How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Early African Christianity Set)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe.
If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage?
Theologian Thomas C. Oden offers a portrait that challenges prevailing notions of the intellectual development of Christianity from its early roots to its modern expressions. The pattern, he suggests, is not from north to south from Europe to Africa, but the other way around. He then makes an impassioned plea to uncover the hard data and study in depth the vital role that early African Christians played in developing the modern university, maturing Christian exegesis of Scripture, shaping early Christian dogma, modeling conciliar patterns of ecumenical decision-making, stimulating early monasticism, developing Neoplatonism, and refining rhetorical and dialectical skills.
He calls for a wide-ranging research project to fill out the picture he sketches. It will require, he says, a generation of disciplined investigation, combining intensive language study with a risk-taking commitment to uncover the truth in potentially unreceptive environments. Oden envisions a dedicated consortium of scholars linked by computer technology and a common commitment that will seek to shape not only the scholar's understanding but the ordinary African Christian's self-perception.
- Fills a crucial gap between the early church in Africa and Western Christianity
- Represents a timely challenge to Christian Africans and to a post-Christian West
- Focus on the intellectual dimension of Africans' role in the formation of Christian culture
The African Seedbed of Western Christianity
- A Forgotten Story
- Seven Ways Africa Shaped the Christian Mind
- Defining Africa
- One Faith, Two Africas
- Temptations
African Orthodox Recovery
- The Opportunity for Retrieval
- How the Blood of African Martyrs Became the Seed of European Christianity
- Right Remembering
- Seeking the Reconciliation of Christianity and Islam Through Historical Insight
- The Challenges of Early African Research
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind is a bold call to rehabilitate the earliest African contributions to the shaping of world Christianity. As such, it is a major resource for all people interested in the history of the Christian movement. Oden's focus on the intellectual dimension of Africans' role in the formation of Christian culture may surprise some, but it is a much-needed, welcome corrective to the assumptions held by many. In my opinion, this book is one of the most significant contributions to the literature on world Christianity. Must reading!
—Tite Tiénou, Dean and Professor of Theology of Mission, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Rarely has a work of such brevity distilled so much vintage wisdom with such élan. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind fills a crucial gap between the early church in Africa and Western Christianity, and represents a timely challenge to Christian Africans and to a post-Christian West. It will be impossible—and foolhardy—to ignore this book.
—Lamin Sanneh, Professor of World Christianity and of History, Yale University
Oden has condensed in a small but excellent starter book a great amount of information and he has provided convincing and compelling evidence for Christianity;s debt to its African roots. He has left me with a great hunger for exploring more deeply into this vitally important subject.
—Trevor O'Reggio, Seminary Studies, Andrews University, Autumn 2008
- Title: How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity
- Author: Thomas C. Oden
- Series: Early African Christianity Set
- Publisher: IVP
- Print Publication Date: 2007
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Pages: 204
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Christianity › Africa; Africa › Church history
- ISBNs: 9780830875566, 9780830837052, 9780830828753, 0830875565, 0830837051, 0830828753
- Resource ID: LLS:HWFRCWSCHRSTNTY
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:41:07Z