Inside The Whirlwind (african Christian Studies) [Hardcover]

How would ordinary African Christians interpret the figure and book of Job--the quintessential biblical book on suffering--from contexts of extreme poverty, tropical disease, and rampant suffering? How do African Christians culturally understand issues of theodicy and the nature of evil? What role does the devil play in African Pentecostalism? How does the biblical lament empower faith and foster hope for people living with HIV/AIDS? In what way does a theology of (eschatological) hope inform the spirituality and prayers of ordinary African believers in the midst of suffering? Inside the Whirlwind offers insight on these fascinating questions. Based upon the perspectives of Fang Christians in Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea (Central Africa), the thematic and theological reflections on evil, suffering, and hope emerging from sermons and Bible studies on the book of Job offer a remarkable window to view the main theological issues shaping grassroots African Christianity in the twenty-first century. Inside the Whirlwind is a wonderful exploration of what a genuine encounter with African Christianity really looks like. This is contextual theology at its best. --Timothy Tennent, President, Professor of World Christianity, Asbury Theological Seminary & Jason Carter's Inside the Whirlwind: The Book of Job through African Eyes is a major intervention in contemporary scholarship on the reading, reception, and uses of the Christian Scriptures in an African context. Through skillfully focusing on the reading practices of Christian communities in the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea, Carter shows how the Book of Job is creatively mobilized by these readers to address a range of pressing local concerns, including the HIV-AIDS pandemic. He persuasively shows how readers find new grammars of affliction and suffering in the biblical text, using its narratives to offer redemptive interpretations of misfortune. Carter's book will be enthusiastically received by rel3´