The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa (Eerdmans Ekklesia)
What drives Katongole, a Duke University theologian born in Uganda, is the quest to know what difference Christianity makes--or can make--in Africa. He argues that conversation on Christian social ethics in Africa is long overdue and must shift "exclusive focus on strategies for fixing the structures of democracy and development and get into the business of stories." This book tells stories, stories of political and religious leaders who share qualities: nonconformist stubbornness, touches of madness, and willingness to jettison old formulas. The author, an ordained Catholic priest, tells gripping stories of people across Africa, such as Maggy Barankitse. Raised amid ethnic hatred in Burundi, she now takes in former child soldiers and orphans and ignores ethnicity in order to raise children "beyond this hatred and bitterness that I came to see in their eyes." The story of senseless killing must be replaced by a new kind of sacrifice--one of self-emptying, as Jesus Christ emptied himself in service to others, and by determination that forgiveness and love will have the last word, not violence and ethnic hatred. (Nov.)(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC.  All rights reserved.