continues to spread. How have Christians responded by offering hope, calling for lament, or proclaiming God’s judgment? What ethical questions about planetary health, palliative care etc. have emerged or been hightened? How has digital media been employed for online church practice or as a vehicle for evangelism and social engagement? How has social distancing shaped understandings of the church community, and in what ways has online church left behind certain sectors of society?
The papers may also provide insight into how the world church in the past understood wide spread disease. Plague and pestilence have regularly been given theological scrutiny in Christian history and have prompted discussions of evil. The 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic influenced Pentecostal growth across the globe, and was instrumental in creating Independent Churches in West Africa who turned to fervent prayer and criticised mission churches for a lack of confidence in God. Missionary photography of plague and leprosy have been used to invigorate support of Western churches and missionary societies. In more recent history, HIV/AIDS has been described by some as the result of sexual sin, whereas the Avian flu and SARS were seen by others as fulfilling end-times prophecy and Ebola has shaken customary palliative care and funeral rites.
It is not uncommon to find articles that address aspects of health and Christian healing. In this special issue we wish to examine worldwide Christian reactions to disease and its spread as a way of understanding and reflecting upon a common problem with different contextual outcomes that have distinct and shared responses across the globe.
Due to the timeliness of the subject, we invite indicative abstracts by 20 April 2020 and complete articles (5000–8000 words, footnotes inclusive) by 25 May 2020. Papers should be formatted based on our styl e guide https://www.euppublishing.com/pb-assets/SWC_May2017.pdf and emailed to swc-editor@ed.ac.uk.
New Book: A History of West Central Africa to 1850
In his latest book, John Thorton has done substantial new research in primary sources and archives, to create an accessible interpretative history of West Central Africa from earliest times to 1852. He gives comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the region with equal focus given to both internal histories or inter-state interactions and external dynamics and relationships. This study represents an original approach to regional histories which goes beyond the existing scholarship on the area. By contextualising and expanding its range to include treatment of the Portuguese colony of Angola, John K. Thornton provides new understandings of significant events, people, and inter-regional interactions which aid the grounding of the history of West Central Africa within a broader context. A valuable resource to students and scholars of African history.
Call for Submissions: Religious Conversion in Africa
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This is a call for essays for a special issue of the peer-reviewed international journal Religions on the topic of religious conversion in Africa. Over the past decade, scholarly attention has focused on the “explosive” expansion of Pentecostalism across the African continent and its narrative of discontinuity with the pre-Pentecostal lives of Pentecostal adherents. This sophisticated research has demonstrated how the emic prioritization of rupture within the Pentecostal discourse of conversion was predicated on a desire to overcome the dysfunction and insecurity of life in neoliberal Africa.
The predominance of Pentecostal Christian practices and discourses within this literature has shaped recent investigations into conversion in three ways:
First, it has marginalized concurrent processes of religious change in Africa that do not necessarily conform to a discourse of rupture. These include, for example, the expansion of East Asian religions (e.g., Hinduism), the growth of new expressions of Christianity (e.g., Russian Orthodox Old Believers and Jehovah’s Witnesses), or the movement from one Christian denomination or tradition to another.
Second, the prioritization of rupture has meant that discussions about the role of cultural endurance and continuity in religious change have fallen largely out of fashion. There are material and psychological realities, however, such as abiding social relations with half-siblings from a polygamous marriage or the language(s) one speaks, that cannot be wished into oblivion following conversion.
Third, even as recent literature on conversion in Africa has reinvigorated scholarly inquiries into the phenomenon of conversion and religious change, it often reproduces older theories’ assumptions about the direction of religious conversion, from “traditional religions” to “world religions”. As a result, developments such as the reemergence of African indigenous religions through the advent of spiritual tourism and their spread throughout diasporic communities (e.g., Vodún in Benin, and Orisa in the Americas) are undertheorized with respect to conversion.
In light of these observations, we invite essays from any historical era, methodological approach, and theoretical framework that seek to make original contributions with respect to conversion and religious change in Africa. We especially welcome essays that interrogate issues of method with respect to source material, offer critical assessments of theories of conversion with respect to religious change in Africa, and are based in contexts beyond Christianity and/or Pentecostalism.
Authors who are interested in submitting an essay to this special issue should send a 250-word abstract of his/her/their paper to the guest editors at Jason.Bruner.1@asu.edu and dhurlbut@bu.edu by 1 September 2019. Notification of accepted proposals will occur by 1 October 2019. Final manuscripts will be due on 1 April 2020. All essays will be peer reviewed.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email the guest editors.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jason Bruner
Mr. David Dmitri Hurlbut
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charges(APCs) of 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs) per published paper are partially funded by institutions through Knowledge Unlatched for a limited number of papers per year. Please contact the editorial office before submission to check whether KU waivers, or discounts are still available. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Religious Conversion
- Religion
- Ethnography
- Anthropology of Religion
- History of Religion
- New Religious Movements
- African Traditional Religions
- African Christianity
- Islam
- Africa