Zambezia (1998), XXV (ii).BOOK REVIEWSAfrican Christianity, Its Public Role By Paul Gifford. London, 1998, 368 pp.The title of this book, African Christianity, Its Public Role, accurately reflectsthe essence of the investigation carried out by Paul Gifford. The authorstates the aims of his study:First, it seeks to situate Africa's churches in their wider context, to seewhat light can be shed on recent developments in African Christianity byusing concepts taken from political and social analysis. Second, it seeksto examine the public role that the churches are playing in Africa (p.l).In Chapter 1, Gifford sketches the socio-political and economic contextof contemporary Africa. From the sketch he adopts and defines the keyconceptual tools that he later applies in his study. In Chapter 2, the authorattempts to locate the African churches within global Christiandevelopments. Subsequently, he spells out the foci of his investigation ofthe churches in Africa, viz, theology, a new Pentecostal wave, the FaithGospel, and ecclesiastical externality. The first two chapters form thefoundation upon which the subsequent four case studies of Ghana, Uganda,Zambia, and Cameroon are predicated. They also provide the key to theoverall analysis of the churches' public role which the author carried outin the final chapter.For his study, Gifford conducted structured and unstructuredinterviews with many church people, academics and politicians. He alsoobserved many church services, crusades, Bible studies, workshops andconferences. The data were supplemented by a huge volume of literaturethat included academic and devotional books, magazines, newspapersetc.Gifford's style is captivating. He presents to the reader church founders,bishops, and preachers who speak out their mind without interruption. Hethen comments and analyses his findings and assesses their publicsignificance. At times the reader gets the impression that she/he is readinga fast-moving fiction. This is so because the author sometimes highlightsthe very minute details that range from anecdotes, sweet gossip, dittiesand petty jealousies between church and state, church leaders and theirfollowers, expatriate missionaries and the indigenous pastors etc. Whenall is said and done one realizes that all these 'juicy and dirty bits andpieces' constitute the reality of the African churches and their perceivedpublic roles.From his findings, three important points stand out. First, Giffordobserves that on the political front, the churches in Africa basically mirrorthe society in which they are located. This is manifested in how theyconceive and exercise leadership, which often thrives on patron-clientrelations while authority is given a supernatural mystique.243244 BOOK REVIEWSSecond, is the observation that the churches in Africa are increasinglybecoming alternative economic institutions replacing the shamboliceconomies of Africa. The churches are, because of their external links andcontinuing donor-support, becoming more and more associated with wealthand job creation as well as career and skills development. They aredependant on external donor support just like their counterparts in thepublic arena.Third and lastly, Gifford sees an ambiguous relationship between thechurches' theology and African culture. His overall view is that the churchesin Africa play a limited public role because they lack a structural vision/framework for transforming the African society.All things considered, this book will have a long-lasting impression onthe study of Christianity in Africa. There are few observations, however,that this reviewer would like to raise in critique of the book.First, while for justified reasons Gifford is interested in the AfricanChurches' theology and its contribution towards the shaping of civil society,it is unfortunate that he approaches his study with ready-made ideasabout the appropriate theology that Africa should adopt to solve its woes.For him this theology is liberation theology as in Latin America. Such atheology has to be 'an explicitly political theology". Gifford's theologicalslant prejudices his perspectives.Second, but related to the first point, is the author's bias towardschurches that have (written) literature and whose crusades and sermonswere delivered in English at the expense of the African Initiated Churches(AICs) whose liturgies are not written and are in local languages. Thestatistics of AICs from Ghana are clearly over-rated in their significance formeasuring the growth rate of AICs on the whole continent. By any standardsGhana has never been in the top four of countries associated with theproliferation of AICs outside South Africa. Furthermore, there is more thanmeets the eye in the statistics and explanations offered by the GhanaEvangelism Committee. The author could have been more critical with hissources as statistics, be they for purposes of voter registration, birth anddeath registration or baptism, are a very complicated exercise in Africa.Third, is the observation that although the author highlights somevery interesting strands of mainline Christianity, one senses that he ismore comfortable when he describes and discusses the Faith gospel andtheologies of entrepreneurship and deliverance, all which are products ofthe evangelical and new-wave Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. Hetends to lose his cutting edge, however, when he tackles mainlineChristianity.For instance, while Gifford makes mention of the "enormous effect'that para-church movements like the All Africa Conference of Churches(AACC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) on Africa's mainlineBOOK REVIEWS 245sector, he does not show how the latter's liberal theology as an external'paradigm enforcing power' has been appropriated in Africa in thedemocratization discourse. An obvious oversight by the author is the roleof the WCC's theology towards women and gender violence. This discoursehas gained much currency in Africa in the wake of escalating genderviolence mainly due to Africa's collapsing economies and the resultanteconomic emaciation that male bread-winners are subjected to clue toretrenchment, unemployment, insecurity, etc. It would have beeninstructive to assess the impact of the WCC's Ecumenical Decade of theChurches in Solidarity with Women Programme among Protestant churchesthat are affiliates of the WCC in the countries studied. This programmewas launched by the WCC in 1988 and ends with a celebration by womenfrom all over the world in November 1998 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Is it notalso ironical that although the church in Africa is, as Hastings aptly calls it,a 'women's church' (A. Hastings, 1988) Gifford totally marginalizes therole of women in his study. When he mentions them he only does so inpassing and with little explanation. Surely, Gifford is no different fromother historians on the church in Africa: while there is 'theoretical'realization that women dominate the churches in Africa, Christianhistoriography has not as yet changed to reflect this fact.My fourth point has to do with what I view to be an unnecessarilycombative and self-righteous streak of arrogance that characterizesGifford's style of engaging fellow scholars. A clear example is his referenceto Kwame Bediako 'whose analysis ignores much of what is happening inAfrican Christianity today'. In the next line he goes on to say of anotherscholar, John Parratt, 'It is even more evident in Parratt's survey of Africantheology' (p.333). These observations are followed by trite, unsubstantiatedbut dismissive over-generalizations about how uncritical African Christiansare with the Bible. That this is not borne out of any empirical objectiveevidence is clear on p.42 where he classifies African Christianity asfundamentalist. He writes:In its classical Christian sense of denoting some belief in the bible asinerrant, almost all African Christians approach the bible rather uncritically(my emphasis).In his substantiation of this opinion, Gifford writes, 'This was wellexpressed in a report on the history and theology of a group of independentchurches, written by those churches themselves.' One wonders whetherGifford is being critical with his sources. To what extent is the so-calledgroup of independent churches from South Africa true to themselves and'true also of Christians of the mainline churches and doubly true of the(rest of African) AlCs?' This is everyone's guess.Coming back to Bediako and Parratt, Gifford is self-opinionated on thequestions of Christian tradition and African culture as sources of African246 BOOK REVIEWStheology. Gifford has only touched on the latter aspect but not the former.What I suspect he has in mind regarding 'Christian tradition' is WesternChristian tradition. This sounds quite remote for a people with a conceptionof history different from Westerners.The issues raised above do not, however, outweigh the invaluablecontribution that Gifford has made to the study of Christianity in Africa.They only highlight one important point; that the author is not making thelast testament on African Christianity. No one person has the monopoly ofobjective truth. The strains of Christianity presented in Gifford's book,based on the four case studies of Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and Cameroon,provide a sound entry point (not exit) towards a better understanding ofcontemporary Christianity in Africa. I strongly recommend this book tostudents, academics and Christians.University of Zimbabwe PAUL QUNDANI