Countering Religious Extremism In Contemporary Africa Through African Christian Theology

Abstract

This article is concerned mainly with the question of religious extremism and how to approach it from the perspective of African Christian Theology. Without any pretention to exhaust this vast and complex issue, which has been drawing the attention of many governments and experts throughout the world for many years, the idea is to show the concrete contributions of African Christian theologians. This would be done not only from an academic stance, but also from pastoral and socio-political outlooks. Basically, the intention of this paper is to invite African Christian theologians not to remain aloof from this burning question, nor to leave it to the few theologians interested in liberation theology. It is an invitation to go 
beyond stagnation in speculative and metaphysical theology, which leaves no room for theology’s public face to deal with socio-political and economic concerns. African Christian theologians, from various religions or confessions, are called to collaborate among themselves in order not only to provide guidelines which are helpful for religious leaders and believers alike, but also to involve themselves concretely in the fight against the major roots of religious extremism throughout the continent.