Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016)

I loved this book and I am frustrated by it.

Overall, the book is a very repetitive persuasive essay that Africans should study the illustrious history of Christianity on their continent because it does exist. There are many documents in Amharic, Arabic, and other languages that document that history, but they are buried in dusty archives and haven't been translated into more widely known languages or had scholarly study of them in modern times. It frustrated me because I know that this long history exists already!

What I loved is that he makes the argument that we should not classify the Mahgreb & Egypt as "not African." He argues that much of the scholarly work done in Egypt and Algeria during ancient/early medieval times was based upon or inspired by the work being done in Ethiopia and southern Sudan. The flow of wisdom was going from the south to the north. I do know that the Christian history of Ethiopia is certain, and the Christian history of Sudan quite old along with Egypt. Also, we modern people have no idea what "race" (a scientifically untenable concept) most of these African scholars of any location were. The Romans had no concept of race, just citizen and non-citizen--and citizenship could be purchased.

The absolute best part of the book is the Appendix, which lists every known Christian historical event in Africa up to 1000 AD/CE. This is many, many, many pages long! Completely worth the cost of the book for sure!!!

I rate this book a 5-star book just because of the appendix. If it weren't for the appendix, I'd give it a 2 or 2.5 because the main body is mostly a call to action with a few interesting history tidbits thrown in, most of which I already knew, but I've studied this subject as much as I can. But that appendix!!!

I'm hoping that more research will be done to study old forgotten documents in Africa to shed more light on this subject. Much of this has been left in storage for centuries in churches, mosques, synagogues, and other libraries.… (meer)

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) is a unique series encompassing all of Scripture and offering contemporary readers the opportunity to study for themselves the key writings of the early church fathers. Arranged by the books of the Bible, each portion of commentary allows the living voices of the church in its formative centuries to speak as they engage the sacred page of Scripture, rendered throughout the series in English in the ecumenically accepted Revised Standard Version of the Bible.… (meer)

While How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind started and ended with some interesting ideas the middle really dragged. I think Oden could have done just as well by writing an essay or journal article. The fact that many of the early church fathers lived and wrote in North Africa was not a surprising new idea. Oden's attempt to link North African church fathers such as Origen, Clement and Augustine with the rest of Africa just wasn't convincing. North Africa was part of the Mediterranean world in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was more linked to the rest of the Mediterranean world than to Sub-saharan Africa. The author takes many digs at the progressive kind of Christianity that I subscribe to, saying that the enlightenment view had failed. There may have been some dog whistle comments in here for people who think along the same lines as Oden. Do the thinkers and writers of the early Christian era in North Africa get less attention today than they deserve. Origen, Clement, Augustine and others are still read today. Perhaps Oden is trying to make a case that has already been made about something that is really don't there.

… (meer)