The Changing Face of Christianity: Revisiting African Creativity

The explosion of Christianity in twentieth-century Africa is a radical development that is transforming the world's largest religion. This calls for a reorientation of the hegemonic view that sees Christianity as a product of imperialist expansion and Africans as passive recipients of the ecclesiastical construct of the enlightened Western mind. Instead, the vitality of Christianity on the continent represents a demonstration model of African creativity with its peculiar character, shape, and form. This paper examines the principal contributing factors of the massive growth of the church on the continent and sees African creativity as a vigorous attempt to contextualize Christianity to local aspirations.