AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS – TRACING THE CONTOURS OF A CONUNDRUM

Abstract

There has been a hot debate around Christianity's complicity in environmental destruction for some fifty years. The reasons are mainly to do with the so-called dominion mandate in the book of Genesis and the propensity for Christianity to ``disenchant{''} the environment, that is rid it of spiritual agency. This has led to a comparison between Indigenous Religion and Christianity with respect to the environment with the former being the saint and the latter the sinner. Eco-theologies have emerged during this time in order to mitigate the negative influence of Christianity. These have in many cases attempted to emulate some aspects of Indigenous Religions. In the African context there are signs that the Christian mission continues to have negative effects on the environment and this raises the question of what would constitute an appropriate African Christian theology of the environment.