Book review: Robert Priest and Kirimi Barine, eds., African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, and Impact, Orbis Books, 2016

 Review:

African Christian Leadership is a result of a multi-year research project in Africa that provides an overview of the issues facing the African Christian church. The research done by Africans was divided among the three main language groups in Africa: English speaking Africa in Kenya, French speaking Africa in Central African Republic and Lusophone in Angola. The book describes characteristics of influential African Christian leaders and how they have been connected to their communities. It covers the range of socioeconomic development as well as leadership in the church, the role of women in leadership, the importance of mentoring new younger leaders and other vital topics for the expanding African church.  In the book we see specific ways “in which African leaders and organizations work creatively and energetically working to address a wide variety of local problems and engage opportunities within the framework of Christian understandings communities and resources.” Robert Priest and Kirimi Barine, eds.,  African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, and Impact p. 238 That scope of the book is laudable, as is the goal “that “our research results would go far in counteracting the wide spread perception that Africans are doing little to change the prevailing culture of poverty, conflict, violence and foreign dependency.” p. 248

Christian resources coming from African leaders within the African continent are extremely important for Christians around the world.  The publication of the African Bible commentary for example in 2006 has provided invaluable insights into Biblical interpretation for people from many continents. African Christian Leadership, however, is written as a culmination of a research project, and it reads like a research project. From that perspective I fear the impact will not have the same global audience that it could have had if it had been framed as a nonacademic work, drawn the readers in a more engaging way into the lives of the leaders surveyed, and provided more intentional contemporary challenges to the global church from lessons learned from African leaders. The one comparison resource that does dialogically involve its readers is the booklet 17 Insights into Leadership in Africa. This small booklet poses applicable questions at the end of each leadership insight inviting the reader into practical partnership with the African church. It is an important accessory to the larger volume.

4 stars                                                                                      M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 3/14/18

Excerpt:

“Board members [of the Tyndale House Foundation] noticed that their giving was often based on subjective information without systematic, context-specific research that would inform the process…They wished for support in understanding dynamics in Africa related to material resources and global stewardship, especially as they relate to leadership training and the exercise of leadership. They wondered which African leaders and which African-led Christian organizations were widely respected by local African Christian as having the most positive impact and in what arenas”

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