Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Baylor University, 2007 under title: The material in salvific discourse: a study of two Christian perspectives.

“What must I do to be saved?” That question, raised in the book of Acts by the Philippian jailer, is a question for the ages. Yet what, even, does it mean to be saved? Is salvation for this life or the next? Is it purely spiritual or does it have physical and material implications? Can salvation be lost? Do we determine who will be saved or does God? What role does Christ play in salvation? Such are the seemingly unending questions soteriology strives to answer. In this eighth volume from the Africa Society of Evangelical Theology, African theologians articulate their understanding of salvation – and its widespread implications for life and practice – in conversation with Scripture and the rich diversity of an African cultural context. Salvation is examined from historical, philosophical, and theological lenses, and scholars address topics as wide-ranging as conversion, ethnicity, fertility, poverty, prosperity, the Trinity, exclusivism, African Pentecostalism, rural community, eschatology, wholeness, and atonement. It is a powerful exploration of the holistic nature of salvation as articulated in Scripture and understood by the African church.

Reexamines the first twenty years of the East African revival movement in Uganda, 1935-1955, arguing that through the movement African Christians articulated and developed a unique spiritual lifestyle.

In this book, the well-known Kenyan theologian, John Mbiti, takes the reader on a pilgrimage of the mind and spirit as he examines the phenomenon of Christianity in Africa. This is a fascinating form of the Christian faith, combining certain characteristics of apostolic Christianity with the realities of African life in the present. It is fresh and fragile, dynamic, and domineering. It echoes the experiences of the early church while at the same time responding forcefully to the situation of today. The author explains how this form of Christianity while leaning heavily on the religious culture and background of the African peoples, seeks and finds its legitimation in the bible. He illustrates that it is both deeply African and committedly ecumenical and universal. A 16-page section of the photographs vividly underlines the theme.

During the Civil War, traditional history tells us, Afro-Christianity proved a strong force for slaves' perseverance and hope of deliverance. In Slavery, Civil War and Salvation, however, Daniel Fountain raises the possibility that Afro-Christianity played a less significant role within the antebellum slave community than most scholars currently assert. Fountain presents a new timeline for the African American conversion experience, insisting that only after emancipation and the fulfillment of the predicted Christian deliverance did African Americans more consistently turn to Christianity. Freedom, Fountain contends, brought most former slaves into the Christian faith.

Ben Wright’s Bonds of Salvation demonstrates how religion structured the possibilities and limitations of American abolitionism during the early years of the republic. From the American Revolution through the eruption of schisms in the three largest Protestant denominations in the 1840s, this comprehensive work lays bare the social and religious divides that culminated in secession and civil war. Historians often emphasize status anxieties, market changes, biracial cooperation, and political maneuvering as primary forces in the evolution of slavery in the United States. Wright instead foregrounds the pivotal role religion played in shaping the ideological contours of the early abolitionist movement. Wright first examines the ideological distinctions between religious conversion and purification in the aftermath of the Revolution, when a small number of white Christians contended that the nation must purify itself from slavery before it could fulfill its religious destiny. Most white Christians disagreed, focusing on visions of spiritual salvation over the practical goal of emancipation. To expand salvation to all, they created new denominations equipped to carry the gospel across the American continent and eventually all over the globe. These denominations established numerous reform organizations, collectively known as the “benevolent empire,” to reckon with the problem of slavery. One affiliated group, the American Colonization Society (ACS), worked to end slavery and secure white supremacy by promising salvation for Africa and redemption for the United States. Yet the ACS and its efforts drew strong objections. Proslavery prophets transformed expectations of expanded salvation into a formidable antiabolitionist weapon, framing the ACS's proponents as enemies of national unity. Abolitionist assertions that enslavers could not serve as agents of salvation sapped the most potent force in American nationalism—Christianity—and led to schisms within the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches. These divides exacerbated sectional hostilities and sent the nation farther down the path to secession and war. Wright’s provocative analysis reveals that visions of salvation both created and almost destroyed the American nation.

I would urge everyone to receive this book with openness and understanding. Written by an African Christian woman, it is a serious attempt to speak of the fullness of the Gospel to the specific African context. As one individual's struggle to give account of the hope that lies in her, it is a passionate and sincere work, and a welcome contribution to the growing genre of religious literature known as liberation theology. The author seeks not only to speak to us but also to move us and bring us to different ways of 'hearing and knowing.' She has succeeded with me. -Lamin Sanneh Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University This book is a remarkable synthesis of history, theology, and missions. It is one of the most important books of the decade because it is written by a Ghanian Christian woman who resides in Nigeria and has travelled the world-over demanding that we no longer allow traditional theological puzzles to go unexamined. Oduyoye's writings are like a breath of fresh air to women in ministry and in the church. -Katie G. Cannon Episcopal Divinity School Amber Oduyoye is Africa's leading woman theologian. In this book we meet a woman of faith reflecting in a scholarly and meditative way on Christianity in Africa. Learned in both the Western and African theological traditions, Professor Oduyoye brings constructive criticism to bear on each in the interest of promoting a wider community of wholeness. -Peter J. Paris Princeton Theological Seminary