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Journal articles on the topic 'Ghana – Church history'
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1
MOHR, ADAM. "CAPITALISM, CHAOS, AND CHRISTIAN HEALING: FAITH TABERNACLE CONGREGATION IN SOUTHERN COLONIAL GHANA, 1918–26." Journal of African History 52, no. 1 (March 2011): 63–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853711000090.
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ABSTRACTIn 1918, Faith Tabernacle Congregation was established in southern colonial Ghana. This Philadelphia-based church flourished in the context of colonialism, cocoa, and witchcraft, spreading rapidly after the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. In this context, several healing cults also proliferated, but Faith Tabernacle was particularly successful because the church offered its members spiritual, social, and legal advantages. The church's leadership was typically comprised of young Christian capitalist men, whose literacy and letter writing enabled the establishment of an American church without any missionaries present. By 1926, when Faith Tabernacle began its decline, at least 177 branches had formed in southern Ghana, extending into Togo and Côte d'Ivoire, with over 4,400 members.
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Pratt Morris-Chapman, Daniel John. "ECCLESIA GHANA: REALISING AFRO- CATHOLICISM IN GHANA." Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 41, no. 1 (August 3, 2015): 86–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/100.
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What is the essence of the Gospel? Which aspects of the church’s ministry are contingent? The story of the Anglican Church in Ghana offers an opportunity to reflect upon these questions. While the history of this colonial church is fraught with ethnocentrism, it also demonstrates a number of ways in which a rich theological tradition can be realised on Ghanaian soil. This essay explores these possibilities with the hope of identifying an authentic Afro-Catholicism.
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Benyah, Francis. "Church Branding and Self-Packaging: the Mass Media and African Pentecostal Missionary Strategy." Journal of Religion in Africa 48, no. 3 (December 5, 2018): 231–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340139.
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AbstractThe use of the mass media has become a contemporary and fast-growing religious phenomenon within Pentecostal and charismatic churches. By drawing implications on the use of modern media technologies, this article presents a popular case of a Charismatic church in Ghana and shows how the idea of branding evolves around the use of the mass media. This article argues that the branding of the leaders’ personality and the church is a marketing strategy aimed at attracting more people into the church.
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Johnson, Sylvester A. "Divine Imperium and the Ecclesiastical Imaginary: Church History, Transnationalism, and the Rationality of Empire." Church History 83, no. 4 (December 2014): 1003–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640714001218.
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Laurie Maffly-Kipp's address to the American Society of Church History proffers the challenge of engaging seriously with the “church” in church history. She notes that scholarship on Christianity has increasingly focused on broader cultural themes in lieu of a more strict concern with churches as institutions in their own right. Maffly-Kipp's challenge reminded me of a particular context in the history of Christianity: the eighteenth-century city-state of Ogua (or, more familiarly, Cape Coast), in present-day Ghana. In the 1750s, the family of a local youth sent their child, Philip Quaque, to study abroad in London under the auspices of the Anglican Church. The young Quaque spent the next eleven years of this life cultivating expertise in Anglican liturgy, Christian theology, and British mores. Before returning home in his early twenties, he was ordained to the Anglican priesthood—the first African to have done so.
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Daswani, Girish. "Transformation and Migration Among Members of a Pentecostal Church in Ghana and London." Journal of Religion in Africa 40, no. 4 (2010): 442–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006610x541590.
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AbstractWhile an ideology of rupture is central to understanding Pentecostal Christianity in Ghana, not enough attention has been given to the moral relationships and ritual practices that help sustain a Pentecostal transformation and its situational application in different contexts. By comparing the experiences of members of the Church of Pentecost (CoP) in Ghana and London, I show how Pentecostal transformation provides church members with an ethical framework, that helps them cope with unhealthy relationships, witchcraft attacks, and migration, albeit differently. I argue that while promoting discontinuity, individuality, and positive change, Pentecostal transformation also raises concerns regarding continuity, communality, and negativity.
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Hastings, Adrian, and John S. Pobee. "Kkwame Nkrumah and the Church in Ghana 1949-1966." Journal of Religion in Africa 21, no. 2 (May 1991): 188. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1580814.
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Quayesi-Amakye, Joseph. "Pentecostals and Contemporary Church–State Relations in Ghana." Journal of Church and State 57, no. 4 (June 6, 2014): 640–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csu033.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "'Broken Calabashes and Covenants of Fruitfulness': Cursing Barrenness in Contemporary African Christianity." Journal of Religion in Africa 37, no. 4 (2007): 437–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006607x230535.
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AbstractChildlessness is an issue of deep religious concern in Africa. Men, women and couples with problems of sexuality and childlessness make use not only of the resources of traditional African religions but also of the many Pentecostal/charismatic churches and movements that have burgeoned throughout sub-Saharan Africa in the last three decades. Initially this was the domain of the older African independent churches, as far as the Christian response to childlessness is concerned; the new Pentecostals have taken on the challenge too. Based on the same biblical and traditional worldviews that events have causes, these churches have mounted ritual contexts that wrestle with the issues of sexuality and childlessness. In pursuing this salvific endeavor, however, the needs of those who may never have children seem to have been neglected by the churches considered here and represented by the Pure Fire Miracle Ministries, a Ghana/Nigeria charismatic church located in Ghana. is partial approach to 'healing' childlessness has led to one-sided interpretations of what it means to be fruitful and prosperous and deepened the troubles of the childless.
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Ludwig, Frieder. "Tambaram: the West African Experience." Journal of Religion in Africa 31, no. 1 (2001): 49–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006601x00031.
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AbstractTambaram 1938, held near Madras in South India, was the first conference of the International Missionary Council in which a significant number of Africans took part. It offered, therefore, a unique opportunity for the fifteen delegates from the continent. For the first time, West Africans exchanged views with South Africans about African Independent Churches, for the first time, they discussed issues such as the tolerance of polygamy in an international setting. The Africans were impressed by the efforts towards church union in India and by Gandhi's national movement. This article describes the experiences of three of the West African delegates, Alexander Babatunde Akinycle (Nigeria), Moses Odutola Dada (Nigeria) and Christian Goncalves Baeta (Gold Coast/Ghana). Baëta subsequently made a very significant contribution to West African Christianity as a church leader, theologian and academic.
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Asimpi, Kofi. "Book Review: Genuinely Ghanaian: A History of the Methodist Church, Ghana, 1961–2000." Missiology: An International Review 39, no. 2 (April 2011): 255–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182961103900224.
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Mohr, Adam. "Faith Tabernacle Congregation and the Emergence of Pentecostalism in Colonial Nigeria, 1910s-1941." Journal of Religion in Africa 43, no. 2 (2013): 196–221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12341249.
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Abstract Faith Tabernacle literature first spread into the Christian community in Lagos from Western Ghana in the 1910s. By at least 1917 Faith Tabernacle literature was being read in Lagos, and the first formal branch was established in Lagos in 1920. During the early 1920s Faith Tabernacle literature was being spread throughout Nigeria as Faith Tabernacle members traveled across the colony as labor migrants, leading to the rapid spread of the church, particularly in the major cities. By early 1929 Faith Tabernacle had established 61 branches in Nigeria with over 1,200 members. However, due to the schisms of 1925 and 1929, many Faith Tabernacle leaders, members, communicants, and entire congregations left the church to establish the first Pentecostal denominations in Nigeria, which were the Apostolic Faith (1928), the Apostolic Church (1931), the Assemblies of God (1939), and the Christ Apostolic Church (1941).
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Clarke, Clifton. "Towards a Functional Christology Among AICs in Ghana." Mission Studies 22, no. 2 (2005): 287–318. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338305774756612.
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AbstractThis article explores the means by which Christ is encountered and appropriated in the everyday lives of African Indigenous Church adherents in Ghana. Drawing upon an extensive Christological questionnaire that surveyed 2500 people across the ten regions of Ghana, as well as making use of the ethnographic data gathered through focus groups discussions and interviews, it seeks to understand the way Christology functions in the lives of adherents of AICs in Ghana.The study reveals that Akan AIC experience of Jesus Christ is not one that is confined to personal piety or private devotions but rather one that is shared and experienced in the public arenas of life. It appears that Akan AICs possess a functional Christology that aids life and protects from anti-life forces. They have no concept of a Christology as a mere philosophical or theological construct, they know only how to serve Christ through their daily encounter with Him through daily living. This African functional Christology reminds us that we do not find Christ in the flight of the alone to the Alone, escaping from turmoil to tranquillity, but only in the community of the banalities of ordinary life in which we need others to help us make sense of the meaning and significance of the Christ event.
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Dordzro, John-Doe. "BRASS BAND MUSIC IN GHANA: THE INDIGENISATION OF EUROPEAN MILITARY MUSIC." African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music 11, no. 2 (November 22, 2020): 141–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.21504/amj.v11i2.2318.
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Local brass bands have become an indispensable factor in weddings, processions, rituals of birth or death, at Christmas and New Year festivities in many parts of the globe. Remains of European brass bands are widely distributed throughout Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. )ese bands are of both military and missionary origin. They are an important component of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial expressive culture. Despite their uniqueness and widespread presence across the world, brass bands have received limited attention in Ghana. )is paper aims to address this lack by offering a comprehensive account of the contemporary situation of brass band music in Ghana. I trace the history of this musical world and explore the diverse ways military and missionary activities have shaped amateur brass band musical activities in Ghana. I discuss the distribution and band formations across Ghana, viewing it in five sections that detail different types of brass bands; church, town, service, school and “sharbo” bands. I continue by looking at the beginning, development, workings and indigenisation of European military music in local popular culture and provide an account of brass band music as observed in Ghana today. I argue that indigenisation is not a straightforward process of adaptation, rather, indigenisation is a process of ongoing aesthetic tensions and differences resulting in new musical forms and new forms of socialisation organised around musical performance.
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Fumanti, Mattia. "“Virtuous Citizenship”:Ethnicity and Encapsulation among Akan-Speaking Ghanaian Methodists in London." African Diaspora 3, no. 1 (2010): 12–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187254610x505655.
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Abstract Akan-speaking Methodists in London make sense of their diasporic experience by claiming ‘virtuous’ citizenship. Regardless of their legal and formal status, they feel themselves to be citizens of Britain as Methodists, workers and law-abiding subjects. Active membership in the British Methodist church, conceived as an English transnational polity extending to Ghana, allows for this alternative construction, rooted in Methodist Christian ideology of universal and selfless love, and the Akan concept of tema ‐ empathy for the pain of others, expressed in moral and material obligations to humanity at large, and family or fellowship members. Encapsulation in ethnically exclusive fellowships has become, however, highly problematic for the British Methodist Church whose internal conversation mirrors wider debates in Britain on multiculturalism and immigrant citizenship. Ghanaians themselves are increasingly aware of this critique, but for them ethnic fellowships do not imply exclusion or exclusiveness: they are the loci where people’s agency is experienced, and where they gain recognition and distinction.
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Hastings, Adrian. "POBEE, John S., Kkwame Nkrumah and the Church in Ghana 1949-1966, Accra, Asempa Publishers, P.O. Box 919, Accra, 1988. 222 pp., 9964 78 168 7." Journal of Religion in Africa 21, no. 2 (1991): 188–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006691x00384.
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Darkwa Amanor, Kwabena. "Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Ghana and the African Culture: Confrontation or Compromise?" Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18, no. 1 (2009): 123–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/174552509x442192.
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AbstractThe paper establishes the reality of conflict between Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Ghana and the African culture. It examines the history of this conflict since the early days of Christianity in Ghana as well as the causes of the conflict. It also looks at the effects of the conflict on the dialogue expected between Christianity and the African culture, mediation efforts by third party governance and civil society organizations, and the theological implications of the antagonism for the Christian engagement with other non-Christian religions, especially, Islam, which shares Africa with Christianity.
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Westendorp, Mariske, Bruno Reinhardt, Reinaldo L. Román, Jon Bialeki, Alexander Agadjanian, Karen Lauterbach, Juan Javier Rivera Andía, et al. "Book Reviews." Religion and Society 10, no. 1 (September 1, 2019): 171–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2019.100113.
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Bielo, James, Materializing the Bible. Digital project. http://www.materializingthebible.com.Casselberry, Judith, The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism, 240 pp., notes, index. Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2017. Paperback, $25.95. ISBN 9780822369035.Clark, Emily Suzanne, A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans, 280 pp., notes, index. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Hardback, $34.95. ISBN 9781469628783.Cowan, Douglas E., America´s Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, 272 pp., notes, index. New York: NYU Press, 2018. Hardback, $30.00. ISBN 9781479894734.Darieva, Tsypylma, Florian Mühlfried, and Kevin Tuite, eds., Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces: Religious Pluralism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, 246 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. Hardback, $90.00. IS BN 9781785337826.Daswani, Girish, Looking Back, Moving Forward: Transformation and Ethical Practice in the Ghanaian Church of Pentecost, 280 pages, figures, notes, index. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. Paperback, $30.95. ISBN 9781442626584.Giraldo Herrera, César E., Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings, 274 pp., index. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Paperback, $99.99. ISBN 9783030100414.Kaell, Hillary, ed., Everyday Sacred: Religion in Contemporary Quebec, 356 pp., figures, notes, index. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017. Hardback, $110.00. ISBN 9780773550940.Kripal, Jeffrey J., Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions, 448 pp., appendix, notes, index. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Paperback, $35.00. ISBN 9780226679082.Cabot, Zayin, Ecologies of Participation: Agents, Shamans, Mystics and Diviners, 352 pp., preface, index. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Hardback, $110.00. ISBN 9781498568159.Lauterbach , Karen, Christianity, Wealth, and Spiritual Power in Ghana, 221 pp., appendix, index. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Paperback, $119.99. ISBN 9783319815299.Liberatore, Giulia, Somali, Muslim, British: Striving in Securitized Britain, 304 pp., figures, index. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Paperback, $32.50. ISBN 9781350094628.Mansur, Marcia, and Marina Thomé, dirs., The Sound of Bells (O Som dos Sinos), documentary film, Portuguese, 70 min. Estúdio Crua, 2016. $320.00. https://store.der.org/the-sound-ofbells-p1012.aspx.Oosterbaan, Martijn, Transmitting the Spirit: Religious Conversion, Media, and Urban Violence, 264 pp., notes, bibliography, index. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. Paperback, $39.95. ISBN 9780271078441.Srinivas, Tulasi, The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder, 296 pp., notes, references, index. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Paperback, $26.95. ISBN 9780822370796.Taneja, Anand Vivek, Jinnealogy: Time, Islam and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi, 336 pp., illustrations, notes, references, index. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018. Paperback, $30.00. ISBN 9781503603936.Wilcox, Melissa M., Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody, 336 pp., notes, bibliography, index. New York: NYU Press, 2018. Paperback, $30.00. ISBN 9781479820368.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. "Enchanted Calvinism. Labor migration, afflicting spirits, and Christian therapy in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. By Adam Mohr. (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora.) Pp. xiii + 234 incl. 3 maps and 18 figs. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013. £55. 978 1 58046 462 8." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66, no. 3 (June 26, 2015): 685–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046915000433.
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Owusu-Ansah, David, and Emmanuel Akyeampong. "Religious Pluralism and Interfaith Coexistence: Ecumenicalism in the Context of Traditional Modes of Tolerance." Legon Journal of the Humanities 30, no. 2 (December 31, 2019): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ljh.v30i2.1.
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In many parts of the developing world, religion is singled out as the cause for violent clashes. At the 2007 TrustAfrica workshop in Dakar, the conference of religious leaders, scholars, and experts from 12 African countries and the Diaspora explored this concern under the theme "Meeting the Challenges of Religion and Pluralism in Africa." It was observed that religiously justified conflicts were often the repackaging of community concerns regarding issues of social, economic, and political injustices, inequities and exclusions. Consequently, a project on “religious pluralism and interfaith coexistence in Ghana” was funded in 2008 as part of the efforts to examine the role of local traditions as a foundation to interfaith dialogue. Earlier in 2005, a similar project on the theme of Islam and tolerance, with funding from Harvard and Michigan State University, was conducted in Ghana. Several issues emerging from the field conversations are pertinent to topics of how history shaped Muslim relations with their non-Muslim hosts in West Africa. It is often argued in the literature that Islam’s inherently adoptive attitude toward African religious culture made it possible for Muslims and their non-Muslim hosts to co-exist. However, this research contends that, in the case of Ghana, it was the traditional local culture as defined by indigenous religious values that shaped and moderated the environment that sustained peaceful interreligious relations. The authors express concern that as the country experiences rapid urbanization, Westernization, proliferation of charismatic churches and aggressive Christian evangelization, the traditional values that underpinned pluralism and peace in historic times might be threatened (George Bob-Milliar and Karen Lauterback, 2018).
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Asamoah-Gyadu, Kwabena. "Pentecostalism in Africa and the Changing Face of Christian Mission." Mission Studies 19, no. 1 (2002): 14–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338302x00161.
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AbstractThird World Christianity has been experiencing exponential growth since the turn of the twentieth century. Nowhere is this renewal in Christianity more visible than Africa, where religious innovations led by indigenous Christians have mostly been Pentecostal in character. The Pentecostal movements leading the current renewal of Christianity in African countries like Ghana are autonomous, independent of both the established historic mission denominations and the older classical Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God. Ghanaian Pentecostalism in its various streams has adapted the global Pentecostal culture to suit the needs of the local context in ways that have changed the nature and direction of Christian mission. The traditional themes of healing, deliverance, prosperity and empowerment associated with the global Pentecostal movement have been synthesized with traditional worldviews, giving Pentecostal Christianity an added relevance in African context. This has yielded massive responses. In Pentecostal movements under discussion, therefore, one finds the ingenious ability of indigenous Christians to appropriate a phenomenon of global significance for local consumption.
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Benyah, Francis. "Pentecostalism and Development Discourse in Sub-Saharan Africa." Mission Studies 36, no. 3 (October 9, 2019): 391–415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733831-12341676.
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Abstract Until recently, religion has been quite a neglected subject of enquiry to development workers and policy makers. This neglect is as a result of the suspicious, corrosive and irrational view many attach to religion as a vital instrument for development. This article, discusses how Pentecostal theology of salvation evinces a development ethos that needs to be taken seriously by policy makers and development workers. Focusing on some of the religious practices and initiatives undertaken by Pentecostal/Charismatic churches as an aspect of their theology of salvation, this article demonstrates how the Pentecostal movement in sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ghana, has made what others see as developmental goals part of an indigenous faith. The paper argues that in order to achieve a desired transformative development, development workers and policy makers need to recognize and place maximum attention to the religious resources that serve as a driving force for most development initiatives in Africa.
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Meyer, Birgit. "“There Is a Spirit in that Image”: Mass-Produced Jesus Pictures and Protestant-Pentecostal Animation in Ghana." Comparative Studies in Society and History 52, no. 1 (December 24, 2009): 100–130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s001041750999034x.
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In southern Ghana, where I have been conducting research on the genesis of popular Christianity for almost twenty years, Christian imagery is everywhere. The Ghanaian state re-adopted a democratic constitution in 1992, and this was followed by a liberalization and commercialization of mass media, which in turn facilitated the spread of Pentecostalism in the public sphere (see De Witte 2008; Gifford 2004; Meyer 2004a). Within this process, Christian pictures have become ubiquitous. Pentecostal-charismatic churches assert their public presence and power via television, radio, posters, and stickers, and there has also emerged a new public culture rife with Christian imagery. This visual and aural expansion of Christianity and its particular aesthetic severely challenges what is being called African Traditional religion, and clashes with initiatives developed by the state and intellectuals to secure a national heritage.
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Larson, H. Elliott. "More Than the Pandemic." Christian Journal for Global Health 7, no. 5 (December 18, 2020): 1–2. http://dx.doi.org/10.15566/cjgh.v7i5.493.
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It is fitting for this issue of the Christian Journal for Global Health to come to you just before Christmas. We remember the birth of the Christ child, God with us. God with us not just in the ordinariness of human life, but in the calamities, defeats, and suffering entailed in that ordinariness. The coronavirus pandemic, as well as myriad of other human afflictions, is a reminder of those aspects of life. Surely the greatest spiritual lesson of the pandemic is that we are not the masters of our own destiny. The pandemic is a rebuke to the hubris of our age – that human knowledge is the remedy for all ills. Responses to the pandemic have exposed the fissures in our societies as well. While the healthcare community has responded heroically to the challenges, churches have served as a much-needed solace and source of health information, as well as, at times, sources of spread. Some who consider faith non-essential and are antagonistic to it have proposed severe restrictions to much-needed fellowship.
In the providence of God, we are able to rejoice at the arrival of effective vaccines to prevent SARS CoV-2 infection, the world-wide calamity that has dogged us for nearly an entire year. The vaccines come out-of-time, as it were, having been developed, produced, and tested with a speed that is astonishing. Hopefully, they will enable this devastating infectious disease to be put behind us. If that proves to be possible, it is salutary to ponder what is able to be anticipated and to appreciate the perspicacity of someone like Dr. Jono Quick, whose book, The End of Epidemics, foresaw in 2018 what came to pass in 2020. For additional insights, we are pleased to feature in this issue a guest editorial by Dr. Quick which surveys some of the challenges that the release, use, and equitable global distribution of the vaccines hold for us, as well as the Christian responsibility to follow the data for both individualized whole-person care and community care as acts of love for our global neighbor.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted systemic vulnerabilities, health inequities, and the ongoing diseases and conditions that continue to threaten individuals and populations. The response to the pandemic has affected the global economy and exacerbated hunger and extreme poverty. Progress in global health to control the remaining poliovirus, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis has also been tragically impaired due to the pandemic.1
Two original articles describe efforts to evaluate health needs for chronically impoverished villages and then to train Christian health workers in the ways to most effectively service those needs. Claudia Bale reports that the results of surveying Guatemalan villages for health needs and barriers to health produced a variety of themes that provided guidance for the organizations seeking to meet these needs. Sneha Kirubakaran and colleagues evaluated a short course in global health from Australia that sought to prepare Christian health workers for international service.
This issue features three reviews. Samuel Adu-Gyamfi and his colleagues from Ghana completed an extensive systematic review of the role of missions in Sub-Saharan Africa, finding that although the scope of work changed over time, the aim of sharing the gospel motivated work in a broad scope of activities in development, education, and healthcare which continues to be relevant. Omololu Fagunwa from Nigeria provides a history lesson based on original source documents on how the 1918 influenza pandemic affected the growth of Pentecostalism in Africa. Alexander Miles, Matthew Reeve, and Nathan Grills from University of Melbourne completed a systematic literature review showing evidence of the significant effectiveness of community health workers in dealing with non-communicable diseases in India.
Two commentaries offer fresh approaches to persisting healthcare issues. Richard Thomas and Niels French describe the population health model and explain how it is particularly suited to a role in the future for mission hospitals and to address a variety of global health concerns. Melody Oereke, Kenneth David, and Ezeofor Onyedikachukwu from Nigeria offer their thoughts on how Christian pharmacists can employ a model for prayer, faith, and action in their professional calling. The coronavirus pandemic has required healthcare and aid organizations to come up with creative solutions to completely novel circumstances if they were to be able to continue their ministries. Daryn Joy Go and her colleagues from International Care Ministries describe their employment of social networking technologies in the Philippines to continue their work in extreme poverty alleviation as well as spiritual nourishment despite lockdown conditions and severe limitations on travel and communication.
Finally, Pieter Nijssen reviews Creating Shared Resilience: The Role of the church in a Hopeful Future, by David Boan and Josh Ayers. In our world of short-term gain and short attention spans, resilience is a commodity in tragically short supply. Pastor Nijssen’s discussion helpfully expands on an ongoing discussion of how faith and justice must be integrated in any faithful gospel ministry and how this, itself, promotes resilience in the face of crises.
We call our readers’ attentions to our current call for papers, Environmental Concern and Global Health. Our stewardship of the earth and its resources was part of God’s first command to Adam and Eve and an important aspect of human flourishing throughout the Bible. That stewardship has implications for global health that deserve study and explanation. Click on the link to the call for a list of the subjects we hope to see in submissions on this topic and many others within the unique and broad scope of the journal.
During this season of both widespread challenge and enduring hope, we pray for peace on earth, and good will to all people.
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White, Peter, and John Ntsiful. "A Revisit of the Ministerial Concept of Lay and Full-Time Ministers in Classical Pentecostal Churches in Ghana and its Missional Implications." Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 44, no. 1 (April 3, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/3826.
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In their article “Pentecostal Mission Approaches” White and Niemandt (2015, 241–269) make a case for how some Pentecostal Churches in Ghana have made good use of lay/tent ministry in their missionary agenda. However, among the Classical Pentecostal Churches in Ghana, lay ministers are not recognised as full-time ministers of the church. The understanding of these churches is that the lay/tent ministers by their definition do not operate in the five-fold ministry. In some of the churches, they are not accredited by the church to be part of their General Ministerial Council Meetings and the Annual General Meetings. Unlike the mainline churches, the lay or tent ministers in the Classical Pentecostal Churches in Ghana are also not allowed to vote or to be recommended for Executive Council positions. These issues therefore make it essential to investigate the historical and theological understanding of the concept of the lay and full-time ministers in church history, Ghanaian Pentecostals’ view of the concept, as well as the missional importance of lay ministries in the church and the missio Dei.
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White, Peter. "Decolonising Western missionaries’ mission theology and practice in Ghanaian church history: A Pentecostal approach." In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 51, no. 1 (February 27, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.v51i1.2233.
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The term missional is meant to refer fundamentally to the missio Dei, just as the term missionary does. Missiology is the systematic study of all aspects of mission. It encompasses the historical origin of the churches, their growth, successes and failures. It pays attention to the methodology and context for mission. Ghanaian church history gives us a clear picture of the massive developmental contribution the Western missionaries have made in the social, educational and economic life of Ghana. Although the Western missionaries did very well in meeting the social and economic needs of Ghanaians, they were, however, unable to make a significant and lasting impact on the religious level – mainly because they did not address the traditional worldview of Ghanaians – a worldview embedded in the belief in spirits. This therefore caused some African Christians to seek for an African identity as far as Christianity is concerned. In the light of the search for African Christian identity and mission theology, this article discusses how Pentecostalism has been used as a tool for decolonising Western missionaries’ mission theology and practice in the Ghanaian context. The article discusses Pentecostalism in Ghana, Western missional theology and practices in their missionary activities in Ghana, as well as Ghanaian Pentecostals’ approach to decolonisation of Western mission theology.
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White, Peter. "Centenary of Pentecostalism in Ghana (1917–2017): A case study of Christ Apostolic Church International." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (January 31, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v75i4.5185.
Full textAbstract:
Centenary celebrations in every organisation are approached with joy and reflection of the past, present, impact on society and planning for the years ahead. The Christ Apostolic Church International (CACI), which is acknowledged by Ghanaian Pentecostals as the mother of Pentecostalism, celebrated its Centenary of Pentecostalism in 2017. Having come this far and being acknowledged as the pioneer of classical Pentecostalism in Ghana, it is very important that issues concerning the church, its leadership and impact on society are discussed and properly recorded for future reference. Although some Ghanaian Pentecostal scholars did their best to document some aspects of history of CACI, their focus was limited to the early history of the church and the ministry of Apostle Peter Newman Anim. This article contributes to the existing missional and historical literature on CACI by bringing on board some of the historical gaps. This article also discusses the miraculous dispensation in CACI, their leadership and administrative structure, their growth and challenges as well as their religio-social and economic impact in Ghana.
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"Book Review: Genuinely Ghanaian: A History of the Methodist Church Ghana, 1961–2000." Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 65, no. 4 (October 2011): 439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002096431106500448.
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Maponda, Anastasie M. "The impact of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: French zone on church and African theology issues." Verbum et Ecclesia 37, no. 2 (July 8, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v37i2.1597.
Full textAbstract:
We can understand that the Circle must work on two dimensions to provide a future for new woman theology in Africa. The first dimension is based on the intuitive fundamental and innovative sense of a woman from Ghana, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, that leads to the creation of the Circle: she impulsed the idea that women should make their own theology from their dailylife experiences and their subjectivity as women, in order to think on faith and Gospel in a different way. It is necessary to question that intuitive sense. The second dimension aims to revisit the great personalities of African woman theologians of the Circle. What are the essential points of their research? How has the research changed African theology? I particularly think of Musimbi Kanyoro, Nyambura Njoroge and Musa Dub� in the Africa English zone and Helene Yinda, Liz Vuadi, Kasa Dovi and Bernadette Mbuyi Beya in Africa French zone. The essence of their thinking is still actual and that is why they are good enough to project in to the future.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article presents the history of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians from creation to now. Issues related to traditional culture, gender and sexual-based violence, gender-based injustice, and HIV and AIDS are discussed under different approaches such as the biblical approach, hermeneutical approach, ethical approach, historical approach and practical approach. The impact of African Women Theologians speaking French will be particularly highlighted.Keywords: theology; women theologians; women empowerment; HIV/AIDS; gender
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"Akwantemfi —'In Mid-Journey': An Asante Shrine Today and Its Clients." Journal of Religion in Africa 38, no. 1 (2008): 57–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006608x262683.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis paper examines the activities today of the Medoma shrine in Kumasi, capital of the historic Asante kingdom in the Republic of Ghana. It seeks to contextualise this shrine in relation to historic and current Asante indigenous belief. It also looks at it in relation to the rise of charismatic or Pentecostalist Christian churches, and to the ever growing presence of the African American diaspora in Asante. It supplies a profile of the life and beliefs of Nana Abass (Kwaku Abebrese), founder and 'priest' (okomfo) of the Medoma shrine. It explores his commitment to societal development and some of the initiatives and projects that have arisen from this involvement. It discusses the motives of the shrine's Asante, other Ghanaian and African American clients. Finally, it advances an interpretation of the nature of Asante indigenous belief in the past and in the present age of globalisation and charismatic Christianity.