This book investigates the role of religion in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Southern Africa. Building on a diverse range of methodologies and disciplinary approaches, the book reflects on how religion, politics and health have interfaced in Southern African contexts, when faced with the sudden public health emergency caused by the pandemic. Religious actors have played a key role on the frontline throughout the pandemic, sometimes posing roadblocks to public health messaging, but more often deploying their resources to help provide effective and timely responses. Drawing on case studies from African indigenous knowledge systems, Islam, Rastafari and various forms of Christianity, this book provides important reflections on the role of religion in crisis response. This book will be of interest to researchers across the fields of African Studies, Health, Politics and Religious Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Master's Thesis from the year 2022 in the subject Theology - Practical Theology, grade: 70%, University of KwaZulu-Natal (College of Humanities / School of Religion, Philosphy & Classics), course: Theology and Development, language: English, abstract: This study is an appraisal of the pastoral response of the Roman Catholic Church to the socio-economic impact of the emerging pandemic in South Africa. Central to this study is the contribution that African liberation theology offers, with particular emphasis on the philosophy of Ujamaa and the theology of Ubuntu, in strengthening the pastoral response of the Roman Catholic Church to the socio-economic impact of the emerging Covid-19 pandemic in the country. The Covid-19 pandemic has created unprecedented socio-economic hardships globally. The austerities brought about by Covid-19 has affected all sectors of society. Religious, economic, and political sectors have felt the ordeal of the humanitarian crisis. The emergence of the pandemic in South Africa in March 2020 has had a huge socio-economic impact, mostly on the poor and the less privileged in society. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated pre-existing socio-economic inequalities in South Africa. These aggravated inequalities include corruption, unemployment, gender-based violence, and access to public healthcare. The methodology of See-Judge-Act is used in the study. The ‘see’ corresponds to the critical analysis of the socio-economic context of the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa. Conceptually, ‘judge’ uses the guiding categories of the philosophy of Ujamaa and the theology of Ubuntu to thematically analyse various pastoral documents published by the Roman Catholic Church in South Africa in its response to the emerging pandemic during the period March 2020 – March 2021. The ‘act’ elaborates the potential socially transformative actions from the principles of Ujamaa and Ubuntu that would render more effective the pastoral response of the Roman Catholic Church to the socio-economic impact of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa.

This book analyses the role of religion during the COVID- 19 pandemic and vaccination rollout in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of thirteen African countries to have fully vaccinated more than 10% of its population against COVID- 19 by the end of September 2021, but the country fell far short of the government’s own target for achieving 60% inoculation by December 2020. This book analyses whether religion played a role in explaining why the government’s pro- vaccine stance did not translate into high vaccination rates. Drawing upon various religions, including African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam, the book considers how faith actors demonstrated vaccine acceptance, resistance or hesitancy. Zimbabwe offers a particularly interesting and varied case for analysis, and the original research on display here will be an important contribution to wider debates on religion and COVID- 19. This book will be useful to academics, researchers and students studying religious studies, sociology, health and well- being, religion and development.

"COVID-19 has, like other crises, thrown into relief social injustices and gendered inequalities. BiAS 31/ ERA 8 offers theological responses to and reflections on the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. All are by African scholars and authors; some are academic, some experiential, and others creative or impressionistic in tone. Reflecting the ethos and commitment of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians ("The Circle") to nurture and promote the publications by and about African women and men committed to social justice and positive change, this issue contains the writings of some established but, predominantly, of emerging theologians. For some contributors, this is their first publication in an international series."

This book provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the challenges faced by pastoral ministry in South African Pentecostalism as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some interventions being made to manage these challenges. Contributors present descriptive approaches to churches’ reactions to lockdown measures, and especially the adaptations generated within Pentecostalism in South Africa. Through a variety of approaches—including pastoral care, virtual ecclesiology, social media, and missiology—contributors offer intervention techniques which can help readers to understand the unique role of Christian ministry during the pandemic, in South Africa and beyond.

The African Church and COVID-19: Human Security, the Church, and Society in Kenya is a bold and incisive look at the African Church in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the book, contributors explore how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragilities of African society as well as the weaknesses in the Church’s role in helping and serving African communities. The African Church and COVID-19 analyzes the question of how the Church in Kenya should move forward in a post-COVID-19 era to address the vulnerabilities of socio-economic and political structures in Africa.

The Covid‑19 pandemic was global in its spread and reach, as well as in its medical, social and economic effects. In many respects, the global effort to “flatten the curve” produced a flattening of experience around the world and a striking coincidence of similar experiences in countries the world over. The identity, simultaneity and uniformity of experience were also manifest in common concerns at the intersection of law and religion in many nations around the world, including Africa. The lockdowns and closure of religious worship centres – churches, mosques and religious organisations of all sorts – raised questions of freedom of religion and the related concern for freedom of assembly, along with concerns about the relation of religion to science and public health, religious channels of communication and religious provision of social services. After all, health, communications and social services are all areas in which African religious organisations play key roles. Potential tensions around these issues raised further considerations about the nature of religion-state relations, the status of religious authority and whether religious and state actors would work together or at odds in addressing the Covid‑19 pandemic.