Content area
Full text
Review Of African Christianity - Its Public Role (1998) by Paul Gifford, Hurst and Co. Reviewed by Sarah Hughes.
Paul Gifford's book is topical. In the development thinking of the 1990s where the importance of civil society as an agent of change is undisputed, the place, opportunity and influence of the Christian churches in Africa is considered by many to be unparallelled . An aid and development agency like Christian Aid that works entirely through local organisations and whose preferential partners are the churches is tempted to feel that its hour has come and that its traditional way of working has at last been given the value it deserves. But Paul Gifford feels that such claims are largely untested. Through four unapologetically long country case studies he narrates with uncomfortable and unprecedented honesty a view of Christianity and church life, that is both sympathetic and critical. In so doing it seems he wants the extent of the information, or evidence alone to tell the story, for his footnote references to authors who have looked at similar aspects of his narrative frequently suggest that they have missed the point or drawn conclusions from scant examples.
The result is a wealth of information on African churches justifying the claim that they are at the very least sizeable civil society institutions. Gifford's main thesis is to show how rapidly Christianity and church institutions have been changing:...