Aspects of Modern Church History 1517–2017 from an African Perspective

About the Book

Modern Church History: whole libraries could be filled with published books on this subject. Yet this present volume has a distinctive feature: it is written from an African perspective. It may indeed be the first book written on this subject explicitly from this perspective. And for the author, it has been a life-transforming experience. He has found challenges at every turn: there has been for him a ‘shaking of the foundations’ in relation to cultural norms, historical presuppositions, and spiritual stereotypes.

It has been provocatively affirmed that the future of Christianity is African. The first aim of this book is, appropriately enough, to enable African readers better to understand the significance, for them, of the last half-millennium of global Church History. However, it is hoped that non-African readers will find, from this different perspective, new and creative understandings of the subject – a subject which is becoming increasingly pertinent in today’s ‘global village.’

About the Author

His first degree was undertaken at Oxford University, after which he taught for 5 years in an up-country Methodist Mission secondary school in Sierra Leone, where he met his future beloved wife Janet. His D.Phil. was an historical study of the area in which he taught. After training at Wesley House, Cambridge, he was given various appointments, including 17 years as a Chaplain in the Royal Navy. More recently, between 2015 and 2017, he and his wife lectured on a voluntary basis in the Kenya Methodist University. His subject was Modern Church History.