This course, from an evangelical perspective, introduces students to the religious and cultural backgrounds of Africa, focusing on indigenous African Christianity, African Traditional Religions, Islam, and other religious expressions as a foundation for theological thinking centered on African experience. The course presents Africa theologically, engaging both its rich spiritual heritage and contemporary challenges. It equips students to articulate an evangelical theology that faithfully represents God's redemptive design in and through African peoples, introducing classical, modern, and contemporary evangelical theological methods in Africa and key trends in African evangelical thought today.
By taking this course, students develop the ability to craft evangelical theological discourses informed by Africa’s diverse religious backgrounds and contemporary realities. This enables them to resist theological approaches that overlook the historical and spiritual dimensions of Africa’s present context. With discourses rooted in these backgrounds, students can identify effective evangelical responses to African religious contexts and gain initial skills to produce impactful, gospel-centered actions for today’s African societies.
This course is essential because evangelical theological thinking grounded in African religious contexts offers a pathway for deeper, positive, and lasting gospel impact in African societies. It addresses the shortcomings of past theologizing that often ignored Africa’s diverse religious expressions, striving to proclaim the truth of Christ in dialogue with indigenous African Christianity and other faiths while remaining faithful to evangelical convictions.
By introducing students to African theological backgrounds, students are exposed to preliminary materials showcasing African presence in Scriptures and plausible African authorships in Scripture. This direct African presence in Scripture is coupled with Scriptural practice of using history, memory, and present realities in order to speak on God's behalf. Both of these trajectories ground this course as a Biblical endeavor. The aim is to point to God's redemptive actions in the world as involving African contributions from Africa and from African people.
By focusing theological task on the African people and their experience, this course fulfills the missional purpose of specifically opening the door for Missio Dei for and through African people. Here, missional theology serves to understand and to further God's activity in African contexts.
The course is deeply engaged with the particularities of Africa, especially its indigenous Christian and other religious expressions. It emphasizes evangelical theological conversations that respect Africa’s religious diversity while articulating the uniqueness of Christ. Students explore theological thinking in non-African evangelical contexts, distinguishing these from African evangelical approaches.
From an African evangelical perspective, students gain insights into how culture and religion shape theological thinking and recognize the importance of engaging African Traditional Religions, Islam, and other faiths in theological dialogue. They learn that understanding religious contexts is vital for effective gospel communication. Positive and negative examples of evangelical engagement with African religions will help students assess the role of culture and religion in theology.
The course aims to equip students to address African religious and social issues with evangelical theological clarity, enabling them to respond effectively to challenges posed by diverse religious expressions across Africa. Students develop competency in crafting gospel-centered responses to contemporary African contexts.
Students are guided to reflect on past, present, and future (simulated) African religious experiences through an evangelical lens. Those in ministry select one theological topic, such as engaging a specific African religious tradition, and experiment with applying evangelical principles to an African context or life experience.
