Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa

by Ranger, Terence O.

• ISBN13: 9780195308020
• ISBN10: 0195308026
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In recent decades, Christianity has acquired millions of new adherents in Africa, the region with the world's fastest-expanding population. What role has this development of evangelical Christianity played in Africa's democratic history? To what extent do its churches affect its politics? By taking a historical view and focusing specifically on the events of the past few years, Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa seeks to explore these questions, offering individual case studies of six countries: Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, and Mozambique. Unlike most analyses of democracy which come from a secular Western tradition, these contributors, mainly younger scholars based in Africa, bring first-hand knowledge to their chapters and employ both field and archival research to develop their data and analyses. The result is a groundbreaking work that will be indispensable to everyone concerned with the future of this volatile region. Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa is one of four volumes in the series Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in the Global South, which seeks to answer the question: What happens when a revivalist religion based on scriptural orthodoxy participates in the volatile politics of the Third World? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion -- Islam -- fuels vexed debate among analysts the world over, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective on a critical issue: the often combustible interaction of resurgent religion and the developing world's unstable politics.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Contributors	p. xxiii
Abbreviations	p. xxvii
Introduction: Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa	p. 3
Evangelicals, Muslims, and Democracy: With Particular Reference to the Declaration of Sharia in Northern Nigeria	p. 37
Evangelical Attitudes toward Democracy in Kenya	p. 67
President Frederick Chiluba and Zambia: Evangelicals and Democracy in a "Christian Nation"	p. 95
Foundations for Democracy in Zimbabwean Evangelical Christianity	p. 131
Evangelicals and Democracy in Mozambique	p. 161
From Apartheid to the New Dispensation: Evangelicals and the Democratization of South Africa	p. 191
Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Africa: A Response	p. 225
Afterword	p. 231
References	p. 243
Index	p. 261
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