Christianity, the Papacy and Mission in Africa

Description

Before his death, Richard Gray spent 20 years working on a religious history of Africa. Before undertaking this work he originally assumed that the critical initiatives came from within Catholic Europe or its missionaries. He soon discovered, however, that the initiatives came from African Christians: from Ethiopia, its Christian tradition stretching further than many parts of northern Europe; from Congo, the first African kingdom to respond with a spontaneous enthusiasm to the Portuguese proclamation of the Gospel; from appeals to Rome by African Catholics who were attempting to reconcile their needs and their culture with the Christian laws brought to them by missionaries; and finally by slaves of African origin from the New World who were protesting against the appalling discrepancy between Christian principles and the practice of slave traders and owners. With Gray