Description
Book SynopsisThe book is a significant new analysis of African Pentecostal theology of humanity. In particular, it offers a new, more comprehensive interpretation of African Pentecostal theology of humanity ‘in Christ’, which author Chammah J. Kaunda views in terms of becoming, transcending and flourishing. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, fostering dialogue with African studies and Pentecostal studies, but also with a broad spectrum of disciplines and approaches: post-colonial studies, theology, religious studies, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. The aim is to construct a new conceptual metaphor, the poetics of mysticality, materiality and plasticity. In the Bemba (Zambian) notion of Muntu, the author identifies not only a metaphor but also a local African resource for excavating and understanding the deeper roots of African Pentecostal theology of humanism.
Anyone interested in African Pentecostalism, World Christianity, Christian spirituality, African theology, and the sociology of religion will find in this book a wide range of interesting and fresh perspectives.
Trade Review“
The Paradox of Becoming offers an important and creative new perspective on Pentecostal theology that will challenge existing ways of thinking in this field. The author offers a bold statement for a Pentecostalicity that has critical insights and implications for how we think about identity and being human that is rooted in African worldviews, but with applications for all people across the globe. This is a must read!” —Anthony G. Reddie, Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, Regent’s Park College, The University of Oxford“In
The Paradox of Becoming: Pentecostalicity, Planetarity, and Africanity, Kaunda does Pentecostalism a great and fundamental service by bringing it into critical engagement not only with the emerging trope of planetary re-imagination of human possibilities, but by also enlivening the boundary of humanity and African Pentecostalism through attention to a Muntu-African narrative of becoming and liberation. This is a book that opens up multiple conversations that deeply disrupt our many certainties about theology, society, sacredness and humanity itself.” —Adeshina Afolayan, Professor of African Philosophy, University of Ibadan
