Kimpa Vita is a rejected stone that should become the builder’s head cornerstone in the modern era. Kilele is remolding an intentionally forgotten page of a Kongolese, say an African history, told by a conqueror to please their desire but is now rewritten by Africans themselves, as predicted by the late Patrice E. Lumumba. Greater than the French Joan of Arc, Kimpa Vita rejects Western religious alienation, domination, and spiritual formatting—a radical stance misjudged by the Western catholic priests who conspire with the naive locals to get her and her son burned at the stake. As an African martyr and heroine, Kimpa Vita, through her passion, as recounted by Jemadari Vi-Bee-Kil Kilele, remains a realistic tale to tell to the world’s generations at large, in order to expose false and imposed Western religions.

This book surveys a broad panorama of Christian and African traditions to discover and assess the components that will illuminate and motivate a Christian and African ethic of women’s political participation. The author’s primary lens for diagnosing the problems faced by women in Africa is Engelbert Mveng’s concept of “anthropological poverty” that results from slavery and colonialism. It affects women in unique ways and is exacerbated by the religious and cultural histories of women’s oppression. The author advocates an interplay between the sacredness of every individual’s life, a salient principle of Christian ethics, and the collective consciousness of solidarity distinctive to African cultures. This interplay can, in turn, foster a more enlightened approach to African masculinity. Using a “sophialogical” hermeneutic, this in-depth study undertakes a moral imagination through narrative criticism. It argues that the existential reality of African women must be addressed as an essential element in the development of Christian socio-political ethic. The righteous, solidaristic, and resistant anger of women can transform patriarchy and inform Catholic social teaching. The author draws on The Circle of concerned African women theologians, postcolonial theorists, inculturation theology, African males, and Jon Sobrino's liberation theology to present an innovative Christian ethic that will radically affect the lives of African women and inform feminist theology.

A project of women's advancement in society and church life engages a multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach in its quest for social transformation. In recent decades, governments, particularly in Africa, have employed various political, economic, and other social modi operandi in their attempt to advance women's participation more fully in society. The discussions on these pages seek to contribute to the women's discourse with insights from the theology and culture; more specifically, from name designation. The expression, what is in a name, falls flat on its face in most African cultures as well as the cultures that produced the Bible. In these traditions, a name is not merely a convenient collocation of sounds by which a person could be identified. Rather a name represents a story and can express something of the essence of that which is named. The power inherent in the way names are constructed and interpreted, both in terms of the Handmaid in the New Testament and more directly in the Igbo culture, contribute to the strengthening of patriarchy. Such construal potentially exclude women from full participation in social processes, and in so doing deprive society as a whole of the synergy of human potential. The discussion of Mary as Handmaid centers on the role of women in Catholic theology, so she becomes the vehicle for examining the role of the second-class citizen assigned to women in the Church, then and now. Drawing from textual and oral history, the book reinterprets in a liberative manner female names both from Igbo tradition as well as Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah. Thus the freight that a name designation carries makes imperative the exploration of its redemptive significance.

Hundreds of women studied and interpreted the Bible between the years 100–2000 CE, but their stories have remained largely untold. In this book, Schroeder and Taylor introduce readers to the notable contributions of female commentators through the centuries. They unearth fascinating accounts of Jewish and Christian women from diverse communities—rabbinic experts, nuns, mothers, mystics, preachers, teachers, suffragists, and household managers—who interpreted Scripture through their writings. This book recounts the struggles and achievements of women who gained access to education and biblical texts. It tells the story of how their interpretive writings were preserved or, all too often, lost. It also explores how, in many cases, women interpreted Scripture differently from the men of their times. Consequently, Voices Long Silenced makes an important, new contribution to biblical reception history. This book focuses on women's written words and briefly comments on women’s interpretation in media, such as music, visual arts, and textile arts. It includes short, representative excerpts from diverse women’s own writings that demonstrate noteworthy engagement with Scripture. Voices Long Silencedcalls on scholars and religious communities to recognize the contributions of women, past and present, who interpreted Scripture, preached, taught, and exercised a wide variety of ministries in churches and synagogues.

Kintuadi is the connectivity, interactivity, communion and total oneness between Creator, Man and all its creation, the universe. God is supreme Love, eternal Patience and Timeless. He is the same today as he was yesterday. He is the same today as he will be tomorrow. His permanence and persistence is to ensure that a special envoy and messenger is sent for each generation. The great revelation is that before and after Christ, messengers with the same mission have come and gone. Now the big question is who are the messengers of our modern time? Who is the special messenger for this 21st century? If we do identify him, this special messenger has the same mission and is the re-incarnation of all his predecessors from Adamus to Simon Kimbangu of 1921.

The central Christian belief in salvation through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ remains one of the most intractable mysteries of Christian faith. Throughout history, it has given rise to various theories of atonement, many of which have been subject to critique as they no longer speak to contemporary notions of evil and sin or to current conceptions of justice. One of the important challenges for contemporary Christian theology thus involves exploring new ways of understanding the salvific meaning of the cross. In Atonement and Comparative Theology, Christian theologians with expertise in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and African Religions reflect on how engagement with these traditions sheds new light on the Christian understanding of atonement by pointing to analogous structures of sin and salvation, drawing attention to the scandal of the cross as seen by the religious other, and re-interpreting aspects of the Christian understanding of atonement. Together, they illustrate the possibilities for comparative theology to deepen and enrich Christian theological reflection.

During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, vibrant port cities became home to thousands of Africans in transit. Free and enslaved blacks alike crafted the necessary materials to support transoceanic commerce and labored as stevedores, carters, sex workers, and boarding-house keepers. Even though Africans continued to be exchanged as chattel, urban frontiers allowed a number of enslaved blacks to negotiate the right to hire out their own time, often greatly enhancing their autonomy within the Atlantic commercial system. In The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade, eleven original essays by leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and Latin America chronicle the black experience in Atlantic ports, providing a rich and diverse portrait of the ways in which Africans experienced urban life during the era of plantation slavery. Describing life in Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Africa, this volume illuminates the historical identity, agency, and autonomy of the African experience as well as the crucial role Atlantic cities played in the formation of diasporic cultures. By shifting focus away from plantations, this volume poses new questions about the nature of slavery in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, illustrating early modern urban spaces as multiethnic sites of social connectivity, cultural incubation, and political negotiation. Contributors: Trevor Burnard, Mariza de Carvalho Soares, Matt D. Childs, Kevin Dawson, Roquinaldo Ferreira, David Geggus, Jane Landers, Robin Law, David Northrup, João José Reis, James H. Sweet, Nicole von Germeten.