Where Is Our God?

CONTENTS:

Contributors vii
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Preface xiii

PART I – AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY AND PANDEMICS

1. Where Is Our God? African Christianity, Coronavirus, and Prophetism in Times of Panic
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu 1

2. African Pastoral Responses to Pandemics in a Digital Age: Between Providence, Prudence and Politics
Esther E. Acolatse 17

PART II – THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

3. Theorising Pandemics, Africa, and Christianity: Apocalyptic/ Eschatological Re-Mapping in African Pentecostalism
Nimi Wariboko 35

4. Prophets, Pandemics, and Parousia: Neo-Prophetic Movements in Kenya and the Apocalyptic Interpretation of COVID-19
E. Okelloh Ogera 47

5. Understanding Science and Eschatology Relations and its Role in Overcoming Neo-Apocalyptic Falsehood and Negative Impact on COVID-19 Management
Charles Amarkwei 61

6. A Theological Response to Understanding Human Suffering in an African Context from the Viewpoint of God’s Omnipotence
Elizabeth Olufunmilayo Akinbobola 77

PART III – APPROACHES TO PANDEMICS

7. “Where Is God in Times of Crisis?”: Trends, Trajectories, and Possibilities for Theological Rethinking Among Christians During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kwaku Boamah 89

8. Mediating the Divine During COVID-19: The Case of Perez Chapel International
Daniel Nii Aboagye Aryeh 101

PART IV – THE BIBLE AND HEALING

9. Praising the Lord During Pandemics: A Rhetorical Critical Reading of Psalm 102 from an African Pentecostal Perspective
Mark S. Aidoo 117

10. The Old Testament, Pandemics, and Preventive Protocols Patrick Kofi Amissah 131

Bibliography 143

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu is the Baëta-Grau Professor of African Christianity and Pentecostal Theology, the President of Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana. He is the author of Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African Context (Regnum, 2020) and Pentecostalism in Africa: Experiences from Ghana's Charismatic Ministries (Regnum, 2021).

Mark S. Aidoo is an Associate Professor in Old Testament Studies at Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon Ghana. He is the author of Journeying with Ruth on a Mission: Expositions in the Book of Ruth from an African Perspective (Mussionsakademie, 2023).

Esther E. Acolatse is a Professor of Pastoral Theology and World Christianity at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto, Canada. She is the author of Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit: Biblical Realism in Africa and the West (Eerdmans, 2018).

How do African Pentecostals theologize about pandemics, evil, and hope? What are the religio-theological lessons that can be drawn from COVID-19 and the history of pandemics in Africa? This book draws from African theological, philosophical, historical, and practical theological perspectives to discuss the discourses and responses to pandemics in African socio-cultural contexts. Their authors, from diverse perspectives, look at the relevance of African eschatological and apocalyptic attitudes to pandemics to illustrate how sometimes, Christians seem powerless in the face of evil and suffering. In other words, theodicy, as it relates to public health issues continues to be a live issue within the African religious sphere. The collection of essays offers responses to issues of God’s omnipotence, theodicy, and hope, in difficult times. The collection proposes a Christian theological framework for ministry in the African context in times of suffering and evil.

In times of grave challenges such as the world faced in the year of COVID, humans expectedly turn to the God of ultimate power to clarify their predicament, strengthen their resolve, and fashion an agenda for moving forward. Where is Our God?: African Christianity and Responses to the Pandemic aptly captures the various dimensions of African responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by reading the various social, political, and spiritual actions by Africans, putting them in wider conceptual contexts, and providing critical perspectives for the future. The scholars in this collection provide a comprehensive analysis of Africans’ religious responses to the pandemic that elevated the conversation about their spirituality expressed from the hackneyed level of ‘science vs. religion’. They theorized and reflected on the religious meanings of this once-in-a-lifetime event that the experts of global scientific institution imagined would wipe them out to the extent that dead ‘bodies would be laid out on the streets’. Where is our God? is a question that expresses not only how they were initially confounded by the pandemic but also how they activated their agency. This work, in many ways, is not only a document of history. It is also a well-rendered tribute to the resolve of an under-resourced continent that overcame the odds at a difficult period in world history.
Abimbola Adelakun, Associate Professor, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA