Yusufu Turaki - Engaging Religions and Worldviews in Africa: A Christian Theological Method

Distinguished Professor Yusufu Turaki is one of Africas finest Christian minds! This book is one of his tremendous contributions to African theological, social and ethical reflections. Its interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach and perspective makes it a very critical theological handbook. It is technically and theologically comprehensive in nature, and yet very sensible and accessible to a non-technical or specialized audience. It is a must read!

Rev Sunday Bobai Agang, PhD

Professor of Christian Theology, Ethics and Public Policy,

Provost, ECWA Theological Seminary (JETS), Jos, Nigeria

Director, Overseas Councils African Research Consultancy Centre, Nigeria

Professor Yusufu Turaki offers the reader much-needed thought leadership at the crossroads of African Traditional Religion and worldview, approaches to biblical theologizing, and the practice of missions. Turaki, educator and church leader for decades, proposes a way forward that rescues African theology from irrelevance on the one hand, and superficiality on the other a way that ultimately has the power to bring transformation to African challenges today.

This book is timely for those who have felt unease when applying theology that is generated entirely outside of Africa, and equal unease about some African-born theologies that are not faithful to the essentials of Scripture. On a continent where theological approaches are abundant and diverse, Turakis book offers guidance from a man who has spent his life dedicated to being profoundly Christian and authentically African.

This book is timely for both African and non-African thinkers. It not only guides the African scholar and pastor, it also models a method of theologizing that can be used by faithful theologians in any culture where a traditional worldview needs to be renewed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I highly recommend this for any serious cross-cultural worker today.

Dr Joshua Bogunjoko, MD

SIM International Director

Professor Yusufu Turaki has been a trusted and steadfast voice for bibliocentricism among multitudes of scholars with an Afrocentric cultural agenda for doing theology, especially in the African context. He pitches his strong voice a notch higher in this book, suggesting a new methodology in the search for genuine Christian understanding that takes into consideration spiritual and social needs of African Traditional Religions. He helpfully relates biblical Christianity to pervasive realities of the African traditional religious and cultural worldview.

The tension between academic theology, that is either focused on African culture or foreign Western worldview, is reconciled by focusing on theology that is biblical and Christian, and understandable and applicable in the African context. This is also a recipe for maturing the African church; deepening the mile long to approaching the perfect square or cube.

I heartily commend this work, which is worthy of consideration in the church and seminary.

Rev Aiah Foday-Khabenje, PhD

General Secretary,

Association of Evangelicals in Africa

Very few books are written on theological method. It is thus a welcome sight to see one on this subject from an African perspective. If anyone should write such a book, Professor Yusufu Turaki is the right person with over four decades of experience in the academy. This book is not written by an academic who is aloof but by one who is engaged and comfortable in the academy, church, and society. He is recognized as an authority in all of these fields. A rare fit!

Characteristic of Turaki, his treatment is encyclopedic, addressing the issue from every possible angle demonstrating its significance and complexity. As a seasoned theologian in Africa, Turaki understands and explains African realities in the light of the teachings of Scripture. He advocates a way of studying Christianity in Africa that takes African Traditional Religions and culture and the authority of the Scriptures seriously instead of settling for comparative studies.

The outcome of this endeavor is a volume that is not simplistic but yet accessible to serious students in this field and filled with nuggets that scholars can further explore. Though this book is written about the method of doing theology in Africa, non-African scholars will benefit from it.

Bulus Galadima, PhD

Dean, Cook School of Intercultural Studies,

Biola University, Pasadena, California, USA

This is a compendium of robust theological engagement with African culture and religion in society, written for discerning professionals and scholars in that field. It is the summation of the authors lifetime of scholarly work and Christian social engagements globally.

There is plenty of grist for the mill in this work! The book succeeds in moving discourse on religion and culture in traditional Africa into the public domain. In that contested sphere, the Christian stakes in shaping human identity, religious identification, national formation and Africans democratic progress, are indeed high, and the leader and follower today, in any capacity, only ignore them to their peril.

This classic from Turaki is a theological road-map for constructing an African Christian theology for public engagement!

Randee Ijatuyi-Morphe, PhD

Director, Hokma House, Nigeria

Engaging Religions and Worldviews in Africa: A Christian Theological Method by Professor Yusufu Turaki is, to all intents and purposes, a definitive text on the methodology for a sound Christian understanding of African Traditional Religion and its pervasive influence on the mindset of Africans that is both biblically rooted and theologically responsible.

Turaki has become somewhat of an oracle on the subject of Christian theology from an African perspective. He has painstakingly shown in this book a practical approach on how Christianity can reasonably and scholarly address African Traditional Religion and the belief system it has on people with informed realism, biblical faithfulness and integrity. Extricating itself from the stranglehold of primitive beliefs emanating from the foundations of ATR and the cultures it spawned has been the debilitating problem confronting Christianity in Africa.

This is a very useful text both for academic purposes and for practical ministry. I strongly recommend it to you.

Pastor Cosmas Ilechukwu, DMin

General Overseer, Charismatic Renewal Ministries, Inc.

Professor Yusufu Turaki states that the use of proof texting in doctrinal formulation from a Western framework on the one hand, and the use of traditional religion on the other hand, as the starting point of doing theology, have proved inadequate. In this book, the author carefully uses a third method that penetrates and engages African Traditional Religion from a biblical, Christocentric and ecclesiastical perspective.

The genius of the book is found in the extraordinary use of a method that reflects on the inner logic and workings of the traditional religious mind and thought in order to formulate an African theology that is relevant and biblical. In this regard, it is a double-edged sword that cuts deeply into African Traditional Religion and presents a truly biblical African Christianity.

Evidently, it is a book that is a result of many years of rigorous research, teaching and writing. I enthusiastically recommend this profoundly important book as a must-read for all students of theology, Christianity and African Traditional Religion, and worldview. It is thorough, fresh, innovative, exciting, practical and engaging.