Dr.Githiga employs Gikuyu initiation to adulthood which externalizes and ritualizes the inner and outer realities of human personality and community's life cycle to construct psychology of religio

"African Religions and Philosophy" is a systematic study of the attitudes of mind and belief that have evolved in the many societies of Africa. In this second edition, Dr Mbiti has updated his material to include the involvement of women in religion, and the potential unity to be found in what was once thought to be a mass of quite separate religions. Mbiti adds a new dimension to the understanding of the history, thinking, and life throughout the African continent. Religion is approached from an African point of view but is as accessible to readers who belong to non-African societies as it is to those who have grown up in African nations. Since its first publication, this book has become acknowledged as the standard work in the field of study, and it is essential reading for anyone concerned with African religion, history, philosophy, anthropology or general African studies.

During the twentieth-century, Christendom shifted its centre of gravity to the Southern Hemisphere, Africa becoming the most significant area of church growth. This volume explores Christianity’s advance across the continent, and its capturing of the African imagination. From the medieval Catholic Kingdom of Kongo to a transnational Pentecostal movement in post-colonial Zimbabwe, the chapters explore how African agents – priests and prophets, martyrs and missionaries, evangelists and catechists – have seized Christianity and made it theirs. Emphasizing popular religion, the book shows how the Christian ideas and texts, practices and symbols, which have been adapted by Africans, help them accept existential passions and empower them through faith to deal with material concerns for health and wealth, and to overcome evil.

Facing Mount Kenya, first published in 1938, is a monograph on the life and customs of the Gikuyu people of central Kenya prior to their contact with Europeans. It is unique in anthropological literature for it gives an account of the social institutions and religious rites of an African people, permeated by the emotions that give to customs and observances their meaning. It is characterised by both insight and a tinge of romanticism. The author, proud of his African blood and ways of thought, takes the reader through a thorough and clear picture of Gikuyu life and customs, painting an almost utopian picture of their social norms and the sophisticated codes by which all aspects of the society were governed. This book is one of a kind, capturing and documenting traditions fast disappearing. It is therefore a must-read for all who want to learn about African culture.

The map of global Christianity continues to undergo dramatic changes, and on this map Africa comes to the fore. The proceedings of the Third International Conference at Munich-Freising on the History of Christianity in the Non-Western World seek to respond to the growing importance of Africa in the context of World Christianity. Prominent scholars from Africa and Europe deal with the manifold manifestations of African Christianity in the 20th century and the various ways in which "African" and "Christian" identities were formulated and interacted with each other. The negotiation of the local and the global in the process of forming African churches is discussed, as is the question of the impact of internal African debates and developments on global ecumenical discussions. From the table of contents (16 contributions): O.U. Kalu, A Trail of Ferment in African Christianity. Ethiopianism, Prophetism, PentecostalismK. Ward, African identities in the historic 'Mainline Churches'. A case study of the negotiation of local and global within African AnglicanismA. Anderson, African Independent Churches and Global Pentecostalism. Historical Connections and Common IdentitiesE. Kamphausen, 'African Cry'. Anmerkungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte einer kontextuellen Befreiungstheologie in AfrikaA. Adamavi-Aho Ekue, Troubled but not destroyed. The development of African Theologies and the paradigm of the 'Theology of reconstruction'K. Hock, Appropriated Vibrancy. 'Immediacy' as a Formative Element in African Theologies

The book Counter-narrative and Ambivalent Discourse towards Christianity in African Postcolonial Literature explores the encounters and conflicts between Christianity and African traditional culture represented in three African postcolonial literature: Achebe's Arrow of God, Thiong'o's The River Between, and p'Bitek's Song of Lawino. Using postcolonial perspective, this book reveals a counter-narrative discourse against the arrival of Christianity in the three African postcolonial literary works and highlights the ambivalent nature of this resistance, as the authors cannot escape the trap of conformity to Chtistianity and Western hegemony. Christianity, as a missionary and culturally-destructive religion in postcolonial Africa, is considered complex religion that can have both positive and negative effects on traditional African societies. While it can be a ideological tool of colonialism that destabilizes the fabric of local life, it also provides solutions to some local problems. This new religious belief disrupts the social structure and cultural traditional in the context of African postcolonial society.