THE PANGS OF BIRTH IN AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY

The Pangs of Birth in African Christianity: Essays in Commemoration of One Hundred Years of Mutira Anglican Mission (1912-2012), traces the growth of protestant Christianity since 1844 when Ludwig Krapf, a German missionary working for the English body, Church Missionary Society, reached the East African Coast with the sole aim of converting local people to Christianity. The book seeks to demonstrate how a miniature village in Kenya, Mutira, came to appear in the map of the world after Christianity was introduced by the European missionaries in early 1900s; and subsequently changed peoples’ lifestyles. It moves on to demonstrate that Christianity in Mutira and the rest of Africa was born under pain - a pain that was bravely borne by its pioneers. In its second part, the book provides critical essays that are set to demonstrate that African Christianity has the capacity to grapple effectively with the challenges of the 21st century. Such concerns include suffering, neo-colonialism, poverty, disease, violence, xenophobia, identity crisis, negative ethnicity, inculturation, ecumenism, reconstruction and reconciliation among others.