Early African Christianity–A Thematic Analysis

Aidan Kwame AhaligahORCID iD

Issue: Vol.6  No.5 August 2020 Article 1 pp. 264-273
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.2020084    |   Published online 24th August 2020.
© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Views: 1,674
657 Downloads

DOWNLOAD PDF
This article is devoted to a thematic analysis of early or ancient African Christianity and its influence on ecclesial practices and thinking in contemporary Africa. Drawing on literature in the history of the church in antiquity this paper re-tells the story of how Africa and Africans in the first millennium developed and shaped World Christianity. Specifically, it discusses the contributions made to the early Church by the African Fathers of the faith, Origen and Augustine. The paper contest sentiments and perceptions that Christianity is a “white mans” religion and to reclaim African Christianity’s identity as a global religious culture which has existed since antiquity. Moreover, it argues that a lot is lost, with its attendant misinterpretations, when Christianity in Africa is only viewed as a result of the fruits of the nineteenth-century missionary activities. The paper contributes to the study of African Church history, the contextualisation/inculturation of the gospel, and African theology.

Keywords: Early Church, Church Fathers, Coptic Church, Origen, Augustine, Ancient African Christianity, Abyssinian, Ethiopian Church

Ahaligah, Aidan, K. “The influence of indigenous Akan religious beliefs and practices on Pentecostal Christianity in Ghana: Historical and Theological analyses in the context of world Christianity.” TREN (2012). https://digitalshowcase.oru.edu/tren/958. Accessed June 2,2020.

Alfred Evetts, B. T. & Butler, Joshuah. The Churches and Monastaries of Egypt and Some Neighboring Countries. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2001.

Barret, D. B. The World Christian Encyclopedia London: Oxford University Press, 1982

____. Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements. Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Baur, John. 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa: An African Church History 2nd Revised Edition Nairobi: Paulines Publication Africa, 1994

Bediako, Kwame. Jesus in Africa, The Christian Gospel in African History and Experience, Akropong-Akuapem: Regnum Africa, 2000.

_____. “Cry Jesus! Christian Theology and Presence in Modern Africa” Voz Evangelica 23 (1993)

Bonk, Jonathan. “Modern African Church History and the Streetlight Effect: Biography as a Lost Key” Dictionary of African Christian Biography, vol. 4, 1 (2019), 7-23.

Bowers, Paul. “Nubian Christianity: The Neglected Heritage” Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology iv.1 (1985)

Boulaga F., Eboussi. Christianity Without Fethishes: An African Critique and Recapture of Christianity Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984

Brockmann, Robert Francis. The Romanization of North Africa: Its Character and Extent During the First and Second Centuries of the Empire (Indiana: Indiana University, 1951).

Budge, E. A. Wallis. A History of Ethiopia: Volume I: Nubia and Abyssinia (London: Routledge, 1928)

_____. The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church: A Translation of the Ethiopian Synaxarium Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928.

Burmester, Oswald Hugh Ewart. The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services and The Rites and Ceremonies Observed in the Administration of Her Sacraments (Cairo: Printing Office of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, 1967); Burns Jr. J. Patout and Jensen, M. Robin. Christianity in Roman Africa. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.

Cary, Phillip, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self. The Legacy of a Christian Platonist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Davis, A. J. “Coptic Christianity” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Tarikh, Vol.2, no.1 (1967).

Elmasry, Irish H. Introduction to the Coptic Church (Place of publication not identified. Printed by Dar El Alam El Arabi, 1977).

Fage, J.D. The Cambridge History of Africa Vol. 2 from c. 500 BC to 1050 AD. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Faraji, Salim. The Roots of Nubian Christianity Uncovered: The Triumph of the Last Pharaoh. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2012.

Farrar, Frederic W. Lives of the Fathers: Sketches of Church History in Biography (New York: Macmillan and Co, 1889)

Ferguson, John. “Aspects of Early Christianity in North Africa” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Tarikh, Vol.2, no.1 (1967)Geddes, Michael. The church-history of Ethiopia (London: R. Chiswell, 1696.

Fiedler, Klaus. The Story of Faith Missions. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 1994.

Groves, C. P. The Planting of Christianity in Africa London: Lutterworth Press, 1948.

Hastings, Adrian. The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

_______. African Christianity. NY: Seabury Press, 1977.

_______. African Christianity 1950-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.“History of Ethiopia” History Net.http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=2110&HistoryID=ab92&gtrack=pt hc. Accessed 15 August 2020.

Hyatt, Harry Middleton. The Church of Abyssinia London: Luzac & Co, 1928.

LaPiana, G. “The Roman Church at the End of the Second Century” Harvard Theological Review, vol. XVIII, 3 (1925), 201– 277

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol II. The Thousand Years of Uncertainty New York and London: Harper, 1938.

Irish H. Elmasry, Introduction to the Coptic Church (Place of publication not identified. Printed by Dar El Alam El Arabi, 1977).

Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995.

MacCulloch, Darmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Penguin Books, 2009).

MacMichael, H. A. History of the Arabs in Sudan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922) https://doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9780511696947. Accessed June 3, 2020.

McLeod, H, ed. Cambridge History of Christianity: World Christianities c. 1914-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Oden, Thomas C. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0036930611000391

Oshitelu, G.A., Dictionary of African Christian Biography, http://www.dacb.org/stories/egypt/origen_.html assessed December 7 2011.

Phiri, Isabel, A. and Wener Dietrich, Kaunda Chammah, and Owino Kennedy, eds. Anthology of African Christianity (Oxford: Regnum, 2016)

Robert, D.L. “Introducing African Christian Biography: Stories, Lives, and Challenges” Dictionary of African Christian Biography, vol. 4, 1 (2019), 4-6.

Sanneh, Lamin. West African Christianity: The Religious Impact London: Maryknoll, 1983

Smith, Warren Thomas. Augustine: His Life and Thought (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1980)

Speel, C.J. “The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the wake of the Rise of Islam” Cambridge University Press, 2009.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/disappearance-of- christianity-from-north-africa-in-the-wake-of-the-rise-of-islam/2D4350992DB03EBD60062372D658BF91

Sundkler, Bengt and Steed, Christopher. A History of Christianity in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.99

Tafla, Bairu. The Establishment of the Ethiopian Church. Tarikh vol. 2, 1 1967.pp 28-42.

Tangelder, Johan. D. Reformed Reflections: In Search of African Theology https://reformedreflections.ca/missions/ search-of-african%20theo.html. Accessed June 3,2020.

Taylor, John H. Egypt and Nubia Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991

Wallis Budge, E.A. The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church: A Translation of the Ethiopian Synaxarium Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928.

Wilhite, David E. Ancient African Christianity: an introduction to a unique context and tradition. London New York Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203075678

Aidan Kwame Ahaligah is a Teaching Fellow, University of Leeds where he completed his PhD in Religious and Theological Studies with a focus on Pentecostal-Charismatic political interventions in contemporary African Public spheres. Aidan is an ordained pastor of the E.P Church Ghana and domiciled in the UK.

Ahaligah, Aidan K., “Early African Christianity–A Thematic Analysis.” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies 6, no.5 (2020): 264-273 https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.2020084

© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Articles in this Issue

About Journal