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272
Book Reviews
Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator,Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Ani-
mist (Maryknoll.NY: Orbis Books, 2018). 208 pp. $22.00 paperback.
Most discourses relating to Religion and Faith in Africa centre on the rapid growth of relatively new religious movements such as Pentecostalism and their ability to negotiate religious space, both in the African continent and elsewhere in the western world, in the form of a Reverse Mission. However, some scholars have examined the nexus between African Religion and African Christianity but hardly proclaim the indispensability of the former to the success of the latter. For that reason, Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator excels in his bold claim to see African Religion as the quintessential bedrock for African Christianity and Islam.
Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Animistis written from the per- spective of an insider (the author), whose multiple religious heritage involving African Religion and Roman Catholic Christianity, having converted from the one to the other, has given him the impetus to distinguish between African Religion, which he finds more natural, and Catholic Christianity, which he judges to be engineered. Orobator sets out to investigate what we can learn from African Religious performance and practice in their present-day public and institutional forms, and then goes on to profile African Religion as capable of engendering spiritual renewal in Africa because of its pursuit of meaning and wholeness.
Orobator achieves his set goals in a narrative spanning 6 chapters in which he places his own multiple religious experiences within the larger context of faith, religion, and church in Africa. In Chapter 1, the personal faith journey of the author including his transition, from birth into African Religion and conver- sion to Roman Catholic Christianity is explicated and a case for ecumenical dia- logue amongst the major religions developed. His provocative charge regarding the proliferation of churches and the corresponding lack of basic necessities in the continent of Africa questions the positive effects of religious experience in Africa.
Chapter 2 revises the understanding of the astronomical growth of Chris- tianity in sub-Saharan Africa and tries to reconcile these growth patterns with the lived reality of the people. In chapter 3 the claims, contestations, and con- flicts that characterize Christianity and Islam are investigated, and a sketch of the historical development of Islam in Africa is examined in order to substanti- ate the claim that the principles of AfricanTradition provide the substratum for the development and growth of Christianity and Islam. The chapter also pro- files Africa as the centre of gravity of Christianity but suggests that Christianity and Islam in Africa are for the most part fraught with corruption, violence and deceit.
Pneuma
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/15700747-04202006
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Book Reviews
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Chapter 4 questions the growth of Christianity in the midst of underdevel- opment and widespread dysfunctionality: why is the growth of Christianity in contradistinction with the social, economic and political treasures of the African continent? Chapter 5 examines the role of religion in environmental sustainability and suggests that African Religion is helpful in understanding the connection between creation and nature because it affirms the basic belief that trees, animals, and water (all of reality) are sacred elements, and human beings are expected to exercise responsible stewardship over them.
Chapter 6 investigates issues of gender with particular reference to women in the Roman Catholic Church and shows how patriarchal concepts gloss over marginalizing tendencies relating to women and exclude them from the life and ministry of the church. Orobator asks: is the marginalization of women despite their contributions to the world church another form of pathology within the twenty-first century church? Then, he argues that Christianity can greatly benefit from African Religion on the question of women’s roles and responsibilities because of the egalitarian nature of African Religion.
Orobator’s book is significant because of the author’s ability to weave to- gether discourses that characterise his own personal faith journey and general trends in Religion and Faith in Africa. But the originality of the book wouldhave been less questionable if the confessions of the author which the title had led us to expect had predominated over the statistical revisions and other religious events relating to the social, political and economic life of Africa, that form the bulk of the book. His suggestion that the syncretistic predisposition of Islam, Christianity and African Religion would provide the panacea for some of the pathologies inherent in Religion and Faith in Africa is helpful because it recalls CoreyWilliams’ study of “Multiple Religious Belonging and Identity Among the Yorùbá of Ogbomòsó,Nigeria” (2015 PhD thesis, Universityof Edinburgh). How- ever, it would have been helpful for the author, being a Roman Catholic priest himself, to indicate how he is able to function both as a Roman Catholic priest and an African Tradition practitioner, and whether this hybrid does not con- tradict the values of his new-found faith in Christianity!
Overall, though, this book is a helpful resource for theologians and stu- dents of religion and World Christianity. It is therefore highly recommended for scholarship and lay readership for those seeking answers to contemporary questions of Religion and Faith in Africa.
Amos B. Chewachong
Church of Scotland, Newport-On-Tay, Scotland,UK [email protected]
Pneuma 42 (2020) 263–323
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