The paradox of becoming: Pentecostalicity, planetarity, and Africanity

Abstract

In this book, Chammah Judex Kaunda, a Zambian scholar based at Yonsei University in the Korean Republic, and a professor of world Christianity, presents an African Pentecostal theology of humanism. In this innovative trajectory, he utilizes the Bemba (Zambian) concept of Muntu (humanism) in a manner akin to the Ubuntu (humane) philosophy that is rooted among the Nguni speakers of East, Central, and Southern Africa. As will be noted in this review, Kaunda’s Muntu concept also compares with the Igbos’ community-driven African philosophy (Igwebuike). The Igwebuike ideology, as a concept among the Igbo linguistic speakers of Nigeria, and as an indigenously lived philosophy, builds on the strength in numbers, a phenomenon where togetherness and the spirit of being in one accord, and being in a state of engagement, are the watchwords. Kaunda (2023:16), like other Africanist scholars finds the African resources as a critical partner in enriching the Pentecostal theology or any other Christian theology for that matter. Hence, Muntu finds its terminological parallels in Igwebuike, Ubuntu, and Utu (humanness) of the East African Swahili peoples. These concepts and/or African philosophies argue for the case of the human community as the exact locus in developing any Christian theology in tropical Africa, including the African Pentecostal theology.