By: Shawn Hart on September 11, 2017
Last year I had the great privilege of taking a Holy Land tour of Egypt, Jordan and Israel. During the time I spent in Egypt, my tour guide was emphatically attempting to declare that the Egyptians during the time of Moses were not actually the bad guys that we see in Scripture. He continued to…
By: Chris Pritchett on September 8, 2017
My first visit to Africa was in college, when I studied abroad in Cairo for two months. It’s very difficult to imagine Egypt as “Africa,” because we in the West, when we think of “Africa,” we are formed to imagine sub-Saharan (black) Africa. The author of course addressed this and defined the term “Africa” generically…
By: Greg on September 8, 2017
The books we read, the movies or documentaries we have watched and interactions with people we have grown up with have shaped who we are. This is especially true when talking about an area of the world like Africa. The name alone conjures up many images from history of beautiful jungles, desolate deserts, primitive tribes…
By: Jay Forseth on September 8, 2017
To be honest, I feel a little sheepish. It has never, not even once, crossed my mind which continent shaped the Christian mind. I don’t think I intentionally cut Africa out of it, nor did I intentionally think Christian thought came mainly out of Europe. I might be a tad bit racist, or just not…
By: Dave Watermulder on September 8, 2017
There is an old line from Heraclitus that says, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” The invitation that Thomas Oden makes in How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, is for the reader to come to the water’s edge and look…
By: Trisha Welstad on September 8, 2017
Reading How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind by Thomas Oden is eye opening. I am impressed with how the historic names (Augustine, Athanasius, Tertullian!), experiences and libraries that came out of North Africa, have influenced the world in significant ways. Classical Christianity has not owned the gems coming from this continent over the centuries. The…
By: Jean Ollis on September 7, 2017
Thomas Oden conveys passion for historical accuracy and spiritual justice in his book How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity. “Ordinary African Christian believers deserve to have a much more accessible way of understanding early African Christianity: its faith, courage, tenacity and remarkable intellectual strength.[1] Oden’s intent is not…
By: Jason Turbeville on September 7, 2017
While reading How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind by Thomas C. Oden, one thing continually ran through my mind. I was angry I had never been taught about the African influence on Christianity, but I was even more upset at myself for not figuring it out on my own. I have always known Athanasius, Origen, and Augustine…
By: Mike on September 7, 2017
Africa and Christianity Thomas C. Oden, the author of How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, successfully overcomes his Caucasian, American, United Methodist, and Wesleyan bias when he characterizes Africa as the geographic cradle and “seedbed” for historic Christianity.[1] Oden provides the reader with a chronological survey of an Afrocentric ancient world, early African Christian fathers,…
By: Mark Petersen on September 7, 2017
Thomas C. Oden’s brief work, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, is a tantalizing, mouth-watering attempt to whet the appetite of the reader toward feasting on new ideas. His astonishing premise radically reshapes traditional Western concepts of the foundations of the Christian faith which I was educated under. Gone is a myopic, Eurocentric perspective on…
By: Kyle Chalko on September 7, 2017
Thomas C. Oden’s book, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity challenged me and how I have considered Christianity. It is true that many westerners and Europeans have viewed Africa Christianity with the same sort of mindset that the colonizers did. Many hold the attitude that every academic or…
By: Jennifer Williamson on September 7, 2017
There is no doubt that African influences and voices were paramount in shaping Christian thought and self-understanding. In How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity, Oden endeavours to “Set forth the basic vision for a renewed initiative in the theological and historical reassessment of early African Christianity” (Kindle loc…
By: Dan Kreiss on September 6, 2017
Thomas Oden in his book ‘How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind’ encourages readers to reconsider the foundations of Christian thought. He argues that much has been lost by the European ethnocentrism of Christian teaching. Neglecting the significant theological contributions of the early Christians based on the African continent negates the importance of their insights and…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on September 6, 2017
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind by Thomas Oden was completely shocking to me. Every other chapter revealed another truth about Africa’s contribution to Christianity that has been kept hidden from me all these years. Like the author reiterates throughout the book, I have been brainwashed to believe that most everything Christian had European roots.…
By: Kyle Chalko on September 3, 2017
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