Description:
Africans embrace all of life, the humanity of each person, the world, and the creation of God. Consequently, African indigenous education reflects the completeness of life itself. The various chapters in this volume recount religious events and experiences from individual perspectives as they are unfolding on the continent. The different voices show how modernity, colonisation, urbanisation, Christianity, and technology have sidelined beliefs and practices of African traditional religions (ATRs) to the detriment of the environment. This volume brings together voices from leading proponents of ATRs and African religious heritage to help us appreciate how values are richly entrenched in African religious life. It demonstrates the detailed richness of ATRs and culture and showcases how far the academic study of ATRs in Africa has come, and calls for a concerted effort through partnership between various actors to ensure environmental sustainability.
Brief description: Nobuntu Penxa Matholeni is a lecturer in the Department of Practical Theology and Missiology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Review Quotes:
This is an excellent set of essays on African religions, African women and environmental studies, and covers an impressively diverse range of African nations and indigenous contexts. It explains how deeply connected the environment is to the African experience and the lives of its indigenous communities, who are both surviving environmental degradation and drawing on traditional resources in creative and innovative ways.
Dr M Christian Green, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University, USA
This collection legitimizes the fact that African women have always had a prominent place and role in shaping the religious, economic, political, intellectual, and cultural life of African societies. The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians have made a valuable contribution to how the global community addresses current environmental concerns. African patriarchal social systems have been challenged and called out for what they are - systems that erase the relevance of African women's insights.
Prof SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai, Theology, University of Portland, USA
This is a very timely and informative volume, which combines perspectives from African womanist studies, ecotheology and African Indigenous Religions, and addresses these themes in an interesting way.
Prof Ezra Chitando, Religion and Politics, University of Zimbabwe