This volume explores current understandings of the global meaning of faith and suffering in the context of COVID-19 and interrogates responses to the pandemic that have emerged from World Christianity. It includes chapters by a range of international contributors approached from a variety of angles within Global Christian theology. They provide reflections and analyses focused on the question of God, human suffering, structural injustice, the role of the church and Christian praxis in the milieu of COVID-19, where misery and dying is a daily routine. This book will be of interest to scholars of Missiology, World Christianity, biblical/public/contextual theology and various Contemporary Christian studies.

This volume explores how Christians around the world have made sense of the meaning of suffering in the context of and post-COVID-19. It interrogates the question of God, suffering, and structural injustice. Further, it discusses the Christian response to the compounded threats of racial injustice, climate injustice, wildlife injustice, gender injustice, economic injustice, political injustice, unjust in the distributions of the vaccine and future challenges in the post-COVID-19 era. The contributions are authored by scholars, students, activists and clergy from various fields of inquiry and church traditions. The volume seeks to deepen Christian understanding of the meaning of suffering in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the fresh ways the pandemic can contribute to reconceptualizing human relations and specifically, what it means to be human in the context of suffering, the place of or justifications of God in suffering, human place in creation, and the role of the church in re-articulating the theological meanings and praxes of suffering for today.

"This book analyzes how the particular dynamics and effects emerging from the COVID-19 crisis both impact and are perceived by its most vulnerable yet visionary populations, based on their pragmatic and prescient analysis of the American experiment of freedom with regards to race and religion. Without a doubt, this book addresses the various ways the COVID-19 crisis marks not merely a moment in time, but also a world-historical event that threatens to leave its imprint on lives and cultures for decades to come"--

This book probes into the dynamics between Orthodox Christianity and the COVID-19 pandemic, unraveling a profound transformation at institutional and grassroots levels. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, and drawing upon varied data sources, including surveys, digital ethnography, and process tracing, it presents unprecedented insights into church-state relations, religious practices, and theological traditions during this crisis. Chapters analyze divergent responses across countries, underscore religious-political interplay, and expose tensions between formal and informal power networks. Through case studies, the book highlights the innovative adaptability within the faith, demonstrated by new religious practices and the active role of local priests in responding to the pandemic. It critically examines how the actions of religious and political figures influenced public health outcomes. Offering a fresh perspective, the book suggests that the pandemic may have permanently influenced the relationship between Orthodox Christianity, public health, and society.

This collection of essays attempts to speak to the past, as it does the future. It engages the dialectics in Christians and Muslims’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from theological, philosophical, sociological and gender perspectives. The interdisciplinary approach became a necessity based on the realization that beyond the high fatalities that resulted from the pandemic, people’s responses to it were as eclectic as were their existential realities. This volume is particularly unique because it yields space to Christianity and Islam and presents the trajectories in their practitioners’ response to the pandemic. The authors historicize, theorize and theologize these responses and present exemplar templates of coping mechanisms for religious institutions and people faced with unconventional situations bordering on religious ideals. The book is a valuable resource for scholars, religious leaders, historians, health practitioners and faith-based organizations on strategies to adopt for future pandemics.

This book analyses the role of religion during the COVID- 19 pandemic and vaccination rollout in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of thirteen African countries to have fully vaccinated more than 10% of its population against COVID- 19 by the end of September 2021, but the country fell far short of the government’s own target for achieving 60% inoculation by December 2020. This book analyses whether religion played a role in explaining why the government’s pro- vaccine stance did not translate into high vaccination rates. Drawing upon various religions, including African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam, the book considers how faith actors demonstrated vaccine acceptance, resistance or hesitancy. Zimbabwe offers a particularly interesting and varied case for analysis, and the original research on display here will be an important contribution to wider debates on religion and COVID- 19. This book will be useful to academics, researchers and students studying religious studies, sociology, health and well- being, religion and development.

The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity examines the intersection of the sociology of religion – a long-standing focus of sociology as a discipline – and Christianity – the world’s largest religion. An internationally representative and thematically comprehensive collection, it analyzes both the sociology of Christianity and Christian approaches to sociology, with attention to the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches of Christianity. An authoritative, state-of-the-art review of current research, it is organized into five inter-connected thematic sections, considering the overlapping emergence of both the Christian religion and the social science, the conceptualization of and engagement with Christianity by sociological theory, the ways in which Christianity shapes and is shaped by various social institutions, the manner in which Christianity resists and promotes various forms of social change, and the identification, diagnosis, and correction of social problems by sociology and Christianity. This volume is an invaluable collection for scholars and advanced students, with special appeal for those working in the fields of sociology and social theory, as well as religious studies and theology

The Handbook of Contemporary Christianity in the United States is a one-volume examination of Christianity in its role, contributions, and embattled engagements with the contemporary culture of the postmodern United States. While Christianity has been a sustaining force and dominant storyline of the historical foundations of America, obvious social, political, and scientific inroads have lessened its influence and altered the issues considered. The handbook explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Christian faith and traditions in the United States and its rich and textured history with a discernable eye toward how the message, strategies, and initiatives of Christianity has adapted to contemporary American life.

The rise of Christianity around the world has been the impetus for much religious and social change. The interconnectivity of religious centers has resulted in theological dialogue and innovation. The subversion of long-held categories of culture, gender, race, spirituality, theology, and politics has naturally occurred along with the transgressing of borders and boundaries. Yet at the same time, there has been occasion for healing through intercultural experiences of forgiveness, peacemaking, and reconciliation. Stimulated by the work and mentorship of Joel Carpenter, who has done much to expand the study of world Christianity less through focusing on his own research and writing, and more through amplifying the voices of others, the international contributors to this volume from all six continents promote a deeper understanding of World Christianity through the exploration of such related themes. Whether discussing primal spirituality in northeast India, white supremacy in South Africa, evangelical women and civic engagement in Kenya, or Calvinism in Mexico, the contributors draw upon ethnographic case studies to more deeply understand interconnectivity, subversion, and healing in World Christianity. Their essays provoke a reorientation of Christian thought within the study of World Christianity, enriching the current discourse and promoting vistas for further interdisciplinary studies.

This book critically examines the intersection of religion, public health and human security in Nigeria. Focusing on Christianity, Islam, traditional religions and "intra-religious" doctrinal divergencies, the book explores the impact faith has on health-related decisions and how this affects security in Nigeria. The book assesses the connection between religion and five contemporary major health and medical issues in the country. This includes the issue of epidemics and pandemics such as the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines, contraception, blood transfusion and the controversies associated with "miracle healing". In particular, this book explores situations where individuals have the power of choice but instead embraces faith and religious positions that contradict science in the management of their health and, in the process, expose themselves and others to personal health insecurity. It investigates aspects of human security including the wider international ramifications of health issues, approaches to cures and the interpretation of causes of diseases, as well as the ethno-religious connotations of such interpretations. Exploring key issues that have brought religion into the politics of health and human security in Nigeria, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of African Religion, African Politics, African Studies, public health, security, and Sociology.