Triggered to Thinking

Chapter 1- Empire Gospel and Culture

Kamudzandu begins this chapter by discussing Shona culture and history. He writes that salt is a symbol of wealth and prosperity among the Shona. He then discusses David Livingstone and his missionary endeavors in Zimbabwe. The years 1890 and 1980 were characterized by a century of wars, uprisings, evangelism, and the British domination of Zimbabwe. In 1895, Zimbabwe was renamed Rhodesia in honour of Rhodes. Kamudzandu notes, “First from time immemorial, Zimbabwe was composed of many tribal entities, united religiously and culturally by a strong belief in God, who in the native language was referred to as Mwari. Mwari devotion became a cult-like phenomenon across Zimbabwe. The Shona held reverence for three central figures: Nehanda, Chaminuka, and Kaguvi. 

Chapter 2- Zimbabwe’s Religious Cultural Configurations

Chapter Two discusses how Zimbabwe changed under colonial influence. Kamudzandu makes a valiant point when he writes, “when Christian missionaries persuaded Africans to embrace the ideals of Christianity, they were in essence asking them to discard their own culture as a condition of acceptance into the Christian community” (25). The translation of the Bible into a vernacular language was key to a Pauline African theological formation. This chapter also explains how missionaries used the Bible to persuade the indigenous peoples of Zimbabwe. Also, it describes how the Shona would use the Bible to apply it to traditional African worldviews. The story of Abraham as a wandering ancestor was an example of an affinity between the Christian New Testament and stories of Abraham as a wandering ancestor. Kamudzandu explains that, “Africans discovered that Paul was a theological and religious partner in three ways. First, Paul’s Jewish background was an essential element in the religious and cultural awakening of African culture. Second, Paul’s religious-cultural biography in Gal 1:11-24 had great appeal to most Africans who were zealous for their own cultural ideals. The third and most crucial element was Paul’s claim as an apostle to the Gentiles” (39). 

Chapter 3- Postcolonial Shona Christianity 

Chapter Three gives an overview of postcolonial Shona Christianity. This chapter explains how the Abrahamic imagery used by Paul resonated with a contextualization of Paul’s gospel and theology within African Christianity. This chapter examines Romans 3:21-4:25 in the context of Colonial and Postcolonial African Christianity. In Shona culture, boasting was a form of pride that contradicted the theological notion of the essence of being human. The Paul whom the Shona people read in Romans appeared to be an apostle who advocated equality amid cultural diversity (48). Many Shona began to refigure their identities due to exposure to Christianity. Paul’s thought that all people are brought into the kingdom of God in Romans 3:28-3:30 was thus similar to what Shona biblical interpreters did during and after colonization. Also, Kamudzandu explained that, “African Christianity is a deliberate and constructed response to missionaries, because of their allegiance to an imperialistic heritage, failed to see in Paul”. The rest of the chapter examines Abraham as an ancestor in the context of an African worldview, drawing on Rom 4:1-25. 

Chapter 4- Aaeans a Constructed Ancestor 

This chapter gives an overview of Aeneas as an ancestor of both Greeks and Romans during the Augustan era. This chapter also discusses Virgil and the ambivalence of Fides or faith. The cult of Aeneas was an invention of shared history, exploited into a myth of origin in defining a sense of cultural and ethnic identity (79). 

Chapter 5-6 Aeneas and Abraham Paradigms and Conclusion

In this chapter, the significance of ancestral practices is emphasized. This chapter discusses Abraham as an essential work in the writings of Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. The book concludes by reiterating the significance of Abraham as an ancestor for people of all faiths, and it quotes Romans 4. Paul’s importance for postcolonial Christianity is emphasized again. 

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