Theology: Practical Theology: African Context

This volume advances a uniquely Afro-centric, sociocultural understanding of health maintenance and risk reduction in African cultural heritage populations. It unites a diverse group of leading African and Africanist scholars in an exploration of common cultural values in African heritage communities and their practical applications in contemporary counseling. The chapters highlight the prominent health issues faced in Africanist settings today and use real-world experiences to illustrate core lessons for effective community action. The approach spans complex cultural milieus, from diversity counseling to conflict resolution. Each chapter includes field-based experiential tasks, discussion boxes, research boxes and case studies, which serve as valuable resources in both coursework and casework. Counseling People of African Ancestry is an essential primer for community health workers, counselors and educators seeking a better understanding of African cultural heritage settings to promote community health, well-being and development.

This is the first time an author has listened to pastors in Africa. This book presents a practical record of pastoral counseling in Africa. It accounts for the wide difference between pastoral counseling in Africa and the West considerting that the pastoral counselors in Africa received Western theological training. It also presents a theological perspective of the pastoral counseling ministry in Africa and the West. ?As concerns their counseling role, if we may borrow an expression from the children of Israel in Egypt, our pastors are being asked: ?to make bricks without straw.' This is because they receive practically no training for this aspect of their work. Evidently, the grace of God is very much involved; otherwise, a lot of tragedy would be the normal result of what is sometimes the blind leading the blind. ?Counseling in the context of the church was the field of research for Dr. Ibidun Daramola. Her scholarly study has resulted in valuable contribution to knowledge in the highest degree. She has documented for us some things we suspected but did not know for sure, some things we thought we knew but actually did not know, and some things we did not even know we need to know.' - Emmanuel Oladipo

The coming of Colonization and Christianity to Africa and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts was a "mixed bag" of pros and cons. The impact of the advent of the two has had a lasting effect being felt even today. It created issues of bi-culturalism and bi-religiousness in personal and religious identities that counselors and the church need to address when working with people from these contexts. There is the existence of deep cultural trauma (including psychological and spiritual scars) needing healing for those living in most of these post-colonial contexts. The Western counseling approaches and Christian rituals need contextualization. A counselor or pastoral caregiver with an integrative consciousness is required to address the psychological and religious identity conflicts existing in African and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts.

In Ghana today, many people who suffer from a variety of human ills wander from one pastor to another in search of a spiritual cure. Because of the way cultural beliefs about the spiritual world have interwoven with their Christian faith, many Ghanaian Christians live in bondage to their fears of evil spiritual powers, seeing Jesus as a superior power to use against these malevolent spiritual forces. In For Freedom or Bondage? Esther Acolatse argues that Christian pastoral practices in many African churches include too much influence from African traditional religions. She examines Ghana Independent Charismatic churches as a case study, offering theological and psychological analysis of current pastoral care practices through the lenses of Barth and Jung. Facilitating a three-strand conversation between African traditional religion, Barthian theology, and Jungian analytical psychology, Acolatse interrogates problematic cultural narratives and offers a more nuanced approach to pastoral care.

The meaning of pastoral care in modern multicultural societies is challenged and re-examined from a pluralistic, global perspective in this book. Emmanuel Lartey stresses the importance of recognizing different cultural influences on individuals in order to effectively counsel, guide and empower them. He provides a clear and concise history of pastoral care and considers its relationship to different models of counseling and spirituality. This new edition has been updated to reflect postmodern and postcolonial studies and provides illustrations of how an intercultural approach can work in practice. Theological teachers and students will welcome its return as an indispensable introduction to the field of pastoral care. In Living Color is an essential source of inspiration to leaders from any religious stream who wish to provide pastoral care in a way that reflects their community's cultural diversity. This book is also a useful resource for practitioners in a wider range of caring contexts who work in multicultural environments.

Meet me at the Palaver shows the damaging impact of colonial Christianity on indigenous African communities. The book opens with stories of destructive change brought to indigenous contexts, where in the culture, values, religion, and humanity of African peoples were often marginalized. Mucherera argues for a holistic narrative pastoral counseling approach to assess and service the three basic areas of human needs in indigenous African communities: body, mind, and spirit. The book presents a hopeful strategy of recovering stories, cultural traditions, and values that have been subjugated in the past as effective means for dealing with contemporary life in indigenous contexts such as Zimbabwe.

Pastoral theologians from Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address, in this book, the issues of leadership, Ubuntu (community), gender-based violence, political violence, healing, and deliverance faced by pastors and ministers in African contexts today. Drawing on biblical, theological, social scientific, and cultural contextual perspectives, these African Christians offer much needed insights to assist in the care and counseling of persons towards healing, health, and well-being.

This is the first time an author has listened to pastors in Africa. This book presents a practical record of pastoral counseling in Africa. It accounts for the wide difference between pastoral counseling in Africa and the West considerting that the pastoral counselors in Africa received Western theological training. It also presents a theological perspective of the pastoral counseling ministry in Africa and the West. ?As concerns their counseling role, if we may borrow an expression from the children of Israel in Egypt, our pastors are being asked: ?to make bricks without straw.' This is because they receive practically no training for this aspect of their work. Evidently, the grace of God is very much involved; otherwise, a lot of tragedy would be the normal result of what is sometimes the blind leading the blind. ?Counseling in the context of the church was the field of research for Dr. Ibidun Daramola. Her scholarly study has resulted in valuable contribution to knowledge in the highest degree. She has documented for us some things we suspected but did not know for sure, some things we thought we knew but actually did not know, and some things we did not even know we need to know.' - Emmanuel Oladipo